THE ANGRY RED PLANET 1959

 Hosted By Taking Up Room

"Cinemagic And You Take a Trip To The Angry Red Planet!"

"The hell with radiation... Let's go!"

Made at the tail end of the 50's sci-fi boom and released by A.I.P., THE ANGRY RED PLANET was shot in 10 days on a budget of about $200,000.  Although released in 1959 it has the look and feel of something from earlier in the decade and it is mind-bogglingly to think that MGM (who currently own the rights to it) would release 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY in a scant 9 years.  It was directed by Irb Melichor (THE TIME TRAVELERS 1964) who also co-wrote it with the film's producer Sidney Pink and that same duo would co-produce/direct the Danish monster-on-the rampage REPTILICUS in 1961.

The film is most known today among genre fans for the use of a process that was heralded as "CineMagic" whereupon solarization was applied to a B&W film negative (which reverses the negative making it a positive) and then slathering the image in a heavy red filter. The process allowed a part of the film to be shot on less expensive B&W film stock while also (hopefully) helping mask the film's budget-constrained special effects. Pink and Melchor also went with hand-drawn matt paintings for the sequences on Mars that were just drawn as outlines of the vegetation and landscape (worked on by comic artist Alex Toth) which was hoped would be covered up by the solarization & heavy filtering but instead appear exactly as they are - simple line drawings.

THE ANGRY RED PLANET has often been criticized for having some interesting ideas and concepts that because of the budget and script never come close to being explored (although you wonder what they could explore in an 83-min. low budget film shot in a week and a half). In addition, most space exploration films of this period do not have much in science plausibility (and to be fair even at the time of their release we were and still are today watching them for entertainment) but ANGRY RED PLANET appears to have been made by folks who did not have the slightest grasp in what was known about Mars at the time or science in general. However, it is wonderfully entertaining, and one cannot but help to revel in its unintentional humor (and dialogue) and the creatures for all their WTF craziness have a wonderful whacky charm to them and are not soon forgotten. Despite everything working against it, it succeeds on its own often-time silly merits. Along with MISSLE TO THE MOON from 1958, you could probably look at this as one of the main inspirations for the 50's sci-fi parody segment in AMAZON WOMEN ON THE MOON. 

Opening with a montage of frantic meetings between military and scientist-types along with screaming newspaper headlines (and a great deal of stock footage), it is learned that the long-missing Mars MR1 rocket has been found in space just outside of the earth's atmosphere. In a classic space mystery (and reminiscent of Hammer's THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT from 1955) it is discovered that only two of the four crew members are left alive and that the rocket can be brought back and landed by "robot control". In a short flashback via newsreel footage, the crew members are introduced which are the pilot (and space lounge lizard) Col. Tom O'Bannon (Gerald Mohr THE SNIPER 1952), "electronics expert", and comic-relief Sam Jacobs (Jack Kruschen SATAN'S CHEERLEADERS 1977 and Academy Award nominee for THE APARTMENT 1960), scientist Dr. Iris "Irish" Ryan (Nora Hayden PLUNDER ROAD 1957) and rocket designer Prof. Theodore Gettell (Les Tremayne THE WAR OF THE WORLDS 1953). 

Upon landing its discovered that the remaining crew members are Dr. Ryan and an initially kept secretive second member who is unconscious and has a strange green growth on their arm. Unable to recall anything Dr. Ryan is given sodium panthenol and recalls the events of the expedition in flashback which unfolds as the main plot of the film. 

The voyage to Mars is shown in one of those magnificently huge 1950's rocket interiors where folks stroll about, smoke cigarettes, and the canned rations ("Mars Ration No. 1") are kept on a shelf in a small kitchen-type wood cabinet. There is no mention of the gravity issue and we are quickly brought up to speed with the four main characters and their stock character hierarchy. Gerald Mohr with his unbuttoned jumpsuit exposing his hairy chest spends almost his entire time making passes at Irish ("When I call you by your name... you'll know it"). You keep expecting him to walk out in a velour bathrobe & slippers with a pipe and demanding a drink. Kruschen's Jacobs in the tradition of cinema love-lorn second bananas develops an unhealthy relationship to a piece of equipment. Here it is a futuristic-looking gun that for some strange reason crystalizes everything and which he lovingly names "Cleopatra" (or "Cleo" for short) and spends his time polishing it. 

To remind us he is a professor Tremayne smokes a pipe constantly and gestures with it while offering "scientific" observations on whatever is happening at the time. In a nice bit of enlightenment for the time women were often given roles of a scientist in 50's Sci-Fi (although they are often given male nicknames such as Mara Corday's "Steve" in TARANTULA 1955) and it is commendable that the writers here make Nora Hayden's character a biology scientist she is shown to be making the meals and screaming every 10 minutes. However, she is the one whose knowledge of science saves the day in the end.   

Upon landing on Mars (accompanied by what sounds like a whirring tape deck and everybody barking out landing instructions) they find the planet eerily quiet and unmoving with the Professor immediately jumping to the conclusion that everything is controlled by an unseen presence. While looking out on the landscape Iris sees a three-eyed bug-like creature gazing at her from the outside through a window. The group begins wandering aimlessly about in simple coveralls in a landscape that seems to change from jungle to desert to sea in a matter of steps with all the landscape rendered in the "CineMagic" process. 

The creatures they encounter are the highlights of the film and include a huge man-eating plant and best of all a towering thing described as a "rat bat spider" that seems to defy all laws of zoology & evolution (how and what does it eat??). Encountering a large sea, the group begins paddling across it in a rubber boat they conveniently have brought with them and spy a towering futuristic city on the horizon (described as "hundreds of feet high" and oddly invisible to telescopes on earth it seems) and encounter a huge amoeba-like sea monster (with a spinning eyeball on top!).

For all its mystery concerning the identity of the green-growth afflicted crew member, it is painfully obvious who it is and equally obvious which two crew members will be the equivalent of a red-shirted crew member on a STAR TREK landing party. For all its faults and unintentional humor, THE ANGRY RED PLANET is a lot of fun and as mentioned will definitely stick in your mind. Paul Dunlap (who is still working in the Hollywood music industry to this day) contributes a score that veers from finger-popping jazz-like interludes to more ominous queues. The martian glimpsed in the film was originally to be shown as gigantic and can be seen towering above the rocket in some promo material. 

Gerald Mohr had one of those "radio voices" and made a decent transition to movies with roles in the bizarre INVASION U.S.A. (from 1952, not the Chuck Norris one) and appeared in some great film noirs including THE SNIPER 1952 and GILDA 1946 along with bunches of westerns and tons of TV work. A busy character actor Jack Kruschen seemed poised for bigger things after his nomination for THE APARTMENT but continued with small roles in major pictures (often playing ethnic types) along with more prominent work in lower-budget movies. I will always remember him from George Pal's THE WAR OF THE WORLDS 1953 where he played one of the unfortunate trio who first encounter the invaders and in the John Wayne comedy western MCCLINTOCK! 1963. 

Nora Hayden was a model and appeared in the excellent PLUNDER ROAD 1957 and did extensive TV work in the '60s and '70s. Les Tremayne was another radio guy with an impressive 132 acting credits and was a familiar face (and voice) in 50's Sci-Fi usually playing gruff no-nonsense military and authority business types such as in the above mentioned THE WAR OF THE WORLDS 1953 and THE MONOLITH MONSTERS 1957.

THE ANGRY RED PLANET is available on Blu-ray from Shout Factory and had a couple previous DVD releases from Shout including a 4 pack with THE MAN FROM PLANET X, THE TIME TRAVELERS, and BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER. 

Cool to see when planning a trip to Mars they use the same map we had in my grade school classroom

High-tech navigation system

THE HAUNTED PALACE 1963

Hosted By Cinematic Catharsis & Realweegiemidget Reviews

"…While, like a ghastly rapid river, Through the pale door, 
a hideous throng rush out forever and laugh – But smile no more"

    Although cinematically placed in Roger Corman's "Poe" cycle for A.I.P. (and marketed as such by A.I.P. who by this time were highly attuned to the cash cow the series had become) 1963's THE HAUNTED PALACE is based (however nominally) on the H.P. Lovecraft novella The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward with Price narrating the closing verses of the Poe poem that lends itself to the film's title.
    Written by Charles Beaumont (Rod Serling's THE TWILIGHT ZONE) the story while being saddled with Poe references, based upon a Lovecraft story and with a script by Beaumont does sometimes has the feel of a mix of different cooks, none of which are fully developed. In interviews, Roger Corman has bemoaned the fact that he was forced to link Poe to all these projects and that he was looking forward to doing a Lovecraft adaption. The film itself is a beautiful looking production with Floyd Crosby's cinematography (HOUSE OF USHER), art direction by Daniel Haller (THE DUNWICH HORROR) and set direction by Harry Reif (PANIC IN YERO ZERO) all lending themselves to a production that's Gothic eye candy all done in somber browns & blacks, with mist-shrouded matte paintings and gnarly trees.

    Coming 6th in the series (after the comedic THE RAVEN from earlier in 1963, THE HAUNTED PALACE was the last of the series to be filmed in America and coming in the latter half of the series it benefits from the studios slowly up ticking budget for each film and although still technically a "B" picture it has the sumptuous look that Corman and his crew brought to these films. Although all the Poe films always had some adult themes lurking just under the surface, THE HAUNTED PALACE brings these more to the forefront with rape and women being possessed in order to breed with otherworldly entities. The film is also the first theatrical picture to directly reference Lovecraft with such cosmic horrors as Elder Gods, Cthulhu, and Yog-Sothoth along with the town of Arkam all being mentioned. It contains the first utterance of the fabled Necronomicon (by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred) with the book being shown on-screen in its film debut.
     Like all the Poe films, THE HAUNTED PALACE opens with some atmospheric credits (designed by Armondo Linus Acosta THE YOUNG RACERS) as a spider spins a web across a black screen with the web moving over the credits. A group of angry townsfolk is gathered in a local tavern (although we're never given a specific year we're led to believe the films opening narration takes place in the mid-1700s before jumping ahead to the next century for the remainder of the film) and they're mounting angry with local warlock Joseph Curwen (Vincent Price) comes to a head when Edgar Weeden's (Leo V. Gordon TOBRUK) wife is wondering off in a trance to Dexter's castle where she is to be indoctrinated into some evil proceedings. Doing what townfolks do best in this type of situation they gather the pitchforks and torches and proceed to the castle where they take Ward and burn him at the stake. Like all good warlocks (and witches) he proceeds to invoke a curse upon the townfolks and their descendants as a thunderstorm rages overhead.

     Flash forward 110 years and Curwen's great-grandson Charles Dexter Ward (again Price) and his wife Ann (Debra Paget TALES OF TERROR in her last theatrical role) arrive in Arkam to claim their inheritance of the Curwen castle. Stopping in the Burning Man Tavern they come across the same surly group of townsfolk (in fact the exact same as they're played by the same actors portraying the original mob's relatives). Among them are a gaggle of familiar character faces including above mentioned Leo V. Gordon along with Elisha Cook Jr. (THE MALTESE FALCON), John Dierkes (THE ALAMO) and ubiquitous TV presence Frank Maxwell (MR. MAJESTYK). Finding them not too receptive to his looking to settle in the Dexter house, the couple proceeds to the newly inherited adobe with only Maxwell's doctor character showing them some friendship. There's also a sequence showing the physically deformed offspring of some of the Arkam residents that still packs a jolt.
    Once inside the castle, Charles Ward gazes upon the portrait of his ancestor Joseph Curwen and immediately begins channeling his evil great-grandfathers personality while hooking up with his two assistants one of them being Simon Orne (Lon Chaney Jr.), here making his only appearance in a Corman film along with this being his only pairing with Price. Charles Ward/Joesph Curwen begins moving forward with his old plans which include resurrecting his previous mistress (Barbara Morris THE WASP WOMEN and who appeared in over 15 A.I.P. films from 1956 to 1970), and (hopefully) getting Debra Paget to get acquainted with "the thing in the pit". At the same time, the same group of angry villagers (Leo V. Gordon spends his brief screen time in a perpetual rage) us fuming in the same pub before the now possessed Price begins knocking them off in gruesome fashion as revenge for his previous century stake burning.

     Price seems to be having a wonderful time playing the dual roles (especially toward the middle of the plot when he alternates between the two) and it's interesting to see him play somewhat of a   milquetoast character in the first scenes before he goes into the full arching eyebrows Vincent Price evil persona. Even though by this time this would the evil warlock would be a character Price could play in his sleep, he still brings a wonderful and entertaining level of professionalism to the role.  Chaney Jr.'s work had lately been regulated to guest spots on TV westerns and with the exception of Jack Hill's SPIDER BABY in 1967, this would be one of his last decent roles.
    Debra Paget had had roles in several major movies including DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS 1954, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 1956, and Elvis's LOVE ME TENDER in 1956, but made the biggest impression in Fritz Lang's THE INDIAN TOMB 1959 where has Seetha she did a dance that was forever ingrained on many a young boy's brains during its frequent showing on Sat. afternoon TV. She doesn't get to do a lot here, seeming to spend most of her time cowering in her bed or wondering about the castle in her dressing gown - which to Paget's and cinematographer Floyd Crosby's credit do look ravishingly beautiful.
     The movie's plot is indebted to Mario Bava's LA MASCHERA DEL DEMOINO (aka BLACK SUNDAY 1960) and that films motif of witches/warlocks being executed while invoking curses on future generations would be carried over in countless Euro-horror films of the coming decade along with John Llewellyn Moxey's CITY OF THE DEAD  (aka HORROR HOTEL 1960) which also seems to be an influence on THE HAUNTED PALACE (Roger Corman during this period was a  prodigious movie watcher).
     Lovecraft's fiction often dealt with demonic cosmic entities, ancient evil religions of vast scope and unexplainable monstrous visages all of which are pretty much impossible to project on the screen (especially in 1963 on an A.I.P. budget) and THE HAUNTED PALACE attempts to marry some of this to a rather basic A.I.P. "Poe" plot. The result being is that's a great deal of exposition by characters in the film attempting to explain this which sometimes bogs down things in the middle and the films much talked about & hyped "pit monster" or "old one" is bound to disappoint if fully shown. Its wavy out-of-focus views during the plot's climax are more in line with what Lovecraft often described as horrors unable to describe. This film is my favorite of the Poe cycle and it's gorgeous to look at (it's Gothic overdrive to the max) and while only being nominally attached to the Lovecraft source novella it does an admirable job of invoking the spirit of H.P. and remains one of my favorite Lovecraft adaptions and one of my favorite Vincent Price roles.