- Original theatrical poster - image courtesy of Wrong Side of the Art
Red Planet Mars was probably conceived of as something Senator Joseph McCarthy would have lapped up wholesale, painting, on a science fiction mural, communists as conniving and evil and Christianity as the ultimate good, with a generous lack of subtlety about the matter. At the least, this film’s particular ex-Nazi mad scientist (Herbert Berghof) is quite odious, a quality easily inferred about and repeatedly reinforced in his character.
Red Planet Mars’ ideological platform is less specific in its identification and classification, yet character works dramatically as a classically nefarious villain.
The film’s propagandistic aims are clear and present, but not particularly dangerous these days. Hindsight affords us judgment cleared from the sometimes ire social ilk that conditions our responses to something (a book, a movie, a speech, a tragedy) in the moment or at a first glance, but that depends as much on the time since passed as it does the attitudes of the present.
Despite its titanic importance to the medium, The Birth of a Nation continues to be persecuted because of its serving as a reminder of America’s long standing problems with race. To my mind, one should necessarily confront the art of all times, especially troubled times, if they wish to best inoculate themselves against their reoccurrence.
In his angry review of the film, Dennis Schwartz lambasts Red Planet Mars for similarly capturing (and, at least potentially, serving to reinforce) the paranoia that gripped American in the 1950s, particularly in how religion was used to further cow the masses into support of national policy. It’s a passionate piece with sound ideas, but his bitterness felt disproportionate compared to the movie I had experienced, and not simply because I liked it and he didn’t.
A bit of investigation reveals the Schwartz review was published but six days after the devastation of the World Trade Center and the larger attacks of September 2001. That day beats like a pulse through his words. I applaud it.
The thing is, whether or not it actually furthered McCarthy’s tactics in any meaningful way, Red Planet Mars remains an impressively creative leftover from that era, featuring some of the strangest narrative turns employed by any of its ilk and all the while using a minimal budget to impressive ends, turning it’s own shortcomings into hidden strengths.
Pulp-hungry kids were probably disappointed in this film, and maybe I’d have also been at eight or ten. Now, I’m quite thrilled at how the film achieves genuine science fiction with a nearly entire absence of sci-fi subjects on screen. Even if they were nowhere near our atmosphere, I'm convinced the mere knowledge of alien life would screw things up pretty good in reality, too.
What the film provides in addition to its socio-religious baggage is a surprisingly meaty examination of the impact of public mentality, the interplay of business and politics, and how mankind often seems to instinctively neuter its own potential for growth and happiness.
The protagonists are Chris (Peter Graves) and Linda Cronen (Andrea King), married American scientists who believe they’ve established contact with someone or something on Mars. An eventual translation of the messages reveals beings of a highly advanced culture with socialist values, and…allusions to Jesus Christ?! That jaw dropper is just the beginning of the tumult these messages will unleash in the world.
Personally, there’s a high chance of my being on board for any film that aims to strike a strong or unusual chord and does it well, as so many movies are redundant and boring and overall lacking in good reason to exist; I’d rather something compel me, even offend me, than simply bore me.
My strong left politics notwithstanding, Red Planet Mars doesn’t trigger my gag reflex, but then I don’t think it's host to genuine rabble rousing so much itself, outside the dreadful context in which it came into being. Overall, it packs quite a few “holy cow!” moments, and as those are a bit hard to come by, so what if it’s a little silly. C'est la vie.
Red Planet Mars. Dir. Harry Horner. Perf. Peter Graves, Andrea King, Orley Lindgren, Walter Sande, Marvin Miller. United Artists, 1952. Running Time: 87 min. 4 out of 5 stars (no halves).
