Flight to Mars (1951) is a Cinecolor science fiction film, written for the screen by Arthur Strawn, produced by Walter Mirisch for Monogram Pictures (which also distributed) and directed by Lesley Selander. The film features Cameron Mitchell, Arthur Franz, Virginia Huston, and John Litel as American spacemen, Marguerite Chapman appeared as Alita, the leader of the human-like Martian women, and Morris Ankrum as Ikron, the leader of the Martian council. The film has some similarities to the Russian silent film Aelita.
Plot and production
The story involves the arrival on Mars of an American scientific expedition team, who discover an underground-dwelling, dying civilization of Martians. They are anatomically human, and are suspicious of the earthmen's motives, with the majority of the governing body finally deciding to keep the earthmen prisoner.
This film reuses almost all the cabin interior details from Rocketship X-M (Lippert Pictures, 1950, and filmed at another studio), except for some of the flight instruments. Even the spaceflight noises are reused. Similarly, the concepts of spaceflight are those postulated in that earlier film.
The main differences are this film postulates a planned flight to Mars, whereas the earlier film postulates an accidental flight to Mars, which accident occurs during a planned flight to the Moon.
Additionally, this film postulates a Martian species which is in many ways superior to Mankind, and poses a long-term, strategic threat thereto, whereas the earlier film postulates a Martian species which is pre-literate, and a throw-back, as a consequence of a global nuclear holocaust which occurred many millennia earlier, and poses only an immediate, tactical threat to the voyagers.
The space suits appear to have been adapted from those used in Destination Moon (film) (Eagle-Lion, 1950), even to the different suit colors.
In a sense, this film is quite derivative, adding little to the science fiction film literature.
Although supposedly Super Cinecolor, the extant prints appear to be conventional Cinecolor (two color), and not Super Cinecolor (three color) as was used so successfully in Invaders from Mars (1953 film) (Fox distribution, 1953).
The Wade Williams DVD appears to be made from a 16mm print. 16mm prints of Super Cinecolor features were almost always conventional Cinecolor.
DVD cover of
Flight to Mars
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