1952: RED PLANET MARS

What’s it about?

A radio astronomer played by Peter Graves sends messages into space and receives responses that appear to be coming from Mars. Though they are at first unintelligible, he continues to work on a way of deciphering the messages from space despite periodic apocalyptic pronouncements from his wife (sample: "This will lead to our deaths!"). Meanwhile, a former Nazi scientist named Calder listens in on the American broadcasts and the Martian responses from a remote observatory in the Andes, and passes reports on the communications back to the Soviets.

When the messages are at last decoded and published, they cause pandemonium throughout the capitalist west. They indicate that the Martians are in possession of technology that would render the greater part of western industry obsolete. Afraid of causing further panic, the president is about to order the communications stopped when suddenly the messages change and begin to take on a decidedly religious tone instead. These messages in turn spark a popular uprising behind the Iron Curtain, and soon the Communist nations are in as much turmoil as the west. The whole situation is brought to a final crisis when Calder personally (and implausibly) confronts the American scientists in their own laboratory. Several twists later, the movie ends with a bang.

Is it any good?

It has a few things going for it. For one thing, it’s one of the few movies I can think of that deals primarily with radio messages from an alien civilization. (The only other that springs to mind is CONTACT from 1997 -- and even that one ultimately drops radio contact in favor of the personal kind.) As such, the first half hour is fairly interesting as the scientists try to find a way of making themselves understood. The movie doesn’t really do as much with this as it might and the solution they arrive at is simplistic enough that a middle schooler could (and, in the movie, in fact does) figure it out. But it’s at least sufficiently different to be interesting.

Things take a sharp turn for the worse in the middle section, where the world suddenly starts going crazy based on a handful of messages from Mars. The revelation that the Martians use cosmic rays for energy instead of fossil fuels, for example, somehow inexplicably leads to every coal mine on Earth spontaneously closing down -- despite there being no information yet on how Earth could harness the power of cosmic rays. Other equally inexplicable developments bring the entire western economy to its knees. It’s easy to believe that messages from an advanced alien race could incite panic and upheaval, but RED PLANET MARS is not the least bit convincing about it. When the messages switch from scientific to religious -- and create a panic in the Soviet sphere -- the same problem arises again. This part, in fact, is the very dullest stretch of the movie as it has nothing new over the western panic except a lot more preachy pontificating from a very Christian president.

By far, the best character in the movie is the Nazi scientist Calder. So even though his appearance at the American lab late in the movie is utterly preposterous, it’s nonetheless very welcome. The plot twists that arise out of this confrontation vary in their plausibility and effectiveness. I won’t reveal exactly what happens, but the messages are not exactly what they appear to be, and the revelations lead to a bit of a scuffle between the scientists. In any event, RED PLANET MARS is not what I would call a particularly good movie and it occasionally flirts with deadly dullness -- but it’s unusual and unconventional enough that I don’t want to give everything away in case anyone is actually interested.

What else happened this year?

-- The only other movie I’ve seen from 1952 that is remotely sci-fi is one called INVASION, U.S.A. It’s a WWIII flick about a Soviet invasion of the United States, and is a pretty heavy-handed propaganda piece about the need for ordinary citizens to contribute to anti-Soviet programs even in peacetime. It’s the earliest movie I know of that depicts an atomic war (through copious use of stock footage, natch), though it treats H-bombs simply as big bunches of dynamite and doesn’t address the effects of radiation or the possibility of nuclear winter.
-- Legendary B-movie RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON was also released this year, but I haven’t inflicted it on my attention span yet.

If you only watch one sci-fi movie from 1952...

Go with RED PLANET MARS. But unless you have a high tolerance for both B-movie badness and high handed Christian preaching, you might as well steer clear. There’s a fairly unique story under all the distracting parts, but it’s more of a curiosity than essential viewing.