EVEN DeepER Blurting!: DBNS: Don't Touch That Dial!

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DBNS: Don't Touch That Dial!

Posted by Kenneth Morgan on 1/15/2009, 10:04 pm

Today, in his first 2009 review, Kenneth Morgan stays tuned.
*****
I was a bit reluctant to write up today’s review. It’s not that I’m lazy (well, I can be sometimes) or that I don’t like this job (I do, very much). It’s just that I’m looking at yet another movie focused on that heavily overused planet, Mars. Still, I had the movie on hand and figured I may as well try it. Besides, at least this movie tries something different, like having the Martians and Mars not actually appear in the movie.

Thus, we have our subject for today: “Red Planet Mars”, released by United Artists in 1952.

The film opens with narration stating that this is “a story not yet told”. (Huh?) It’s the Fifties equivalent of the near future, and we meet scientist Chris Cronyn (Peter Graves, pre-IMF) and his wife Linda (Andrea King) when they visit a California observatory. There, they learn that Mars, which is on its closest approach to Earth, has been the scene of strange occurrences. Long range photos have revealed that the planet’s polar ice caps are gone, and that its legendary canals seem to be filled with water. Have the Martians learned to irrigate their planet?

Chris is very interested in this, since he’s involved in a project to try and contact Mars. Using a new, experimental type of radio tube, he’s been sending signals there, but has been unable to get an understandable reply. Linda is skeptical about his work; she’s worried that science has only led to a dangerous life where her children are growing up in a world on the brink of atomic war. Chris, though, is a firm believer in better living through science and won’t hear this.

Meanwhile, in a remote listening post in the Andes Mountains (as opposed to the Amoses), German scientist Franz Calder (Herbert Berghof) is also listening. The inventor of the tube Chris uses, he’s a bitter Nazi war criminal who escaped from a U.S. jail with the help of the Russians. (More specifically, the Commies.) He’s been listening to Chris’s transmissions and has also heard nothing in reply. His Russian masters, represented by Arjenian (Marvin Miller) are getting frustrated at the lack of progress and are hinting that Calder may get sacked, in a permanent way. Calder, though, is determined to succeed and get the credit he feels he’s been robbed of. (Chris, by the way, is quite open in acknowledging Calder’s work, believing that you must “give the Devil his due”.)

During a visit from old friend, Admiral Carey (Walter Sande), Chris expresses his frustration in his lack of results. He just gets his own messages back, but they’re not merely reflections from the atmosphere. Chris’s son Stewart (Orley Lindgren), though, has a suggestion: send the value of pi, in the hope that the Martians will send back a message continuing the equation. Chris does this and, to his delight, gets the correct reply. Contact has been established, and Chris is soon hailed as the genius of the age.

This doesn’t last, though. Now able to translate the Martian signals, Earthmen soon learn that Martians can live for centuries. Oddly, this causes a big lack of confidence in Earth insurance companies, who are soon on the verge of bankruptcy. More messages follow, revealing that Martians also have the ability to grow all-but-unlimited food and generate all-but-unlimited power. This causes havoc in other markets, leaving the Western economy in a shambles, Chris now vilified for his meddling, and the Russians overjoyed at the upcoming collapse. Calder, meanwhile, continues to vent his frustration as not making contact on his own, and give the impression that this whole thing is having a serious effect on him.

Just when the U.S. government removes the project from Chris, and it looks like war is about to start, a new message from Mars arrives. In answer to the question of how they managed to avoid self-destruction, the message espouses religious values. More specifically, it espouses Christian values, including a reference to Christ himself. Over the objection of both logical scientist Chris and his own advisors, the President (Willis Bouchey) releases the message to the media. The result from it, and later messages, is a worldwide religious revival. As Linda puts it, it’s the Sermon on the Mount…from Mars.

As the revival and the hope it inspires sweeps the world and causes massive changes in the balance of power, the question arises: How did the Martians know about Christ? Are Chris and the others really receiving messages from an alien race, or are the messages actually coming from God Himself? The answer is…you’ll have to see for yourself.

I’m going to be a bit careful here. The most obvious element of “Red Planet Mars” is its unabashed promotion of Christian values and beliefs (even though it’s directly mentioned that people of all faiths are inspired), along with its vilification of the U.S.S.R., which is portrayed as being run by an utterly evil regime. Now, you can call this heavy-handed and short-sighted, and maybe it is, in a way. But this is a message board dedicated to MST3K, and I’m neither a theologian nor a political scientist. So, I’m just going to take the easy way out and not look at that aspect of it. I’ll stick to the movie itself.

On that score, “Red Planet Mars” has problems. The main problem is that it’s based on a stage play. The script by co-producer Anthony Veiller, from the play by John L. Balderston and John Hoare, is very talky, and in a way that uses lots of big speeches with sometimes flowery prose. Actually, there’s a great lack of action and, beyond stock footage and the set-up of Chris’s radio set (with its BIG levers and BIG tubes and BIG TV-screens), there’s not much in the way of visuals. With minor tweaking, you could take the soundtrack of this movie and use it as a radio show and lose very little. This makes the movie kind of drag.

There are also a number of plot holes, from my viewpoint. For example, why would Martian developments cause panic on Earth? Yeah, Martians can live for centuries, but how does that mean Earthlings can, too? Also, no one seems to ask the old “Doctor Who” question about why God needs a transceiver to get His message out. There’s also the idea that only Chris and Calder have the necessary technology to receive the signals, when it was said that the Government has the plans for putting it together. Finally, without giving much away, the story is resolved in a double-twist that’s somewhere between Rod Serling and M. Night Shyamalan that leaves certain questions open and unclear. Still, given the story, maybe it’s better not to make things utterly clear.

Personally, I don’t think that this would’ve made for a good MST3K experiment. I recall one of the Brains (I think it was Jim) saying that the group had lots of trouble dealing with overly-talky movies where little actually happens. That description fits “Red Planet Mars” pretty well. Still, there are riffable moments, like our first view of Linda, showing that she wears (cue Nixon voice) “a good Republican cloth coat”. Or the credit for director Harry Horner (SUGGESTED RIFF: Harry, you’ll be directing from that corner over there.), the grand spiritual revival (S.R.: And, somewhere, Richard Dawkins is seriously ticked off.), and the talk of the Government saving the endangered industries (S.R.: So, now Obama will want an immediate Martian bailout?). And I’m sure the first sight of Chris’ big, old-fashioned radio gadget will inspire a comment of two, like Chris saying, “Boy, Barney really outdid himself with this one.”

I guess, all in all, I’m saying that “Red Planet Mars” deserves credit for trying something different. I just don’t think it really works. If they’d tried less talk and more actual things happening, it might’ve turned out better. It’s by no means a bad movie, but it’s a bit of a disappointment. I suggest you use your own judgment on this one.

Well, that’s my first one for 2009. With any luck, I’ll be able to stay away from Mars for a bit. I need to visit other planets once in a while.

CONNECTIONS NOTE: Peter Graves (Chris), Marvin Miller (Arjenian), Morris Ankrum (who plays the Secretary of Defense) and Cinematographer Joseph Biroc all have multiple MST and DBNS credits. Walter Sande (Adm. Carey) also appeared in the previously reviewed “Cold Turkey” and ‘War of the Worlds”. Willis Bouchey (the President) was in the previously reviewed “Zero Hour!”. Robert Carson, who plays a Presidential aide, was in the also-slow “Radar Secret Service”. And Vince Barnett, who plays “Seedy Man at Radio”, appeared in the MSTed “The Corpse Vanishes” and the recently-reviewed “Bowery at Midnight”.