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Red Planet Mars main poster

Red Planet Mars

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4.7/10 • 27

1952-05-151h 27m

Science Fiction

SEE! The first contact between Earth and Mars!

Husband-and-wife scientists pick up a pie-in-the-sky TV message supposedly from Mars.

Directors
Harry Horner
Writters
Anthony Veiller, John L. Balderston
Editors
Anthony Veiller, John L. Balderston, Francis D. Lyon

Top Billed Cast

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  1. Peter Graves

    Peter Graves

    Chris Cronyn

  2. Andrea King

    Andrea King

    Linda Cronyn

  3. Herbert Berghof

    Herbert Berghof

    Franz Calder

  4. Marvin Miller

    Marvin Miller

    Arjenian

  5. Orley Lindgren

    Orley Lindgren

    Stewart Cronyn

  6. Walter Sande

    Walter Sande

    Admiral Bill Carey

  7. Willis Bouchey

    Willis Bouchey

    President

  8. Morris Ankrum

    Morris Ankrum

    Secretary of Defense Sparks

  9. George Blagoi

    George Blagoi

    Russian Official (uncredited)

Reviews1

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CinemaSerf Avatar

CinemaSerf

Sep 9, 2022

5/10

I actually quite liked the underlying, and quite manipulative, concept of this film. "Cronyn" (Peter Graves) and his wife "Linda" (Andrea King) manage to make contact with Mars and low and behold, there's life there. Not only life, but a fairly benevolent one at that, that promises mankind salvation - quite literally - if they return to the teachings of the Bible and embrace God more fully. When this news reaches the ears of the wider public, mass indoctrination occurs across the world and an infrastructure of zealousness begins to prevail. Thing is, though, is this really a message from Mars at all - or is it a clever ploy by some Earth-bound entity to manoeuvre mankind into a form of pseudo-authoritarian society? The problem here is that the acting and writing are so nondescript that is rather leaves us to use our own imagination all too often. The philosophies offer clear allegory of "Red" = "Soviet" and the worse case scenario for humanity should an "enemy" ever prevail, but the film itself offers us little by way of action or dialogue to engage with or to entertain. Food for thought? Well at the height of the Cold War, then quite possibly - but what potency it had then has long since abandoned ship and we are now left with pace-less example of soundstage verbosity that again makes me wish that if ever aliens do attempt to contact mankind, maybe try those in Switzerland, India or somewhere less dogmatically militaristic.

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Status
Released
Original Language
English
Budget
--
Revenue
--
Keywords
planet marsmartianplanetscientistred