{"id":614,"date":"2014-02-17T12:54:37","date_gmt":"2014-02-17T17:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bmoviemaniacs.com\/?p=614"},"modified":"2014-02-17T12:54:37","modified_gmt":"2014-02-17T17:54:37","slug":"the-angry-red-planet-1960","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/the-angry-red-planet-1960\/","title":{"rendered":"The Angry Red Planet (1960)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"arpost\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The film begins at mission control where the brass has just gotten around to retrieving the long missing MR-1 rocket.\u00a0 They last heard from the ship and its crew of four as it orbited Mars.\u00a0 Ground control decide they want the rocket back because it\u2019s full of data.\u00a0 They assume the crew died ages ago so they bring the rocket back expecting an ugly surprise when they open her doors.\u00a0 Apparently it\u2019s a snap to bring a rocket back from a Mars orbit because they throw out some sort of grappling hook and tow her home.\u00a0 Of course there are survivors and as they recuperate in the hospital, they tell their tale.
\nWe meet the crew via flashback in their living room sized control center.\u00a0 They lounge sans breathing apparatus, make hokey remarks, and pose for the camera while eating canned goods.\u00a0 Les Tremayne as Professor Gettel, sports a pointy devil beard and buttons his top button so he\u2019s the smart one.\u00a0 Colonel O\u2019Bannion (Gerard Mohr) wears his jumpsuit unbuttoned to his waist and leers at Dr. Iris Ryan (Nora Hayden) a lot so he\u2019s the hunky one. \u00a0\u00a0Sam (Jack Kruschen) has a beer belly and no title so he acts as comic relief.\u00a0 The ship lands on Mars and, wearing their protective cotton\/poly jumpsuits, the foursome go out to meet the neighbors.\u00a0 Dr. Ryan\u2019s botanist\/zoologist attempts to classify the various flora as they traipse through the Mars jungle.\u00a0 The flora don\u2019t take kindly to classification though and that\u2019s when the fun begins.\u00a0 I should also note that the Mars scenes were filmed using Woody Allen\u2019s red light bulb from Annie Hall and have an unexposed negative quality to them.\u00a0 It made the planet\u2019s surface look eerie and other-worldly.\u00a0 After a run-in with some large vegetables, the gang head back to the ship where they talk a bit and we see an exciting montage of people cleaning things and putting them in drawers.\u00a0 Since they met with plant-based rebellion the last time, the travelers leave the ship for the second time with all the trepidation and preparedness of an expedition to the largest ball of twine.\u00a0 At least they bring machetes and a boat.\u00a0 Yup.\u00a0 They row across a vast Martian lake after testing the water, of course.\u00a0 The professor checks it for radiation and Iris swishes her hands in it so we know it\u2019s safe.\u00a0 On the lake, they run into more Martian hostiles and a genuinely weird creature that makes this all worthwhile.
\nDespite tons of inaccuracies and dialogue like, \u201cThe hell with radiation!\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!\u201d\u00a0 The Angry Red Planet entertained me.\u00a0 I loved the idea that a space agency chose a female botanist for a landmark flight and she got attacked by a plant.\u00a0 I also loved that they brought a boat.\u00a0 This film had odd and original effects, a cool monster, and fun mint jelly-based injuries.\u00a0 It was worth watching if only to see another example of what filmmakers thought space travel would become.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The film begins at mission control where the brass has just gotten around to retrieving the long missing MR-1 rocket.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[27,77,302,381,392],"class_list":["post-614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-1960s","tag-b-movies","tag-mars","tag-science-fiction","tag-space-exploration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}