Rocketship MRX is headed to Mars but Earth loses contact with the ship and its four-man crew as it goes out of control and eventually crash lands in snowy mountains on what seems to be some uncharted planet with an atmosphere very much like Earth. The men run into a giant spider and violent cave people with cyclops eyes. Predictably, the planet turns out to be Earth hundreds of years in the future. In the world of 2508, humanity is split in two: the aboveground primitives are mutants damaged by fallout from a nuclear war; underground in a series of well-constructed chambers live those unaffected by the radioactivity, protected from potential attacks by the mutants. Our astronauts (who wear street clothes rather than any kind of protective uniform) are taken in by the underground folks, but soon come to realize that this group of humans—mostly weak older men—have become impotent and/or sterile, both sexually and in terms of ambition, and may be in danger of dying out. Soon the astronauts are trying to talk Timmek, the leader of the underground people, into making an attempt to salvage their spaceship and begin venturing aboveground, but an upstart pacifist named Mories argues that the potential for violence is too great. Will the astronauts be able to inspire them to reclaim the outdoors? Or will Mories succeed in turning his people against the time travelers?
This is a sort of mirror-image version of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, with a withering passive race below ground instead of the above ground Eloi, and outdoor mutant monsters instead of underground Morlocks. More to the point for me is the way in which this plot was re-used in a few other sci-fi films (like
THE MOLE PEOPLE,
THE TIME TRAVELERS, and
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME) Since I, like Timmek and Mories, am resistant to change, it took a while for me to get on board with the astronauts (led by Hugh Marlowe and Nelson Leigh). Of course, it wouldn't be a 50s space movie without some element of romance, and a handful of women—including one of the mutant women who was captured and put to work as a slave and looks nothing like the cyclops mutants—are crucial to that development, which pushes the film toward QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE territory. Rod Taylor has his first major, albeit supporting, role in a Hollywood movie, and he outacts everyone else, including Marlowe who is running in second gear. This is a B-film from Allied Artists with a slightly bigger budget than usual—the film looks fairly glossy and colorful, but the effects and make-up are still bargain basement quality. Fun if not quite a classic. Pictured at left are Marlowe and Taylor; above right, Shawn Smith and Taylor. [Blu-Ray]
Rocketship MRX is headed to Mars but Earth loses contact with the ship and its four-man crew as it goes out of control and eventually crash lands in snowy mountains on what seems to be some uncharted planet with an atmosphere very much like Earth. The men run into a giant spider and violent cave people with cyclops eyes. Predictably, the planet turns out to be Earth hundreds of years in the future. In the world of 2508, humanity is split in two: the aboveground primitives are mutants damaged by fallout from a nuclear war; underground in a series of well-constructed chambers live those unaffected by the radioactivity, protected from potential attacks by the mutants. Our astronauts (who wear street clothes rather than any kind of protective uniform) are taken in by the underground folks, but soon come to realize that this group of humans—mostly weak older men—have become impotent and/or sterile, both sexually and in terms of ambition, and may be in danger of dying out. Soon the astronauts are trying to talk Timmek, the leader of the underground people, into making an attempt to salvage their spaceship and begin venturing aboveground, but an upstart pacifist named Mories argues that the potential for violence is too great. Will the astronauts be able to inspire them to reclaim the outdoors? Or will Mories succeed in turning his people against the time travelers?
This is a sort of mirror-image version of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, with a withering passive race below ground instead of the above ground Eloi, and outdoor mutant monsters instead of underground Morlocks. More to the point for me is the way in which this plot was re-used in a few other sci-fi films (like THE MOLE PEOPLE, THE TIME TRAVELERS, and JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME) Since I, like Timmek and Mories, am resistant to change, it took a while for me to get on board with the astronauts (led by Hugh Marlowe and Nelson Leigh). Of course, it wouldn't be a 50s space movie without some element of romance, and a handful of women—including one of the mutant women who was captured and put to work as a slave and looks nothing like the cyclops mutants—are crucial to that development, which pushes the film toward QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE territory. Rod Taylor has his first major, albeit supporting, role in a Hollywood movie, and he outacts everyone else, including Marlowe who is running in second gear. This is a B-film from Allied Artists with a slightly bigger budget than usual—the film looks fairly glossy and colorful, but the effects and make-up are still bargain basement quality. Fun if not quite a classic. Pictured at left are Marlowe and Taylor; above right, Shawn Smith and Taylor. [Blu-Ray]
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