CONQUEST OF SPACE (1955)

CONQUEST OF SPACE (1955)

Tagline: It Will Take a New Kind of Courage - For the Men Who Go...For the Women Who Wait!

(Sci-Fi, Theology, Mars Is Not That Big A Deal)[G]

Note: the MPAA did not give this movie a rating. It would likely have been a G. 

Oh, I don't think so... the universe was put here for Man to conquer.

In this one, a United States lead team of astronauts head out on the first manned mission to Mars after a test run to the moon is canceled. General Samuel T. Merritt believes that the Bible indicates man should not venture further into space than where his “wheel” (an orbital space base) is currently located and may hinder the crew’s plans. 

First off, back in the 1950s there actually was a small group of people that felt mankind should not venture into space. This train of thought faded once the space race got underway. For the record, I don’t believe scripture indicates man shouldn’t go into space anywhere in the text. What is interesting is that no one has even set foot on the moon (that we know of) since 1972. So it’s been 50 years (as of the writing of this review) since we’ve done manned space travel outside of just floating orbit around the planet in tin cans. If man is ever meant to conquer space. Thus far, we have kind of sucked at it. 

When it comes to cool stuff, this movie actually has what amounts to a flat-screen TV in it. Kind of makes me wonder why we didn’t have them for public purchase sooner. There is also a pretty hilarious scene in this where the ship is taking off and everyone’s faces are dealing with the G forces. Oh man, the looks on these dudes' faces just cracked me up. The other thing about this movie that was great, was the ship and space base designs. The spaceship model from this movie was used as a background prop in STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN. Apparently, someone thought the model was cool enough to keep around for at least 27 years. I don’t want to give too much away, but the shots of the Mars landscape are pretty amazing. I really loved what they did with the set in these sequences. 

Acting wise Walter Brooke does a pretty good job in this movie as General Samuel T. Merritt.  You can also kind of empathize with his feelings about the mission to Mars after things start going wrong. Eric Fleming plays Capt. Barney Merritt and also has a stand-out performance in this one. Fleming’s other big sci-fi movie was QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE. Phil Foster is also good in this as Jackie Siegle, providing a few spots of being a bit over the top and adding a bit of comedic relief. I really don’t have any complaints about the cast. 

What was unnecessary about this film was this scene where one of the crew members Jackie, finds out his wife (or girlfriend) is likely cheating on him. What a terrible thing to find out when you are thousands of miles in space. Some people have raved about the fact that this movie was made in color, but I really disliked that. It, unfortunately, highlights how wonky some of the effects and models were. I understand the era enough to know that these effects at the time were top-notch, but black and white for me just added some magic to the era that is hard to capture with color or color restorations. This thing also contains a pretty terrible conflict. One man is basically determined to kill the crew of the rocket if he needs to, breaking one of The 10 Commandments, in order to stop “the sin” of space exploration, which isn’t even implied in the bible. I just think there are about a billion other motives for trying to stop this mission“, other” than what they picked. How about going “space nuts”? How about one of them is an alien and can’t have man go beyond earth? How about one of them has a disease that causes killer bunny rabbits to come out of their eyes and they have to fight those off before they destroy the rocket and kill the entire crew? Anyway, I’m just throwing stuff out there. 

Overall this movie has a bunch of science holes, but it’s actually pretty engaging and the dialog is just interesting enough to make it a fairly interesting watch. This is a 4 out of 7 for me. I could see myself watching it again. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF PARAMOUNT STUDIOS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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