Red Planet Mars

Year: 1952

Production: Melaby Pictures / United Artists

Director: Harry Horner

Starring: Peter Graves, Andrea King, Marvin Miller

Screenwriter: John L. Balderston, Anthony Veiller

Based on the play Red Planet by John L. Balderston and John Hoare

87 minutes; B/W

An American astronomer obtains images of Mars suggesting large-scale environmental changes are occurring at a pace that can only be by wrought by intelligent beings with advanced technology. A colleague at the same time claims to have been contacting Mars by radio, first through an exchange of mathematical concepts and then through answers to specific questions, that convey Mars as a utopia. This knowledge leads to political and economic chaos, especially in the West. The American government imposes a news blackout after the first four messages, only to reveal many messages later that Earth's people can be saved if they return to the worship of God. Revolution sweeps the globe, including the Soviet Union. But there remains doubt about the messages being genuine, as an ex-Nazi who developed the original communication device prototype prepares to announce that he has been duping the Americans with false messages from a secret Soviet-funded radio transmitter high in the Andes mountains of South America. The mystery thickens as it appears the messages may have continued even after the secret transmitter was destroyed in an avalanche.

Two young US scientists,man and wife, pick up tv transmissions apparently from Mars. These messages (confusingly) take two forms. One class, suggesting Mars is the center of incredible technological breakthroughs, has been faked by an ex-Nazi scientist and is designed to panic the Western World, which it does, though it pleases the evil Russians. The second class (genuine) tells us that Mars is rules by a "Supereme Authority" who is none other than God himself. This revelation also causes chaos, and there are accusations of fakery, but religion is ultimately justified and Godless communism (the true villain) destroyed: aged revolutionaries overthrow the Soviet Government and restore the monarchy, choosing an Orthodox priest as their new Czar.

Red Planet Mars is a fascinating (and quite hysterical) product of the Cold War paranoia that swept the USA in the early 1950s, and specifically a mirror of the widespread feeling in US society that religious crusades (as led by Billy Graham and others) were a political weapon against communism. Balderston, responsible for the script and the original play, had a distinguished career in genre movies, his screenplays including Dracula (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Mad Love 1935) and Gaslight (1944), but this essay in patronizing populism did him no credit. The film flopped.