ROCKETSHIP X-M

(vt Expedition Moon)

   Film (1950). Lippert. Prod/dir/written Kurt Neumann, starring Lloyd Bridges, Osa Massen, John Emery. 78 mins. B/w.

   This cheap movie was hastily made to beat the more illustrious DESTINATION MOON (1950) to the theatres. A rocket on its way to the Moon is diverted by astorm of meteors and lands on MARS instead. The astronauts find evidence that the planet has suffered an atomic war, and encounter a race of MUTANTS. In an unexpectedly downbeat ending the returning rocket crasheson Earth and all are killed. Some cineastes like this SPACE OPERA better than the more technological film on whose advance publicity it was designed to get a free ride - especially the atmospheric Mars sequences, tinted red in the film's original prints and well photographed by Karl Struss in the Mojave Desert.A German director who came to Hollywood in1925, Neumann is best known for The FLY (1958); he also made KRONOS (1957).

   JB/PN

   See also: CINEMA.