CONQUEST OF SPACE:1954 George Pal was ready for the solar system, but the system wasn't ready for Pal. Studio heads downsized his story.
	Reportedly, Pal's original plan included landings on Venus, Mars, and Jupiter. It is said that Pal didn't like to talk about what he finally got. What the audience got were some sweet special effects, and not much else. The story was bland and depressing.
It is supposedly based on a book by Willy Ley that featured Bonestell illustrations, but a change in the mission's target from the Moon to Mars is not the kind of science Ley was known for. The flying wing lander was built for an airless Moon? How could this happen?
	The flight is commanded by the builder of "The Wheel": General Dad. After dispensing with the intro's to the less than endearing characters, he, his son and crew, and the stowaway Sgt. Sidekick ride to Mars in a rocket atop the wing and its booster section.
En route, the General's mind begins to destablize, and he gets the wacky notion that the flight is a sin and blasphemy. Things get worse when a meteor kills a crewman doing EVA repairs. Burial in space looks great, but it sends the General right off the deep end.
	Narrowly avoiding some kind of glowing asteroid is another bad omen that could not have looked better. The whole crew knows he's lost it, but nobody wants to cross "the old man", so they let him land the ship anyway. This is unwise, but, hey- it's his rocket.
The landing system is a W. Ley design. Dumping the boosters, the ship wings its way into the thin Martian atmosphere, and only the rocket returns to space. Smoothly descending, all is on course, until guess what: The General comes completely unhinged!
	He pegs the throttles down, so Junior and company must overpower him physically to land. Then, they're outside doing various experiments (really optimistic farming) and let General Wingnut dump all their reaction mass (water) on the ground outside the ship.
His son hurries back inside the rocket, and calls down the corridor, thinking this is an accident. Ol' Pops puts a .45 caliber round through Jr.'s shoulder, and in the struggle, the pistol goes off, killing the General. Sgt. Sidekick says Junior did it on purpose!
	They ration their drinking water to wait out the long months until their lauch window arrives, and when it snows at Christmas, they vacuum it up and fill their tanks. The blastoff is rocky, but it so impresses the Sgt. that he warms up to Junior.
Safely on their way home, all agree to skew the test results and cover up the General's breakdown. Because someone forgot to write in the "likable" characters, it is hard to get very excited about the success of their mission, but the effects are sight to behold.

Back to Film Views Home