Rocketship X-M (1950) User Reviews

A worthy effort

[Sterno-2 · 4/10 · 8 October 1999]

Rocketship X-M should be viewed by any serious movie buff for the following reasons:

1) It is one the first -- and the few -- movies not to have a happy ending. Doubtless the effect was more profound in post-World War II America than it would be today, but nonetheless the sad ending adds to the film's message.

2) It is also one of the first movies to deal with space travel in a serious fashion, using space as a valid setting for drama. The lack of scientific background notwithstanding, the movie stands on its own as dramatic fare. It's not so much a space drama as it is a drama set in space.

3) The anti-nuclear war message is delivered in a serious manner that is not lost in sfx involving large grasshoppers, men, or animal. The effect of Martian society from nuclear devastation is starkly and frankly presented. The fact that the survivors from the expedition crash land and as such are unable to preach the lesson learned on Mars adds another element of sadness to the tragic ending.

Sterno says take a ride on Rocketship X-M.

Fantasy Film

[skallisjr · 4/10 · 3 April 2005]

I first saw this when it came out in the theater. Though only 13 at the time, I was an avid reader of "hard science" science fiction stories. The technical gaffes of the film are burned into my memory.

Some of the following may have significant spoilers.

Even as a youngster, I knew the premise is silly. The rocket takes off for a lunar mission, in a cosmos where there is always a gravitational effect on the crew (though loose objects float as in zero gravity) and because of that, the "cabin" (the area with the controls, whatever they called it) was gyrostabalized to maintain the "correct" orientation (so that when they landed, why didn't they land standing on their heads?) and where, at least in near-earth space, the rocket engines had to be running continually -- with propellant combusting away without an oxidizer. When the engines quit, the rocket stopped _dead_ in space, and couldn't start going until a PhD chemist determined it needed at a little oxidizer. This time, the rocket recalled it had momentum, and the next thing our heroes know they're near Mars (even a 13-year-old nerd knew such a minimum-energy trip would take over 200 days).

They land, find the air was breathable (though at the time scientific data revealed that the pressure, even if the atmosphere were pure oxygen, would be too low to do any good). They decide to camp outside the ship, and even build a campfire. They come armed, even though they were supposedly going to the Moon, where firearms wouldn't be needed.

They get a sight of a collapsed civilization, encounter stray martians who look just like people, develop an anti nuclear war philosophy, and those who survive try to get back to the home planet, and die in the attempt by crashing on the Earth! To do that would require such a long orbital period, they'd have died of starvation long before approaching their destination.

The film it preceded, Destination Moon, used real science most effectively (even though their "rescue" with the Oxygen Tank forgot about the moment arm from the tank's center of gravity to the output nozzle). This film showed woeful ignorance of even the most basic science. Only the most technologically illiterate should think of it as a science fiction film: it's on a par with the old Flash Gordon serials where their rocketships took off from their bellies and climbed in spirals, and whose engines were always on.

The story on this one I considered banal, and I can recommend this only as a film to be shown to students for them to pick out technical gaffes.

Not bad but not up to the quality of DESTINATION MOON

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 17 January 2009]

Apparently there was a 'space race' that most of us are unaware of, though in 1950 it was fast and furious. It seems that George Pal had announced a new picture (DESTINATION MOON) that would feature a moon landing and it was to be the first of many similar films made in the 1950s. However, when the makers of ROCKETSHIP X-M heard about this, they decided to rush this film into production and beat them to the punch, so to speak. However, the DESTINATION MOON people cried foul and so when ROCKETSHIP X-M was marketed, they were forced to include a proviso that it was not DESTINATION MOON. Well, I don't know how these films fared at the box office, but as far as quality goes Pal and the rest of the DESTINATION MOON people had little to worry about, as ROCKETSHIP X-M, though a decent film, wasn't nearly as well made or entertaining. It seems that although it was technically first, it certainly wasn't best. I can say this because I saw them one after another today--an interesting way to see these two milestone films.

The biggest problem is that while ROCKETSHIP X-M wants to be taken as serious sci-fi, there are just too many elements in it that would soon be recognized as clichés. The most obvious was including a female crew member. This set the stage for a million and one sexist and silly remarks and while the film makers might have been trying to say something positive about women's rights, the crew member really came off as just another piece of meat. The second cliché is finding aliens on their mission, though in this case instead of either little green men or horny space babes (such as in QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE or CAT-WOMEN OF THE MOON) they are very primitive and look human. They discover cave men on Mars who apparently like to smash things--including members of the crew. In fact, because the film had so many clichés, when the film was about half-way complete, I predicted to my wife who on the crew would die in what order and I was correct! I'm not THAT smart--the film was just that predictable.

In addition to the clichés, the film makers didn't do a very good job of dealing with the scientific aspects of space travel. Part of this might have been ignorance (such as having small objects on the ship float in zero gravity but not bigger ones--as if that mattered) and much of it was probably due to their desire to rush it into production (no pressure suits or other protection when walking on Mars--despite the cold temperatures and pressure difference). This made the film come off as a bit cheap, but at least I was thrilled that inside the space ship it didn't look like a big empty room. It looked a bit more like a real space ship.

Overall, the film is entertaining, offers a few mild thrills and abounds with predictability as well as a message that comes off as both preachy AND premature. After only walking about for a few minutes and not even exploring the Martian cities, the scientist among the crew announces that the Martians destroyed themselves with nuclear bombs and the people living like idiot cave people was the result. How did he know this?! And why did everyone just accept this so quickly? For die-hard fans of sci-fi like myself, this is a must-see because of its historical value and it is reasonably entertaining. Others might find it tough going.

Some Science, Some Fiction

[bobsluckycat · 16 September 2004]

I recently picked up the DVD of this film for a look. I originally saw it in 1951 when it got to my town on the bottom of a double bill with the western of the day. At that young age, the screaming cave-girl was my most vivid memory, but I liked it. Also saw it maybe 20 years ago on VHS. Still pretty good. Lloyd Bridges was cool, underplayed the whole part. On this last viewing, it's still a good sci-fi flick but from a vastly different point of view. The science as since provided by the real rockets that have been put into space was fairly on the money, especially the two-stage rocket explanation. Since special effects are practically nil, the look is O.K. The fiction, on the other hand was way, way out there. Please note, that all instruments were manual and mechanical and calculations were done with pencil and paper. Not a digital instrument or computer in sight. The idea of doing the Mars locations in Sepia-tone was as brilliant as it was cheap, as well. Lloyd Bridges and Morris Ankrum were head and shoulders the most talented actors in the cast of otherwise good players. Ankrum especially ,always under-rated, could read a grocery list and make it sound important. It also didn't hurt that Kurt Neuman put the whole thing together, either. This film probably inspired in it's own way a lot of young people to explore science and space exploration for real.

Entertaining, nostalgic, romantic and very very daft.

[Alex-Tsander · 4/10 · 13 January 2009]

I like this movie and have watched my copy twice since acquiring it a few weeks ago. But you have to view it in the right context.

I haven't checked on the dates, but I bet this movie came out after and certainly around the same time as the Collier and Walt Disney popularisations of the vision of spaceflight being promoted by W.Von Braun. This is reflected in the attempt to seem factually correct and scientific. However, whilst certain ideas are put across ( step boosters, for example ) roughly correctly, other things are hilariously wrong.

For example, we are told that a rocket ascends to an altitude and then turns ninety degrees to enter space...like reaching the top of a flight of stairs and turning onto the landing! Then we are told that by turning in the direction of the Earths rotation the total velocity of the ship is increased accordingly.

This is an hilarious misunderstanding of what really happens. Most space launch centres are located as near the equator as possible where the Earth and anything on its surface is rotating at roughly a thousand miles per hour, including any rocket departing to space, in an Eastward direction ( the same as the rotation of the planet ). Of course, if the ship turned to travel westwards once in space, its speed in relation to the surface of the Earth would be greater, but it would add nothing to the actual velocity of the vehicle. Decsribed in this movie as "air speed"!

Similarly, we are told that the travellers only feel free-fall, or "weightlessness" when they reach some thousands of miles from the Earth, outside of the planets gravitational field. Again, comically incorrect. Most crewed spacecraft travel no higher than a couple of hundred miles up, but as long as they ( and, their contents, including crew ) are travelling at an adequate velocity that their momentum in an outward direction balances the pull of gravity inwards, they will orbit in free-fall. Of course, travel far enough from Earth and even a slow object will coast outside the Earths gravity well, but in order to leave Earth orbit, outwards ( towards the Moon for example ) requires the attainment of "escape velocity", around twenty one thousand miles per hour. So the vehicle will have already attained "orbital velocity" ( and "weightlessness" ) by definition.

But the movie has vastly more hilarious stuff than this. Someone decided it would be more fun if they missed the moon due to a technical problem, fell asleep for a few days and then woke up to find they had accidentally gone to Mars! The captain then ruminates to the effect that this must have been divine intervention! At which point, any pretence to being scientific is torn into little pieces like confetti and thrown upon the wind amid the merry dance of an increasingly barmy plot.

The strength of a film like this in fact is in illustrating "how far we've come". Not least in attitudes to women. The patronising drivel heaped upon the female crew-member is both hilarious and also shocking.To think that such attitudes were so recently "normal".

As I said at the start, I find this film very entertaining, as a late night, lights out romp through the romance of travel in outer space, from the perspective of the days before it had actually happened. An antidote to the cold routine of spaceflight as it has now become in the Twenty First Century.

I won't reveal the ending. It is both brave and shocking for a movie of this vintage and character.

Twilight Zone Unplugged.

[rmax304823 · 5/10 · 5 October 2008]

A perfectly plausible story of five astronauts who take off in a 1950s space ship, make a wrong turn, and land on Mars instead. After that, things get kind of hairy.

I understand this was rushed into production while George Pal's far more lavishly budgeted "Destination Moon" was being shot, with the aim of beating the bigger and more publicized film into theaters. Well, the haste, the lesser budget, and the lesser thought, shows in "Rocket Ship X-M." Not that it's a BAD movie. I mean, it's not a Buck Rogers serial. But the difference in quality still shows.

The five astronauts are Lloyd Bridges, Osa Massen, John Emery, Noah Beery, Jr., and Hugh O'Brian. All are professionals and pull off their roles without disgracing themselves, though neither can any be outstanding. How could anyone give an outstanding performance while uttering lines like, "Reduce speed level two"? Lloyd Bridges was evidently lucky enough to have his hair stylist stashed aboard somewhere because his Lenny-Briscoe haircut is never mussed. Noah Beery, Jr., is the requisite ethnic or regional type, in this case the Texan who uses double negatives and brags about the size of his state.

The script, written by Kurt Neumann with additional dialog by Orville K. Hampton, at times stretches its arms out towards the literary. Osa Masson gives a colorful description of a Swiss lake under the moon, "the water like cold coffee." Somebody had to think about those lines. And Bridges manages a quote from Kipling. Okay -- Kipling -- but the quote is an apt one and someone had to have read the poem before writing the script.

What the film has in the way of the odd sparkle in the dialog, it mostly lacks in science. Robert Heinlein was not the technical adviser here, as he was on "Destination Moon." When "meteorites" zip past the errant space ship, they do so with an ear-splitting WHOOSH. The distant earth looks like a map in a high-school geography text, with starkly etched tan continents and primal blue oceans and not a cloud in sight. ("Destination Moon" got that right.) The astronauts walk around in outer space as if they were in their living rooms, although some objects have a habit of arbitrarily popping up into the zero-gravity air.

Osa Masson, an attractive young scientist, gets some occasional needling from the men. There are comments about her icy devotion to science and her "feminine intuition." She asks if they think she should have stayed home and baked and raised children. "Isn't that enough?", asks Bridges. It's very un-PC, naturally, but Bridges ends up suggesting that it's possible "to go too far in the other direction too," a fairly reasonable observation, not exactly anti-feminist.

Osa Masson is a tough babe and can take care of herself. What was far more disturbing was Morris Ankrum as the Big Mahoff back on earth, briefing the reporters on why we need to go to the moon. His explanation? "To establish unassailable bases" so that we "can control the peace" -- just as we're controlling the peace now, I guess.

Just plain bad, and not in the good way

[NavyOrion · 2/10 · 26 May 2008]

I bought "Rocketship X-M" on DVD in a two-pack with "Destination Moon." Now I see why the distributors did that: no one who had ever seen this movie would buy it on its own.

I cannot fathom what school system turned out the reviewer who claimed that RXM is "great in its predictions of how space travel would take place..." Launch straight up, and then do a 90-degree right turn and circle faster and faster until you reach escape velocity... I don't think I recall that from the Apollo program. Never mind that the astronauts should be weightless once they shut off the engines, gravity changes directions every time they pass through the hatch to the engine room. Going to the moon, but "missed" it? No problem, it's just a hop-skip-and-a-jump (with a helping hand from divine providence) and you'll be at Mars! And OK, if you want to put life on Mars, given the state of planetary knowledge in 1950, it was a forgivable convention for the sake of the storytelling, but can you make them look at least a LITTLE alien? These Martians looked like extras from the cast of "10,000 B.C." I can accept some scientific mistakes, but this wouldn't pass muster with an above-average second-grader.

And that's aside from the screaming plot holes: 12 minutes before launch (as you're reminded of constantly by the nagging P.A. voice saying "X minus so many minutes") the astronauts are giving a press conference! I guess the time crunch is why Dr. Eckstrom didn't change out of his coat and tie before launching into space. And how handy that, even though they were planning to go to the moon and had pressure suits for that, they brought hiking gear (and rifles!) just in case they ended up at Mars. They're lucky they landed anywhere, since apparently the method they had developed for landing was to have Dr.E look out the window and tell the "pilot" (Lloyd Bridges) to tweak down the throttles every now and then. Note to the designers of the XM-2: how about giving the pilot a window seat?

Ditto the previous comments on the casual sexism that had eye-candy Dr. Lisa (Osa Massen) doom them all by repeatedly screwing up her fuel calculations, but hey that was the early '50s. She was there to fill her sweater, not a useful function.

"Rocketship X-M" is notable for being one of the first of the first films to say "ohmigod we're all going to blow ourselves up with these here A-bombs", but one can note that about it without wasting 77 minutes watching such dreck. By the way, that message might have had a bit more impact had there been some money in the budget for actual sets of the Martian city ruins, rather than just matte paintings.

I can appreciate "good" bad sci-fi, for the unique way the "future" used to look, and for the inherent (if condescending) humor you can find when when we look back on the naivety of audiences 60 years ago, but this film must have been insulting even then. "Rocketship X-M" isn't even suitable for an MST3K-style lampooning. Sometimes, bad is just... bad.

Anybody want to buy a DVD? Used only once, I swear.

A pioneering, well-honored science-fiction film.

[Hup234! · 7/10 · 13 October 1999]

Some films are blessed (though the producers would argue) by having less money with which to work. "Rocketship X-M" (the initials represent "eXpedition Moon") relies therefore upon, ahem, a real Story, with Acting, rather than flash and effects. That's why a half-century later, the well-remembered "RX-M" has held up so well. (An analogy could be drawn with the co-incidental 1949-1955 television series "Captain Video and His Video Rangers", where the bulk of budget also went towards quality writers and cast.) John Emery is - surprise!- a good guy here.

Osa Massen, one of the screen's most photogenic stars ever, is radiant. The whole cast carries through the forgivable inconsistencies with style. Ferde Grofé's music takes us from exultant triumph to eerie mystery and, finally, into bitter realization of what the RX-M crew discovers, the utter waste of an entire civilization. (Remember the real-life "face" on Mars?) Grofé well-illustrates the withering madness in the crew's panicked escape and return attempt. And the final moments aboard the doomed RX-M are of the stuff that makes for great film. I saw this in theatrical release, and you, too, will find "Rocketship X-M" one of your most memorable. Highly recommended to all.

If I ever get home, I'm never leaving Texas again.

[ur20208 · 2/10 · 9 June 2006]

Minor spoilers

First I must say how rare and charming it is to find a movie with such basic messages in it: nuclear war will inevitably destroy all of civilization, and women are for making babies. It is absolutely incredible how well formulated the plot is to hit in these two points, as with a golden hammer. Essentially, everything about this movie annoyed me. The casual sexism, the character whose sole trait was coming from Texas, the mysterious choice of dying Mars orange, and of course the flawed science of it all. Then the martian woman screaming as if she had just noticed that she was blind? What was that? However, I will give it credit. The fifties did spit out some sillier things. But not much...

Space ships 50 years ago

[fernandopinzas · 7/10 · 23 March 2006]

I've seen some scenes from this movie in a documentary about 50's sci fi movies called Watch the skies. Directors such as George Lucas, Spielberg or James Cameron talked in this film about his favorite sci fi films and Rocketship X-M was one of their favorite ones. So, i decided to downloaded it from Edonkey, because i live in Peru, and here is IMPOSSIBLE to find this kind of films. Unfortunately, i saw the film without Spanish subtitles, so, i didn't understand the dialogs well. Despite that, i think the plot is quite understandable. The tragic ending is great and the vision that the producers of this film had, 17 years before the first trip to the moon and even 6 years before Yuri Gagarin was the first man in the space, makes this an essential film. The plot may be not so "scientific", but i think is an unforgettable film. I could see this film again in a TV channel or in a cinema.

Missed the Moon,on our way to Mars

[nnnn45089191 · 4/10 · 3 August 2007]

Wow, this was a real stinker. This early sci-fi flick has nothing going for it than pure camp. There's so much scientific mambo-jumbo in the dialog it's laughable. The female character played by Osa Massen is just a plot device for the male characters to serve sexist remarks during the entire length of the film. Watch this one with your girlfriend I guarantee it will make her blood boil.The only good thing is the musical score which expertly build the moods of the film. The special-effects are rather crude but not bad considering the vintage of the movie. With some good B-stars in the lead roles,the acting isn't too bad. But the lines they are given must have given them quite a challenge. The challenge of not laughing their heads off.

Excellent, Memorable Little Film

[Larry-17 · 8/10 · 12 September 1999]

This is one I've carried in my memory for years.

Without the Technicolor budget of George Pal and Robert Heinlein's "Destination Moon," "Rocketship X-M" succeeds in becoming a far more meaningful and memorable pre-"2001" science fiction film.

"Destination Moon" attempts a "scientific" preview of man's first lunar visit. Of course, this effort seriously dates the movie (I also smile at the rather whimsical, seat-of-the-pants, "outsider" endeavors of our heros as they manfully put forth, launching their rocket one-step ahead of the narrow-minded "authorities." Okay, so much for that!).

Rocketship X-M had to vie with "D.M." for entertainment bucks at the box office. X-M's b&w budget (with special effects courtesy of White Sands V-2 stock footage and model-making of the string and cardboard variety) didn't allow the producers to throw a lot of "science" at us, however. What they did have going for them, however, were a few excellent character actors doing star-turns for a change of career-pace, a script by Dalton Trumbo, music by Ferde Grofe, and excellent -- and evocative -- sound and camera work...etc.

Granted: The film's overall messages are a bit simplistic -- nuclear war is bad and should be avoided and the human spirit for exploration and discovery cannot be put down by failure and difficulty (I guess they never considered budget shortfalls as a "failure of spirit"). These ideas are, at least, given voice here during what was, after all, a dangerous era in American politics. Remember, Dalton Trumbo was blacklisted!

The science? Okay, it sucks. Who cares!? Science fiction, to my liking, is less about science and numbers than it is about people and life. This has all of that and carries it forward with distinction and class.

When I first saw this movie as a kid, I remember being truly frightened by the bleak view of a post-apocalyptic Mars and shivered in disbelief then terror at the onrushing tragedy of the about-to-crash rocket bearing the two doomed lovers and their sole-surviving crew-mate (a young Hugh O'Brien) to a fiery demise over the Ural Mountains. The producers did a terrific job with what they had and they deserve a great deal of credit.

Excellent movie for its time

[Snaug · 7/10 · 2 July 2000]

This movie is great in its predictions of how space travel would take place in the future (remember, it was released in 1950, way before any manned rocket launches). Of course there are some mistakes, but overall I am impressed how accurate they are. The plot is extremely simple, but the ending is in style with the realism it portrays (although not very hollywood-like) Acting is adequate, but stereotype of its age.

All in all, an enjoyable movie for SF fans

Too sexist and boring to be good

[lbowdls · 3/10 · 2 March 2019]

Look I know this is 1950 and I always make allowances for gender stereotypes back in the day but this film definitely has one if the most sexist lines ever basically saying a woman is too sensitive and men aren't sensitive at all. But to the story itself it's great for a laugh in a schlocky horror sci fi sense but a pretty boring and - as others have said on here - even adjusting for its time frame pretty much nonsense all round. Great cast does it best with the plot and dialogue though.

ONE OF THE MOST ATMOSPHERIC OF THE 50'S SCI-FI'S

[Irv-9 · 19 July 1999]

Writer-Producer-Director Kurt Neumann put together an excellent ensemble cast, and accomplished having Lippert Pictures finance this $96,000 venture in 1950. This is a simple picture that works due to fine direction, players and technical staff. Karl Struss, one of Hollywood's most admired photographers, lensed the picture. One of the best known American composers, Ferde Grofe, wrote the musical score, and one reviewer found it more original than John Williams' STAR WARS score. Although the technical knowledge that exists today dates the picture somewhat, this picture is not campy because it has a serious tone to it, and most audiences key in on that. The original soundtrack recording of the score received an LP release on the Starlog label during the 70's. There are now moves underfoot to re-record the entire score for a CD release, possibly in 2001.

ROCKETSHIP XM received some updates in the 70s, when some new special effects scenes were shot and released on VHS. This version is currently available from video sources.

Excellent Fodder for MST3K

[aimless-46 · 1/10 · 6 January 2006]

To call "Rocketship X-M" a science fiction classic is due more to its release date (1950), its savvy ability to capitalize on the publicity for "Destination Moon", and the appearance of actors who would later star in television as Sea Hunt's Mike Nelson, Rockford's dad and Wyatt Earp.

The movie itself is bad enough to be good fodder for MST3K and is best viewed with commentary from Joel and the robots. This is the type of movie best suited to added riffing from the MST3K characters; something preachy, slow-paced, poorly scripted, and full of painfully bad acting. While unintentionally funny stuff like "Plan 9 From Outer Space" don't lend themselves to satirical commentary (because the movie constantly upstages the hosts), really bad and dull movies like "Rocketship X-M" are ideal. So add some stars to the rating if you are watching the MST3K version.

The basic story has the crew taking an unplanned right turn at the moon and ending up on Mars. What they find on that planet are the remnants of a human-like civilization devastated by an atomic war. Only one Martian is shown in close-up, a normal looking woman who is blind or at least has no pupils in her eyes. The men look like the "goons" in the old Popeye cartoons, they scamper agilely around the cliffs and throw boulders at the crew with amazing accuracy-especially if they are supposed to be blind. Of course none of this is ever explained as doing so would require some sign of logical analysis from the writers of the screenplay.

The scenes on Mars are presented in something called "Sepia Color" to distinguish them from the rest of the B&W movie. If this has you thinking "Wizard of Oz" you will be disappointed because it is just black and white stuff with a slight brown tint added to the print in post-production.

In keeping with the moronic sexism of the movie, the icy female scientist screws up her fuel calculations-both coming and going. Her failure to measure up to the men causes her feminine side to surface and she and Mike Nelson coo sweetly to each other as they face their doom (insert sound of gagging here).

The real stars of the movie are the reporters at the command center. So much so that MST3K was inspired to specially salute these unheralded heroes. The intrepid squad of "newsies" are featured for the first 10 minutes of the movie, then take stations about 12 inches behind the technicians and monitoring equipment in the command center. Later they are called upon to ask the moronic questions needed by the mission director to expound on the movie's already too obvious message.

The DVD has an extremely low audio level, is not captioned, and is accompanied by a trailer. Although you will be thankful that it is only 77 minutes, it is still about 60 minutes too long as any 30 minute episode of "The Twilight Zone" has several times more content than this entire movie.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Rx-M (Prescription for Mankind)

[retrorocketx · 5/10 · 22 May 2010]

In the early 50s, the idea of rockets carrying mankind into space began to look attainable and practical. Space was not just for fantasy anymore. Some of the best movies to first explore and pioneer the science fiction of space travel were classics like Destination Moon, When Worlds Collide, and of course Rocketship X-M.

Genre conventions quickly emerged, which today are enjoyable to watch for as the movie plays. Overarching elements like benevolent governments (or UN), committees, scientists and industrialists are integral to the venture. Experts hold conferences, and if you are really lucky, they will show off a blueprint of the rocketship. The rocketship will usually be a cigar-shaped variant of a German V-2, and will almost always be silver in color. There will also be some semi-solid science mixed in with some really loopy notions about space travel.

The crew of the rocketship is usually a blend of scientists, military types, hot-shot alpha males (one or two), and for reasons that probably only made sense in the 50s, a 'regular Joe' kind of character for comic relief (but oh boy is it painful to watch now). Usually an attractive and single woman scientist is present, but no matter what credentials she carries she will be patronized or upstaged by a male at some point, and almost always she will serve coffee to the men (with a smile). Oh yeah, and in the end, one of the alpha males will want to marry her.

Other conventions to watch for include the blast-off and its effects on the crew, a few odds and ends become weightless (much to the surprise and delight of the crew), a meteor shower will threaten the ship, and often there will be a space walk along the hull of the ship (with the camera rotated 90 degrees of course).

If you enjoy watching for the above elements, congratulations and welcome to the wonderful world of science fiction movies, circa 1950s. I love this stuff.

In Rocketship X-M the rocket is based on a 1949 Life magazine moonship design. We get to see the blueprint of the rocket, we learn that it is two stage (as was Life's proposed rocket). Look for bits of V-2 footage on the takeoff and landing of the rocket, but otherwise the special effects look okay. In this movie, great attention is paid to the fuel mixture (from several types of fuel carried on board) and calculations involving that mixture. We learn that these calculations require several hours, and are done by pencil and paper! At one point the crew has to physically alter fuel connections in the fuel bay, which is kind of a cool scene.

Rocketship X-M is clearly a classic. As such, it contains many of the genre elements. But in all honesty, the movie drags somewhat because it tries to be so serious and as a 21st century audience member, you just about fall off your chair at the really bizarre and messed up notions of science. But hang in there, it has a great story. The rocket is attempting a flight to the moon, but it goes off course and ends up at Mars (OMG). The crew explores Mars all decked out in obsolete Army surplus gear from WWII (including gas masks), they make an important discovery (Mars looks very cool with the red tone), and attempt to head back to earth to tell the world the crucial lessons they learned to benefit mankind. But do they have enough fuel to get back? Will Lloyd Bridges break down the scientist woman's icy professionalism and get her to fall in love with him?

Lloyd Bridges learns to breath in outer space

[huemannus · 5/10 · 18 August 2007]

With Rocketship XM, a trip to the moon is like a trip to the corner grocery. No need for any time consuming pre-flight preparations or complex calculations for a jaunt through thousands of miles of vacuum and titanic gravitational forces. Just review a chalk board drawing of the XM's easy-as-pie layout, joke around with the press, then saunter over to the launch pad with your crew a few minutes before departure. It might be a little chilly in outer space so wear your leather jackets. Unless good ole XM runs into a shower of crackerjacks, its supposed to be air tight, so helmets or other protective gear is optional.

What a crazy trip it turned out to be. A twist of the dial here, a pull of the lever there, and a few pencil and paper miscalculations later, the XM makes an unscheduled U-turn to Mars. Space flight can be tricky and full of surprises for the unwary traveler.

But what the heck. Since you're there, might as well hop down for a little scientific exploration. Mars ain't so bad after all but the air's a little thin. Better bring along your oxygen mask and a few weapons in case you run into a little trouble with the local natives who have devolved into sickly cavemen after toasting their planet with nukes.

On the way back be sure to warn the worried folks back home what can happen if they play around with nukes and ask them to be understanding about the mess you're going to make out of XM because your side trip to Mars used too much fuel. Happy smack down.

"I've done some of my best work by moonlight."

[utgard14 · 7/10 · 26 August 2017]

Pioneering sci-fi film about the first manned space flight to the moon that drifts off course and heads to Mars! The cast is good, with classy John Emery the standout as the mission leader. Osa Massen is the sole female on board the flight. She's all business until he-man Lloyd Bridges thaws her out. Bridges' horndog character seems to have only joined the mission to get in Massen's pants. Every scene he's putting the moves on her, no matter what danger they're in. Noah Beery is the obligatory character who talks about being from Texas all the time. A staple of many World War II films was a character who was either from Brooklyn or Texas and always bragged about it. This character type made the transition from those earlier war films into science fiction films in the '50s.

It's full of what would later be clichés of the genre and it's all very modest and even cheap in some ways. The sets aren't comparable to the higher budgeted Destination Moon, which was released a month after this, but they're nice in their own way. Some scenes were added in the '70s to replace stock footage used in the original. I enjoy this movie a lot. It isn't going to please many but I think it should be very entertaining for fans of Golden Age sci-fi movies.

"I suppose you think that women should only cook and sew and bear children."

[bensonmum2 · 3/10 · 6 April 2008]

I completely understand the historical significance of Rocketship X-M, but that doesn't make it a good movie. To begin with, the plot (or what there is of it) is dull and lifeless. Five astronauts blast off for the moon – they get knocked off course and end up on Mars (huh?) – cavemen-looking Martians throw rocks at them – they return to Earth and meet a fiery death – The End. Believe it or not, but this pithy plot description makes it sound much more interesting than it really is. To make matters worse, John Emery's character, Dr. Karl Eckstrom, feels it necessary to give long drawn out speeches on everything from the nature of man to the dangers of nuclear weapons. It's just a thrill-a-minute (sarcasm intended).

Looking back at Rocketship X-M almost 60 years later, I would call the portrayal of women funny if it weren't all so sad and misguided. There are a number of examples I could cite, but there's one exchange of dialogue just after take-off between the male chauvinist pilot Floyd (played by the irritating, plastic-haired Lloyd Bridges) and Dr. Lisa Van Horn (the only female crewmember and the constant object of Floyd's often creepy attention) that illustrates the film's attitudes toward women quite nicely:

• Floyd: "I've been wondering, how did a girl like you get mixed up in a thing like this in the first place."

• Dr. Van Horn: "I suppose you think that women should only cook and sew and bear children."

• Floyd: "Isn't that enough?"

I think Floyd should have stayed behind with the cavemen!

X-M rides red again!

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 6 December 2006]

It's good to have the location scenes (filmed in Death Valley and Red Rock Canyon) restored to their original theatrical red tints in the current DVD release. That's certainly a considerable improvement over the washed-out prints circulating on TV in the late 1960s. The black-and-white scenes look great too.

One thing, alas, that has not improved is Lloyd Bridges' overweeningly smug, self-satisfied, aren't-I-just-too-heroic performance. Mr Bridges here packs all the charm of a cheap carnival barker. Normally he's a very reliable player and I don't know what possessed him to show off. Director Neumann should have imposed some restraints. Although equally hampered by Mr Hampton's tired, if tried and true, additional dialogue, the other players, even Noah Beery, Jr., seem engagingly realistic, even when the story wanders from the highly unlikely into the utterly impossible.

Still, although the movie pretends to offer scientific and astronomical facts, its sole purpose is to entertain and this it does reasonably well. In fact, production values look so impressive overall, it's a wonder to me that the picture came in at a negative cost of only $94,000! Lots of "crowd artists" pack the benches in the briefing scene, but many of these "reporters" are actually behind-the-camera personnel who have been suddenly (if briefly) thrust into the limelight. There was no sign of photographer Karl Struss in the crowd, but I think I recognized producers Lerner, Lippert and Neumann.

Oh Man Is It Baaaaaddddddd......

[verbusen · 3/10 · 6 December 2006]

I'm seeing a pattern here. If you see a movie on Mystery Science Theater 3000, chances are if you go to IMDb.com there will be hordes of lovers of the film, yet it was picked to be on that TV show because it was sooo bad. I'm sorry but I read a lot about Rocketship X-M as being some landmark sci fi film that stressed realism. Well if that is the case I could write for several paragraphs about how even with 1950's knowledge this movie is utterly flawed. Gravity might be the first obvious observation, or as MST3K did as a skit "selective gravity", also what about when they are plunging to their death and they are just standing there looking out of the window, um would'nt the ship being upside down effect that scene? I would like to think that they started with good intentions and that it ran over budget or something but I think this movie was just plain cheese as in the from under type. Just compare this to "When Worlds Collide" which was released in 1951 to see the true place where this movie ranks, there's no comparison. The movie gets a 2 or maybe 3 on its own, its not even funny to watch on its own. It gets about a 5 or 6 as a MST3K episode as there is no action or much to make fun of, just bad, bad, bad, oh did I mention, it's bad.

A great score!

[irv_l · 8/10 · 20 October 2005]

Ferde Grofe, one of America's great composers, was somehow persuaded by Lippert Productions to write the music score for their low budget production of ROCKETSHIP X-M. It is a wonderful operatic score, because RXM, after all, is a space opera. The main title is heroic in nature; the weightless music conveys that feeling perfectly, and there is a lovely tune, begun by a solo violin, that suits Lisa and Floyd's mild flirtations perfectly( very similar to THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY by Tiomkin, but written two years earlier). When the ship approaches and lands on Mars, the theremin is included in the orchestration for music that truly sounds alien. As the crew faces doom as they attempt to return to earth, the music takes on very dramatic moods. The picture's music ends with an upbeat Hollywood thrust. This is truly one of the outstanding sci-fi scores, and except for an original soundtrack LP album on the Starlog label (released in the 1970s) it has been virtually ignored. This score deserves a new and updated recording.

XM = Expatriated Missile

[flapdoodle64 · 7/10 · 18 February 2014]

Despite this picture being produced quickly and cheaply in order to capitalize on the publicity generated by George Pal's big budget 'Destination Moon,' this movie is better than a lot of scifi flicks produced today costing tens of millions of times more and having our 21st century futuristic technology for special effects.

It's interesting to note that the film was directed by the German-born Kurt Neumann and features the beautiful Teutonic actress Osa Massen in the female lead. The original version of this film, screened by American audiences 5 years after the surrender of Germany, contains footage of the WW2 German V-2 missile, used in lieu of FX miniature shots of the titular rocketship. The V-2 footage is not from WW2, however. The V-2 film comes from the American rocket program, which in 1950 was still using captured V-2's for testing and development, due to the fact that even 5 years after WW2, the USA still did not have anything that could touch it.

These facts are interesting because Germany was hugely important to space exploration movement of the 20th century. It was a clique of German rocket experts in the 1920's who first proposed plausible trips to the moon for humans, and who served as advisors for German director Fritz Lang for the silent 'Frau Im Mond,' the first attempt at a serious cinematic depiction of space travel. The space enthusiasts were co-opted in the 1930's by the Hitler regime, eventually designing the A4, which rained indiscriminate technological death upon England in a manner similar to way US drones rain indiscriminate technological death upon the villages of Pakistan and other Muslim nations.

The German rocket experts were all captured by the US and Russians as Germany finally fell to the Allies in 1945, and they were forced to share their expertise with their captors. One German rocket expert, Werner Von Braun, did well for himself in the USA, designing the mighty Saturn V, which eventually took the first humans to the moon.

In this film, the lustful American pilot Lloyd Bridges, dressed in military fatigues, spends a lot of screen time trying to put the make on the serious German rocket scientist Osa Massen. It's kind of a metaphor for the USA, ostensibly seducing but perhaps also coercing the German rocket program for it's own uses.

There are some long, dull sections of this film in the beginning and middle where Neumann should have compressed things...probably he had orders to make this film over 1 hour so that it might pass for an 'A' picture (in those days, 'B' pictures were frequently just at the one hour length). And there are numerous scientific boners, like a zero gravity environment where a jacket floats but humans don't.

At the same time, there are a number of visuals, such as the meteor scene, where you can appreciate the ingenuity of the filmmakers, who created these images with almost no money and almost no time, and none of our futuristic technology. The acting is, overall, pretty good, and there are some very nice uses of language in certain parts of the script.

The scenes filmed at the launch center and inside the rocket, are spartan and atmospheric in a way that makes the film seem more realistic than it actually is. (The later Lippert feature, Flight to Mars, which used the same rocket sets, is inferior to this film.) As is often the case, black and white film stock gives this feature an unintended documentary quality, toning down the unrealistic elements.

The Martian sequences, filmed at Death Valley, contain some artistic visuals and there is a nice use of the theremin sound, the earliest example I know in scifi films.

Many others have noted that this is the first scifi film to discuss the possibility of earth being destroyed by atomic war. It should also be noted that this film touches upon all the other major themes of science fiction films of the 1950's: human space flight, alien races, the planet Mars, and atomic mutants.

Despite the primitive FX and numerous scientific boners, Neumann and his writers achieved a tone that is adult and dramatic, all the while avoiding the embarrassing emotional excesses of George Pal's later, big budget Mars film, 'Conquest of Space.' Also, the ending of this film is very different than most scifi films of this period, containing a nice bit of poetic dialogue. This film should be on the curricula of any 1950's scifi film buff.

Just another B-grade sci-fi flick, part II

[jamesjustice-92 · 3/10 · 16 April 2023]

I've seen some pretty cheesy and unrealistic sci-fi flicks in the past and this one is surely among them there.

Rocketship X-M, written and directed by Kurt Neumann who has done many alike films in his heyday in the 1950s, tells a story of five astronauts going to the Moon but due to an unfortunate event end up on planet Mars and decide to discover it a bit.

First off, this movie bears almost zero scientific authenticity - the pilots do not experience gravity in the slightest, hear sounds in space and what is happening on Mars is beyond your wildest dreams - Georges Melies' 1902 'A trip to the Moon' could have easily been this movie's blood brother by merits of imagination. And second and the most disappointing thing is that even the story itself, despite being moralizing and touching on the subject matter of nuclear war and its consequences, erases it all with kooky, idiotic dialogues full of misogynistic stereotypes and scientific mumbo-jumbo and therefore is not worthy to stick around for.

Lloyd Bridges in one of his first leading roles is far from being great, mainly due to his character being just your average Joe trying to earn a sympathy of a girl, but in space. All the rest of the cast members are just as bad and their characters seem as if written out of textbooks on how not to write an engaging story.

The filming of this movie took only 18 days and it figures: the creators were trying to beat Destination Moon in their race to be the first interplanetary movie but failed just as well as they did.