This very smart 1960s sci-fi film stars a studly Paul Mantee as Kit Draper, American astronaut, who is stranded on Mars and must figure out how to survive until he can figure out how to be rescued.
The film's strengths are the performance from Mantee, exceedingly watchable in what mostly amounts to a one-man show, and its reliance on science instead of manufactured fantasy. Sure, there's plenty of made up stuff about Mars (like hidden pools of fresh water, edible plants that look like sausages, rocks that emit oxygen when burned), but what's fictional is so seamlessly blended into the facts we've since learned about Mars, its terrain and its atmosphere, that it's easy to forget the far-fetched details aren't actually accurate facts.
Director Byron Haskin, who received several Academy Award nominations throughout the 1940s for his special effects work, makes the most out of what is obviously a modest budget. Being a special effects pioneer himself, it's no surprise that he makes sure the effects in this film are pretty decent.
Grade: B+
The film's strengths are the performance from Mantee, exceedingly watchable in what mostly amounts to a one-man show, and its reliance on science instead of manufactured fantasy. Sure, there's plenty of made up stuff about Mars (like hidden pools of fresh water, edible plants that look like sausages, rocks that emit oxygen when burned), but what's fictional is so seamlessly blended into the facts we've since learned about Mars, its terrain and its atmosphere, that it's easy to forget the far-fetched details aren't actually accurate facts.
Director Byron Haskin, who received several Academy Award nominations throughout the 1940s for his special effects work, makes the most out of what is obviously a modest budget. Being a special effects pioneer himself, it's no surprise that he makes sure the effects in this film are pretty decent.
Grade: B+