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February 29, 2004
Life found on Mars!
Well, no — not yet. The following announcement is from Steve Popson over at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, where they are going to have another film playing.
Travel to the Red Planet as the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences stays open until 9 p.m. on Friday, March 5, to present the sci-fi classic Rocketship X-M (1950).
Astronaut Lloyd Bridges leads a group of scientists on what should be mankind's first exploration of the moon. After a successful launch, the team encounters a meteor shower and must steer their ship off-course, unexpectedly ending up at the planet Mars. Since they are in the neighborhood, the astronauts decide to land on the Red Planet where they discover the radioactive ruins of an ancient civilization.
Even with a small budget, the entertaining Rocketship X-M helped launch the wave of space exploration films in the 1950s. Written by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, the film also manages to get in a message about the hazards of nuclear war. It was directed by Kurt Neumann and filmed by Karl Struss, who's other credits include Kronos and The Fly.