Rocketship X-M, 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.
