The Angry Red Planet (1959) on Netflix
The first crewed expedition to Mars comes home with only two of its four members aboard. Dr. Iris Ryan cannot recall the voyage, and an alien growth covers Col. Tom O'Bannion's arm.
- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb5.3/104,397 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes0%
Trailer
Plot summary
Mission control on Earth writes off Mars Rocket 1 and the four people aboard, until the ship turns up in orbit, its crew silent. Technicians bring it down by remote control to a landing in Nevada, where only two of the crew are found. Dr. Iris Ryan is shaken and remembers nothing of the journey, and Col. Tom O'Bannion's right arm is covered with a green alien growth. To help the doctors who treat him, Dr. Ryan is questioned until the voyage returns to her: the landing on Mars, a carnivorous plant that Chief Warrant Officer Jacobs destroys with his freeze-ray, a towering creature whose legs the crew takes for trees, and a force that holds the ship on the planet.
Cast
- Paul Hahnas Maj. Gen. George Treegar
- Tom Dalyas Dr. Frank Gordon
- Don Lamondas TV Newscaster / Narrator / Martian (voice)
- Edward Innesas Brig. Gen. Alan Prescott
- Gordon Barnesas Maj. Lyman Ross
- Jack Haddockas Lt. Col. Davis
- Brandy Bryanas Nurse Hayes
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Angry Red Planet (1959)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The rat-bat-spider creature from The Angry Red Planet appears on the cover artwork of the Misfits' 1982 album Walk Among Us, and briefly in Iron Maiden's music video for "The Number of the Beast".
- CineMagic gave the Mars scenes their red glow by processing a black-and-white negative with solarisation, which partly reverses the negative, then tinting the result red; no film positive was needed, which lowered costs.
- Director Ib Melchior reportedly had an initial budget of only $200,000 for The Angry Red Planet and was given just nine days to film it, and those money and time limits forced the production to use the CineMagic process.
- Producer Sid Pink said the set for the planet Mars cost a couple of hundred dollars instead of the thousands that had been estimated, crediting the cost-cutting effectiveness of the new CineMagic process.
- Producer Sid Pink said he had trouble working with American International Pictures, especially the "notorious" Samuel Z. Arkoff; Pink said neither trusted the other and that with Arkoff "you never got a straight count".
