During the video rental boom of the eighties and nineties, it was common practice to see
cheap knock-offs of regular box office hits, movies seemingly made for the sole purpose
of deceiving video renters by latching onto the pre-existing marketing campaign of another studio.
Growing up in those days, I was naïve enough to believe that this was a new phenomenon,
that films like Mac & Me and Carnosaur couldn't have been around in the classic days of Hollywood.
However, the history of so-called "mockbusters" predates the days of VHS and Betamax by decades.
In late 1949, one of the most publicized science-fiction films to date,
George Pal's ambitious Destination Moon, was delayed due to production difficulties,
missed its planned release date, and had to reschedule for a premiere the following
summer. Meanwhile, another film was rushed into production by another studio. This new film
dealt with nearly identical subject matter, and despite far smaller investments in time and money,
it managed to compete with George Pal's seminal rocketship classic, no doubt because it released
a few weeks earlier. So while I have told you, dear viewer, that Destination Moon was
the true beginning of the 1950's sci-fi movie craze, I can now tell the rest of the story.
Two visionary men of science have just made history by being the first to launch a manned
mission to our lunar satellite. Despite having state-of-the-art equipment and a world-class crew,
however, the mission has gone horribly awry, and the spaceship, the Rocketship X-M,
is now hurtling toward Mars. What will they find on the red planet, and will they have enough fuel
and resources to make it back to Earth alive? Only time, and a little bit of luck, will tell.
Before we go any further, if you could please hit that like button, I might be able to keep
this ship on the right course. If you really do like this video, please subscribe as well.
Thank you in advance. With that out of the way, let's get back to the subject at hand.
It was never much of a secret that, when Destination Moon was delayed, classic B-movie
icon Robert Lippert decided to finance a copycat film to capitalize on the publicity. He claimed he
was inspired by an unrelated news article about the possibility of launching men to the moon,
and he was careful to make this new film different enough from George Pal's big budget spectacle to
avoid any potential outrage or lawsuits, primarily by changing the setting from the moon to Mars.
Though Lippert was the one who got the ball rolling, the credited producer,
writer, and director is Kurt Neumann, a German expatriate known at the time for
low-budget streamliners and a few Tarzan films, but who would go on to direct the
sci-fi classics Kronos and The Fly. Before Destination Moon went into production,
Neumann, who was eager to work in the genre, shopped around a script about a voyage to Mars,
where the crew finds dinosaurs roaming the red planet, but he couldn't attract interest.
Then, after special effects man Jack Rabin had come up with his
own rocket story whose title--"Destination Moon"--was legally acquired by George Pal,
Rabin went to Lippert with a modified concept under a different name.
By the time Destination Moon hit its production snag, Lippert hired both Neumann and Rabin to
work together on a budget of just $94,000. He also brought in the blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo,
one of the infamous Hollywood Ten, who worked on the script without receiving credit.
The plot then became an amalgamation of different ideas, with Neumann's dinosaurs replaced
by a nuclear wasteland, and the film was slotted for an impossibly brief 18-day shoot under various
working titles including None Come Back, Rocket Ship to the Moon, and Journey into the Unknown.
They ultimately settled on the title Rocketship X-M.
The lead role of Colonel Floyd Graham went to Lloyd Bridges,
an actor who'd only had a handful of leading roles but had long been considered a good
supporting actor, appearing mostly in B-pictures. He would later become famous
for a series of television roles, especially as the lead in Sea Hunt, and for being the
father of fellow actors Beau and Jeff Bridges, though I'll always remember him for Airplane!.
"Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines."
The female lead of Dr. Lisa Van Horn went to the Danish actress Osa Massen,
who'd had notable roles in A Woman's Face and Deadline at Dawn, and the
rest of the cast is made up of prolific character actors including John Emery,
Noah Beery Jr., Hugh O'Brian, and of course, Morris Ankrum, who would go on to star in
other cult sci-fi classics like Invaders from Mars, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, and Kronos.
Location shooting was done in Death Valley, which stood in for the barren surface of Mars,
and the film was tinted pink for these scenes. There wasn't much money for special effects,
which were overseen by Jack Rabin and matte painter Irving Block, and stock footage of
V-2 rocket launches was used in place of more expensive and time consuming effects shots.
While it's easy to laugh at the sloppy double exposures and obvious matte paintings,
these effects are impressive given the time and budgetary constraints,
not to mention a time period in cinema that wasn't too invested in effects.
The music was arranged by Ferde Grofé and his work is notable for being the
first science-fiction score to include a theremin, an instrument that became
inseparable from science-fiction throughout the fifties and sixties.
Rocketship X-M released in May of 1950, nearly a full month before Destination
Moon. Critics weren't very impressed and were disdainful of the cynical way Rocketship X-M
rode another film's coattails, but audiences turned out in good numbers,
earning the film a respectable profit and giving Kurt Neumann's career a much needed boost.
Lippert made additional money by selling the distribution rights to
various television companies, and it became a fixture on TV screens well into the sixties.
However, by the seventies, television stations stopped showing black-and-white films,
so film entrepeneur Wade Williams bought the rights and all copies of several
classic black-and-white genre films, including Rocketship X-M. Williams then updated Rocketship
X-M with a few added scenes and effects, replacing things like the V-2 stock footage.
Though prints of the original version of the film still exist in Williams' film vault,
only Williams' modified versions have been made available for home release.
I may have been a bit hasty and unkind to Rocketship X-M in my review of Destination Moon--
"It's only lasting legacy today is being the subject of the second
season premiere of Mystery Science Theater 3000."
"However, I must make something clear."
"I'm wearing a bra."
--as Rocketship X-M does offer an important contribution to science-fiction cinema. Fair
or not, it was the first space adventure on the silver screen in the post-war era,
and it is the first science-fiction film to directly tackle the idea of nuclear
devastation on a planetary scale, a theme that would go on to become a staple of the genre
and which is notably absent from the bigger budget Destination Moon.
While I do applaud the third act for being an exciting adventure with a
bold conclusion, the first two-thirds of the movie are almost
unwatchably dull. There's a lot of fictional technobabble that doesn't pass the smell test--
"At differential six over m to the thirtieth power,
the halfway check result is 262 thousand to 341 thousand, both using tangent e, correct?"
--especially when compared to the more technically researched Destination Moon,
and the plot is full of pointless contrivances and bizarre character choices.
There is also some casual mysogyny on display--especially in the forced romance
between the leads--but at the same time, you don't have to read too much into things to know that the
entire doomed trip could have been saved if they'd actually listened to the only female on board.
So to be honest, I don't love Rocketship X-M, but I can understand why it has a devoted following.
Sure, it was designed from the ground up to be a cash grab,
and sure, it isn't as proficiently made as the movie it was trying to emulate,
but it is better than it has any right to be and it was the first big science-fiction adventure
of a golden sci-fi decade. It should rightfully be called a sci-fi classic,
but it also serves as an important reminder that the mockbuster has never been a transitory trend.
And that's all for today, my fellow Earthlings. What's your favorite mockbuster? Let me know in
the comments, and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe if you haven't
already. If you'd like to support what I do even more, consider joining my Patreon to get access
to bonus content, vote on future topics, and more. If you're watching the Apple TV show Foundation,
I've got a podcast called Cracking Foundation that I'll link in the description, but know that,
since the show's first season has just finished airing, the podcast is about to change over to
a different title and will cover a broader range of streaming content. I'll update the
description when that happens. You can also check out my website at emagill.com, where you'll find
written reviews of plenty more sci-fi classics in both film and literature. Until next time, though,
when a motorcycle gang member will threaten to destroy reality, this is The Unapologetic Geek,
telling you to never be ashamed of what you love, as long as you're not hurting anybody.
"Down on my ranch, I used to throw a little old thousand
pound steer over my shoulder every morning."
"Sure that wasn't a little old bull you were throwing?"