Rocketship X-M
Tags: cult

Plot synopsis:
Four men and a woman blast into outer space from the White Sands Proving Ground aboard the RX-M (Rocketship Expedition-Moon) on humanity's first expedition to Luna. Halfway there, after surviving their jettisoned and runaway first stage and a meteoroid storm, their engines suddenly quit. Recalculating fuel ratios and swapping fuel tank positions fixes the problem. After the engines fire, RX-M rapidly careers out of control on a rapid heading beyond the Moon; lowered oxygen pressure also causes the crew to slowly pass out. They gradually revive much later and discover that they have traveled some 50,000,000 miles and are now on a direct heading toward Mars. Quick calculations reveal that RX-M is only 50,000 miles away. Dr Karl Eckstrom (John Emery) is forced to "pause and observe respectfully while something infinitely greater assumes control".
RX-M passes through the Martian atmosphere and lands safely. The next morning the scientists, clad in aviation oxygen masks due to the low pressure, begin exploring the desolate surface. They come across physical evidence of a now dead advanced Martian civilization: a partially buried-in-the-sand, stylized, Art Deco- or Tiki culture-like metal face sculpture and, in the distance Moderne architecture-like ruins. Their Geiger counter registers dangerous radiation levels, keeping them well away; from the levels detected, there has been an atomic war on Mars in the distant past.
Finding cave refuge, the scientists notice in the distance the primitive descendants of that civilization emerging from behind boulders and creeping toward them. Amazed, Dr Eckstrom comments "From Atomic Age to Stone Age." Soon after leaving, two of the explorers encounter a dark-haired woman who has lost her footing and rolled down a hill toward them; she is blind, with thick, milky cataracts on both eyes. She screams upon hearing their oxygen mask-distorted voices. The radiation burned tribesmen attack, throwing large rocks and stone axes. Armed with only a revolver and a bolt-action rifle, the explorers defend themselves, purposely missing the primitives. Dr Eckstrom is killed by a stone axe; another astronaut is badly injured by a large thrown rock. The survivors finally make their way back to the RX-M.
As the RX-M nears Earth, the survivors calculate that they have no fuel for a landing. Col. Graham contacts their base and reports their dire status to Dr Fleming (Morris Ankrum), who listens intently and wordlessly over headphones. Col. Graham's report is not heard, but Fleming's subtle reactions tells of the crew's odyssey, their discovery of a once advanced civilization destroyed long ago by atomic war, and of the crew fatalities at the hands of Martian descendants reverted to barbarism.
Col. Graham and Dr Van Horn embrace as the RX-M begins its uncontrolled descent, consoling one another in the moments left to them. Through a porthole, they bravely watch their rapid descent into the wilds of Nova Scotia. The press is later informed by a shaken Dr Fleming that the entire crew has perished. When they ask if the mission was a failure, he confidently responds with conviction, stating that all theories about manned spaceflight and exploration have now been proven. He continues, underscoring the point that a dire warning has been received that could very well mean the salvation of humanity, "A new spaceship, the RX-M-2, begins construction tomorrow". The pioneering exploration continues.

Review: This film probably inspired in it's own way a lot of young people to explore science and space exploration for real..
Lloyd Bridges is in love with himself even more than he is with the German girl scientist on board - which is kind of nauseating - but overall, the film is a favorite.Classical music lovers will take note of the music score by Ferde Grofe, better know for his Grand Canyon Suite and other orchestral works..
Of course, this effort seriously dates the movie (I also smile at the rather whimsical, seat-of-the-pants, "outsider" endeavors of our heros as they manfully put forth, launching their rocket one-step ahead of the narrow-minded "authorities."  Okay, so much for that!).Rocketship X-M had to vie with "D.M." for entertainment bucks at the box office.
What they did have going for them, however, were a few excellent character actors doing star-turns for a change of career-pace, a script by Dalton Trumbo, music by Ferde Grofe, and excellent -- and evocative -- sound and camera work...etc.Granted: The film's overall messages are a bit simplistic -- nuclear war is bad and should be avoided and the human spirit for exploration and discovery cannot be put down by failure and difficulty (I guess they never considered budget shortfalls as a "failure of spirit").
This movie is great in its predictions of how space travel would take place in the future (remember, it was released in 1950, way before any manned rocket launches).
Despite this picture being produced quickly and cheaply in order to capitalize on the publicity generated by George Pal's big budget 'Destination Moon,' this movie is better than a lot of scifi flicks produced today costing tens of millions of times more and having our 21st century futuristic technology for special effects.It's interesting to note that the film was directed by the German-born Kurt Neumann and features the beautiful Teutonic actress Osa Massen in the female lead.
The original version of this film, screened by American audiences 5 years after the surrender of Germany, contains footage of the WW2 German V-2 missile, used in lieu of FX miniature shots of the titular rocketship.
One German rocket expert, Werner Von Braun, did well for himself in the USA, designing the mighty Saturn V, which eventually took the first humans to the moon.In this film, the lustful American pilot Lloyd Bridges, dressed in military fatigues, spends a lot of screen time trying to put the make on the serious German rocket scientist Osa Massen.
It should also be noted that this film touches upon all the other major themes of science fiction films of the 1950's: human space flight, alien races, the planet Mars, and atomic mutants.Despite the primitive FX and numerous scientific boners, Neumann and his writers achieved a tone that is adult and dramatic, all the while avoiding the embarrassing emotional excesses of George Pal's later, big budget Mars film, 'Conquest of Space.' Also, the ending of this film is very different than most scifi films of this period, containing a nice bit of poetic dialogue.
The rocket takes off for a lunar mission, in a cosmos where there is always a gravitational effect on the crew (though loose objects float as in zero gravity) and because of that, the "cabin" (the area with the controls, whatever they called it) was gyrostabalized to maintain the "correct" orientation (so that when they landed, why didn't they land standing on their heads?) and where, at least in near-earth space, the rocket engines had to be running continually -- with propellant combusting away without an oxidizer.
This time, the rocket recalled it had momentum, and the next thing our heroes know they're near Mars (even a 13-year-old nerd knew such a minimum-energy trip would take over 200 days).They land, find the air was breathable (though at the time scientific data revealed that the pressure, even if the atmosphere were pure oxygen, would be too low to do any good).
They come armed, even though they were supposedly going to the Moon, where firearms wouldn't be needed.They get a sight of a collapsed civilization, encounter stray martians who look just like people, develop an anti nuclear war philosophy, and those who survive try to get back to the home planet, and die in the attempt by crashing on the Earth!
To do that would require such a long orbital period, they'd have died of starvation long before approaching their destination.The film it preceded, Destination Moon, used real science most effectively (even though their "rescue" with the Oxygen Tank forgot about the moment arm from the tank's center of gravity to the output nozzle).
Only the most technologically illiterate should think of it as a science fiction film: it's on a par with the old Flash Gordon serials where their rocketships took off from their bellies and climbed in spirals, and whose engines were always on.The story on this one I considered banal, and I can recommend this only as a film to be shown to students for them to pick out technical gaffes..
Pioneering sci-fi film about the first manned space flight to the moon that drifts off course and heads to Mars!
To call "Rocketship X-M" a science fiction classic is due more to its release date (1950), its savvy ability to capitalize on the publicity for "Destination Moon", and the appearance of actors who would later star in television as Sea Hunt's Mike Nelson, Rockford's dad and Wyatt Earp.The movie itself is bad enough to be good fodder for MST3K and is best viewed with commentary from Joel and the robots.
So add some stars to the rating if you are watching the MST3K version.The basic story has the crew taking an unplanned right turn at the moon and ending up on Mars.
It already features many of the ingredients that would become genre staples: the crew of the spacecraft is virtually a microcosm of post-war America (though two are actually foreigners  including the obligatory intellectual female, Osa Massen, whose icy exterior melts under the dogged attentions of rugged pilot Lloyd Bridges), their mission (whose details are meticulously spelled out during the opening Press Conference) apprehensively observed by Ground Control and, of course, the eventual glitch which jeopardizes the flight and sends our heroes to Mars (inhabited by cave-men, victims of a nuclear fall-out, no less!) instead of the Moon.
Needless to say, the film feels quaint at this juncture if still eminently watchable: given the low-budget involved, the narrative is mostly restricted to the admittedly stylish shuttle interior  though the climactic exploration of Mars effectively takes place on desert locations and shot in evocative sepia.
Incidentally, the last act proves surprisingly downbeat (emphasizing its intent as a cautionary tale  Dalton Trumbo reportedly contributed to the script!) and, yet, it is capped by a determined effort to keep the space race going despite the initial failure (a scene which, again, would soon be turned into a sci-fi cliché: see THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT [1955])..
I don't know about you but I vividly recall seeing a film by George Melies that was produced almost 50 years before that involved a space rocket going to the moon and humans meeting the strange inhabitants living there .
Sometimes marketing and the truth are two entirely different things That said this movie does mirror the real life space race going on at the time .
Unfortunately, we can't seen the movie as originally filmed, for its current owner, Wade Williams, decided to add new effects sequences replacing the V-2 footage used for the original release.
The acting is fairly well done, if stereotypical, and the production values are pretty high considering some of the Sci-Fi movies that were to come later in the decade.My biggest problem with this film are some of the very outdated characterizations in it.
Generally cited as the first post war sci-fi movie, Rocketship X-M is dull, talky, and stereotypic of many films of the genre to follow.
When a manned mission flies to the moon, it gets diverted and ends up on Mars, which turns out to have its own story.All these old movies about space travel come across as silly in an era when there's already been a moon landing and there's an International Space Station, but they're still fun to watch.
Lloyd Bridges, Osa Massen, John Emery, Hugh O'Brian, and Noah Beery, Jr., are the first astronauts making a planned flight to the moon.
But a combination of a lot more rocket fuel than needed, a gravitational boost from earth's rotation, and a wrong turn in space and our intrepid crew head to Mars.No more has to be said only that the Martians are decidedly inhospitable and the ending a downbeat one.Science fiction is always a chancy thing in terms of imagination.
Secondly it looked like computers or even pocket calculators were never invented as scientists Osa Massen and John Emery are busy figuring out their rocket fuel consumption and space trajectory with pencil and paper.
Planned moon flight (distance: about 350,000 miles; trip time: less than two weeks) becomes voyage to Mars (distance:  about 35,000,000 miles; trip time:  one year!), when astronauts are knocked unconsious by initial acceleration.This absurd plot line was purportedly added during production after DESTINATION MOON, a much more expensive (and much better) film was released.Certainly ROCKETSHIP X-M has some stunning visuals (particularly on the Mars surface, which is tinted pinkish-red) and solid acting.
Doubtless the effect was more profound in post-World War II America than it would be today, but nonetheless the sad ending adds to the film's message.2)  It is also one of the first movies to deal with space travel in a serious fashion, using space as a valid setting for drama.
Rocketship X-M was released about the same time as Destination Moon at the cinemas and was one of the first movies that started the 50's sci fi craze.A rocket blasts off to the Moon, but because of a malfunction, they end up on Mars instead.
After exploring, the crew head back to the rocket to return to Earth but it crashlands after running out of fuel, killing all on board.The movie is tinted red for the Mars sequences and the special effects are quite good considering the low budget.The movie stars Lloyd Bridges (Sea Hunt, Around the World under the Sea), Osa Massen as his love interest, Morris Ankrum (Invaders From Mars, Earth vs.
This is one I've carried in my memory for years.Without the Technicolor budget of George Pal and Robert Heinlein's "Destination Moon," "Rocketship X-M" succeeds in becoming a far more meaningful and memorable pre-"2001" science fiction film."Destination Moon" attempts a "scientific" preview of man's first lunar visit.
This is one I've carried in my memory for years.Without the Technicolor budget of George Pal and Robert Heinlein's "Destination Moon," "Rocketship X-M" succeeds in becoming a far more meaningful and memorable pre-"2001" science fiction film."Destination Moon" attempts a "scientific" preview of man's first lunar visit.
X-M's b&w budget (special effects courtesy of U.S. Army White Sands V-2 stock footage and miniatures of the string and cardboard variety) the producers made a last-minute choice to not throw a lot of "science" at us and to take us deeper into space than the moon.
What they had going for them were some excellent character actors doing star-turns for a change of career-pace, a script by Dalton Trumbo, music by Ferde Grofe, and excellent -- and evocative -- sound and camera work...etc.The film's overall messages are simplistic -- nuclear war is bad and should be avoided and the human spirit for exploration and discovery cannot be put down by failure and difficulty (I guess they never considered budget shortfalls as a "failure of spirit").
This has all of that and carries it forward with distinction and class.When I first saw this movie as a kid, I remember being truly frightened by the bleak view of a post-apocalyptic Mars and shivered in disbelief then terror at the onrushing tragedy of the about-to-crash rocket bearing the two doomed lovers and their sole-surviving crew-mate (a young Hugh O'Brien) to a fiery demise over the Ural Mountains.
This has all of that and carries it forward with distinction and class.When I first saw this movie as a kid, I remember being truly frightened by the bleak view of a post-apocalyptic Mars and shivered in disbelief then terror at the onrushing tragedy of the about-to-crash rocket bearing the two doomed lovers and their sole-surviving crew-mate (a young Hugh O'Brien) to a fiery demise over the Ural Mountains.
A perfectly plausible story of five astronauts who take off in a 1950s space ship, make a wrong turn, and land on Mars instead.
After that, things get kind of hairy.I understand this was rushed into production while George Pal's far more lavishly budgeted "Destination Moon" was being shot, with the aim of beating the bigger and more publicized film into theaters.
("Destination Moon" got that right.) The astronauts walk around in outer space as if they were in their living rooms, although some objects have a habit of arbitrarily popping up into the zero-gravity air.Osa Masson, an attractive young scientist, gets some occasional needling from the men.
The pioneering 1950 sci-fi film "Rocket Ship X-M" was way ahead of its time in regards to its message and also in terms of serious dramatic content provided by an "outer space" movie.
Considering the low budget (even for 1950) for this "B" movie, the cast is solid with Lloyd Bridges, Hugh O'Brien, Noah Beery Jr. and Osa Massen along for the ride.
This film beat the more highly publicized Destination Moon into the theatres in 1950 and thus kicked off the tidal wave of science-fiction movies that followed.
Despite some really hokey dialog and wildly improbable developments (aim for the moon, but hit Mars!), Rocketship does what every good movie should-- it holds interest throughout.
On a similar note, Ankrum's closing insistence that space exploration must proceed despite an ill-fated first effort is years ahead of its time, and likely the first such declaration in the movies or any other popular medium.
The patronising drivel heaped upon the female crew-member is both hilarious and also shocking.To think that such attitudes were so recently "normal".As I said at the start, I find this film very entertaining, as a late night, lights out romp through the romance of travel in outer space, from the perspective of the days before it had actually happened.
I can say this because I saw them one after another today--an interesting way to see these two milestone films.The biggest problem is that while ROCKETSHIP X-M wants to be taken as serious sci-fi, there are just too many elements in it that would soon be recognized as clichés.
This made the film come off as a bit cheap, but at least I was thrilled that inside the space ship it didn't look like a big empty room.
It looked a bit more like a real space ship.Overall, the film is entertaining, offers a few mild thrills and abounds with predictability as well as a message that comes off as both preachy AND premature.
When I saw this as a young teen (early 1950s, on broadcast television), I was immensely moved by the tragic love story, immensely glad to find--finally--some movie out there actually saying what most of us growing up in the shadow of the Bomb were secretly feeling: that nuclear war was hardly a help to sacrosanct "National Security" but, rather, a threat to all life on Earth; just as the explorers in Rocketship XM were to find on Mars, nuclear bombs could indeed destroy a civilization, turn a world to desert.
Some of the best movies to first explore and pioneer the science fiction of space travel were classics like Destination Moon, When Worlds Collide, and of course Rocketship X-M.Genre conventions quickly emerged, which today are enjoyable to watch for as the movie plays.
The rocket is attempting a flight to the moon, but it goes off course and ends up at Mars (OMG).
*Spoiler/plot- Rocketship X-M, 1950, During the very early years of the Space Race, an American scientific group designs and crews a spaceship to go to the moon.
And the rocket ship crashes back to Earth with no survivors.*Special Stars- Osa Massen, Lloyd Bridges, Noak Beery Jr, Hugh O'Brian, Morris Ankrum, John Emery.*Theme- Hope and progress in scientific matters is the best motivation for success.*Trivia/location/goofs- B & W.
This was a low-budget rival for theater tickets when George Pal's expensive film, 'Destination Moon' came out near the same time.
This is a fun and exciting film of a different time in space science..
I bought "Rocketship X-M" on DVD in a two-pack with "Destination Moon." Now I see why the distributors did that: no one who had ever seen this movie would buy it on its own.I cannot fathom what school system turned out the reviewer who claimed that RXM is "great in its predictions of how space travel would take place..." Launch straight up, and then do a 90-degree right turn and circle faster and faster until you reach escape velocity...
By the way, that message might have had a bit more impact had there been some money in the budget for actual sets of the Martian city ruins, rather than just matte paintings.I can appreciate "good" bad sci-fi, for the unique way the "future" used to look, and for the inherent (if condescending) humor you can find when when we look back on the naivety of audiences 60 years ago, but this film must have been insulting even then.
Five astronauts blast off for the moon  they get knocked off course and end up on Mars (huh?)  cavemen-looking Martians throw rocks at them  they return to Earth and meet a fiery death  The End. Believe it or not, but this pithy plot description makes it sound much more interesting than it really is.