I am a fan of the early 1950s Sci-Fi Movies. This film was substantially better than I thought it would be.If it seems like you have seen this movie before - perhaps you already have. Many of the props were recycled from other Sci Fi Movies. The Ship interior is from "Rocketship XM", The Martian suits are from "Destination Moon".What impacted me most about this movie were the Martian Fashions. The women of Mars were wearing miniskirts in 1951!This is obviously an extremely low budget movie which was shot very quickly. It does however have a certain charm which you never find in the modern gazillion dollar Sci Fi movies.

With all the urgency of consuming a candy bar under a shade tree in August, the crew of this particular spaceflight heads towards the red planet after strolling up to the big rocket to strap themselves in like cosmic sardines.Things are cool until the rocket gets messed up causing the space travelers to have to consider remaining on Mars - if they can safely land there at all. Cameron Mitchell is a doubting writer, John Litel is the confident commander, and pretty Virginia Huston masquerades as the 'girl next door', all the way up to the moment when she gulps down a bourbon... and again when she starts whipping Cameron and Arthur Franz for womanizing.Quiet film with enough novelty value to keep one interested especially when we see the Martian babes strutting around in tiny red mini-skirts.

Lippert Pictures struck paydirt with 1950's Rocketship XM, and was hoping for a similar result with this feature. As early sci-fi, the movie's okay, but lacks the grit of its predecessor. The premise is a real stretch with an underground Martian civilization that speaks flawless English, while the women parade around like Las Vegas show girls. (Not that I'm complaining.) Then too, the rocketship crew treats their pioneering flight like a trip to the mall.But if you can get past some of this nonsense, parts of the movie are eye-catching. I really like the standing rocket in the dome with the people beneath. It's a well-done effect, especially in color. Also, the script deals fairly thoughtfully with the predicament the Martians find themselves in. In short, that aspect is not settled in a typical Hollywood wrap-up. Then there's the great Morris Ankrum as Ikrom, the sneaky plotter. Would any sci-fi of the period be complete without his lordly presence. Anyway, despite the pacing that sometimes drags, the movie ends up somewhere in the middle of all those goofy 50's space operas.

For Flight To Mars, Monogram Pictures and its penny pinching head Sam Katzman must have really cracked open the cookie jar to spend money on this film. Color even, unheard of for Monogram film. It was probably their big budget item that year, comparatively speaking.Four scientists, Arthur Franz, Virginia Huston, John Litel, and Richard Gaines and a reporter Cameron Mitchell are the crew of the first manned flight to Mars. And the Martians are humanoid as we are and have a nice little underground civilization that unfortunately runs on a material called Corium. As essential to them as the buffalo was to the Plains Indians.But they're running out of Corium on Mars and the leader of the high council wants to use the earth astronauts rocket-ship to take armies back and conquer Earth. How they're going to do it with dwindling Corium and one rocket is something the script doesn't really go into.In the meantime Arthur Franz finds a little love on Mars in the person of shapely Martian Marguerite Chapman. Still the Earth visitors are caught in a power play between Martian leader Morris Ankrum and former leader Robert Barrat.Sad to say even with color Flight To Mars suffers from the same lack of production values that typify Monogram's products and the lack of a really coherent script. But the Martian girls are lovely to look at, it was like watching a Miss America pageant.