Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

Flight to Mars Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 25, 2021

For Baby Boomer movie fans in particular, seeing the name "Mirisch" in production credits often indicated a top tier, quality production, as evidenced by such well remembered films as Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, The Magnificent Seven, West Side Story, The Great Escape, The Pink Panther, Hawaii, In the Heat of the Night, The Thomas Crown Affair and Fiddler on the Roof. But even the mightiest oak can start as a relatively unimpressive acorn, and as C. Courtney Joyner gets into in an enjoyable biographical featurette included on this Blu-ray disc as a supplement, Walter Mirisch began what would become his formidable career in the film industry at perhaps the most unlikely of places: "poverty row"'s Monogram Studios. As Joyner gets into, Mirisch was instrumental in helping Monogram "evolve" into Allied Artists, and one of the major steps forward in that process was Flight to Mars, as patently "quaint" as the film may come off to modern day eyes. Though obviously not exactly a fulsomely budgeted feature, Flight to Mars was in fact granted at least a few more bucks than the typical Monogram fare of that general period, and it was also supposedly the first science fiction film to be shot in color, albeit in the lo-fi Cinecolor process.

Even commentator Justin Humphreys may seem to struggle for a moment or two trying to convince himself that Flight to Mars is "exciting" even if it, as Humphreys overtly mentions, plays out "in a series of rooms". The basic plot is both corny and potentially hilarious. An engineer named Jim Barker (Arthur Franz) is contrasted with a journalist named Steve Abbott (Cameron Mitchell), as both men will be joining a team of scientists aboard an upcoming, well, flight to Mars. Barker is a rational, scientific type, while Abbott is more of a hot blooded guy ruled by his passions, which makes the men's interchanges with Barker's assistant Carol Stafford (Virginia Huston) a little humorous. Others in the party include leader Dr. Lane (John Litel) and Professor Jackson (Richard Gaines).

With surprisingly little first act exposition, the story segues fairly quickly to the actual flight, where a couple of near calamities may not leave our intrepid explorers Lost in Space (so to speak), but with limited options in terms of staying in touch with Earth and making it back to their home planet intact. Their spacecraft crash lands on Mars, which of course turns out to have "natives" who conveniently speak English due to a kind of conceit which may remind some of Galaxy Quest. The leader of the Martians is an apparently affable guy named Ikron (Morris Ankrum), though the Earthling males may be more prone to be paying attention to Martian scientist Alita (Marguerite Chapman) and/or Terris (Lucille Barkley), who functions as a kind of Martian flight attendant, if the astronauts were still flying, that is.

The "intrigue" of Flight to Mars surrounds attempts to either repair the Earthling's spaceship, or alternatively build a new one, but those nefarious Martians may have a bait and switch planned, leading to a potentially laugh out loud "action" climax that involves heroic Earthling males shoving nasty Martian villains. Flight to Mars will probably strike younger viewers as hopelessly ridiculous, with cardboard characters, stilted dialogue, and special effects that may provoke more laughter than awe. The film does at least attempt a bit of production design whimsy, which is clearly influenced by Things to Come, as some of the supplements get into.

Flight to Mars Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Flight to Mars is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Film Detective with an MPEG-2 encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. The back cover of this release touts this is a "4K restoration sourced from the original 35mm Cinecolor separation negatives", and that the restoration and preservation were undertaken by Paramount Pictures Archive. The fact that this release bears several sizable copyrights belonging to Wade Williams may be of enough interest for enterprising Googlers to do a little research, though our Forum thread devoted to the film might be a good starting place. Cinecolor was not exactly Technicolor, or even Eastmancolor or Deluxe, and the results here are pretty widely variant. The first third or so of the transfer is the most problematic, with color temperatures that veer kind of weirdly between very cool bluish tones and warmer, almost red-orange, hues. While things definitely improve as the film goes on, the color timing continues to wend to and fro and scenes can offer noticeable changes in overall tonal look quite dramatically from moment to moment. Detail levels are generally nice looking, with fabrics on costumes and practical items like sets and props offering precise renderings. Grain struck me as slightly variable as well, though not to the dramatic extremes of the color variances. While the grain field looked like it ebbs and flows, there were no issues with resolution, and despite this being encoded via MPEG-2, I didn't notice any major compression issues.

Flight to Mars Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Flight to Mars features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track that offers a generally clear accounting of the film's kind of low scale sound design. Even the "blast off" here isn't especially explosive, and sound effects may strike some as being rather sparingly used, at least when compared to modern day sci-fi spectaculars. All of this said, both dialogue and Marlin Skiles' score are presented without any issues. Optional English and Spanish subtitles are available.

Flight to Mars Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Walter Mirisch: From Bomba to Body Snatchers (HD; 14:08) is an extremely enjoyable piece with C. Courtney Joyner discussing Mirisch's attempts to get Monogram off of "Poverty Row", at least in the perception of the rest of the film industry.


• Interstellar Travelogues: Cinema's First Space Race (HD; 10:30) features Vincent Di Fate discussing the history of films about space travel.


• Commentary with Justin Humphreys

Additionally, an insert booklet includes some writing on the film by Don Stradley.

Flight to Mars Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Flight to Mars is kind of undeniably silly, and Monogram, despite granting this film a somewhat larger budget than the typical fare from the studio, simply didn't have the deep pockets to support a really convincing science fiction extravaganza. The film offers some passing insight into Walter Mirisch's early producing career, and in that regard, the C. Courtney Joyner featurette is a real standout. Technical merits are generally decent, though the video side of things is rather widely variable, for those who are considering making a purchase.