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I'm Working On: Red Planet Mars (Patreon)

Published:
2019-03-09 09:26:03
Imported:
2021-07

Content

This is probably the most difficult review I've had to write, but for different reasons to usual. The film is so politically and religiously charged and we've always tried to steer clear of that sort of thing (although some commenters disagree). Changing attitudes to gender and race are fair game, but generally we try to just review the film. But this film is so ideologically based that it's a real challenge. Check out the reviews on IMDB and you can see that people who agree with its views like it and those that disagree hate it - they're not criticising it as a film at all. It will be interesting to see how people react to this one, but I hope I've managed to focus on the film as a film.

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Comments

Anonymous

This is a remarkable artifact. It was regularly cycled among normal monster/sci-if movies on tv when I was a kid and it’s just so...odd. I’ve always wanted to take a look at the play it’s based on. It’s a low budget cousin to the equally pious “The Next Voice You Here.”

darkcorners
>>20620144

Didn't know it was based on a play. I'll have to check that out before I write the final draft.

Anonymous

What I’m seeing here is that the play was titled “Red Planet” by John L. Balderston and John Hoare with the screenplay for the movie by Balderston and Anthony Veiller, Balderston’s IMDB is deeply genre, crediting him with adaptations and screenplays (credited and uncredited) for “Mark of the Vampire,” “Mad Love,” “The Mummy,” “Frankenstein,” and “Bride of Frankenstein.” In 1927 he “revised” Hamilton Deane’s 1924 stage adaptation of “Dracula.” The play “Red Planet” exists in a 1933 Samuel French acting edition. The internet Broadway Database indicates it opened in December, 1932, ran a total of seven performances and the action was set in London. And, what’s this? There appears to be a copy of the play at the Los Angeles Central Library.

darkcorners
>>20645758

I was disappointed to see Balderstone's name as such a cornerstone of Universal horror.

Anonymous

We shadows like to go that extra step. For my own curiosity, and hopefully your entertainment, I’ve read the play. The movie turns out to be an essentially faithful adaptation, adjusting for the changes between London in 1933 and cold war America. The Hydrogen valve is there, along with Pi being the key to communication, and substantial chunks of dialogue come over intact, but there are differences. Oh, are there differences. Set in the “Immediate Future,” the husband and wife scientists are there, but without children. He is a strident atheist and venomously condescending toward his wife who still insists on going to church. This leads to the same question the movie can’t answer: Why would these two people ever get married? The first messages are, as in the film, about energy sources resulting in panic. The husband is called before the Prime Minister and ordered to suspend communication. As in the film, this meeting is interrupted with the first religious message. Nudged by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the decision is made to release the religious message…for the express purpose of distracting the population from the other messages and hopefully avoiding the collapse of the government and the world economy. With no Russians and no Nazis (although Hitler is mentioned once or twice) who is responsible for this chaos? Existing in only one second act scene is the Count de Reinach, described as a “Belgian-Jewish financier,” who contracted with the unseen inventor of the Hydrogen valve, Calder (apparently the only character to get the same name in the film script), to build a device to monitor the Mars communication should the married scientists succeed. The Count doesn’t care if the messages are real or not, so long as he gets inside information. He profits from the initial panic, and when the religious messages are sent, orders his underling to buy a Bible publishing company. His final line, spoken in triumph: “The Jew cashes in on the Christians’ Messiah!” Then things start getting a little strange. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, the mob behind him, forces the British government to adopt “The Golden Rule Standard.” World governments scramble to adjust as the global economy dissolves and society starts to mutate into the beginnings of a divinely socialistic millennium. The atheist husband is very unhappy, while his religious wife anxiously awaits the next message from “The Prophet on Mars.” In the third act, Calder shows up, described in the text as “a hunchback…(who) walks with a limp.” He has “the high forehead of the thinker,” but “the large protruding ears of the criminal.” Much of the third act will make its way into the final confrontation of the film intact, including the avalanche. But there is a hell of a one-two punch difference from the film. In the play, there is no final message from Mars confirming the existence of Jesus among the canals; it was always Calder and no one else. There is no God. Atheist husband was right all along, but he’s started to listen to his wife. Change is coming to the world. It must be allowed to happen, even if it’s based on a lie. The wife, hoping to keep the world on the new path of righteousness, deliberately opens the Hydrogen valve. The husband sees this, and when his wife lifts the cigarette to her lips, strikes a match. Calder doesn’t cause the explosion, the couple has committed suicide. In the epilogue, the remains of the husband and wife are put to rest in the Sanctuary of Westminster Abbey where they are eulogized by the Archbishop of Canterbury with the speech that goes to the American president in the movie: “Well done, good and faithful servants.” I was startled by the apparent scale of the production: Three acts, nineteen speaking roles, plus “Members of Parliament” and an “ensemble,” and a great deal of indicated stage craft including the on stage explosion of the laboratory. And the thing appears to have closed after seven performances in December, 1932. I’ve meant to unearth this play for years. Thanks for giving me the kick I needed to find it. J

Anonymous

Not sure how popular Esme Percy was, but he was scheduled to be in the play, but withdrew. (I don't know why). The NY Times gave it a terrible review and it only had a few performances. The TL;DR version: The Red Planet told of an atheistic scientist (Bramwell Fletcher) and his deeply religious wife (Valerie Taylor) who believe they have made radio contact with Mars. To their amazement the Martian replies are filled with comments from the New Testament. But the replies are eventually shown to have been sent by a waggish, deformed old radio operator in the Alps. Disillusioned, the wife blows up the laboratory, killing herself, her husband, and the old man of the mountains.