Злобная красная планета Zlobnaya krasnaya planeta

1959 film

The Angry Red Planet (also called Invasion of Mars and Journey to Planet Four) is a 1959 American science fiction film directed by Ib Melchior and starring Gerald Mohr. Melchior reportedly had an initial production budget of only $200,000 and was given just nine days to film it. Such financial and time constraints necessitated the use of "CineMagic", a film processing technique that combined hand drawn animations with live action footage. The relatively inexpensive process was used for all scenes depicting the surface of Mars. While CineMagic proved unsatisfactory for creating visually believable special effects for The Angry Red Planet, producer Norman Maurer did reuse the process in 1962, although to a lesser extent, in the comedy film The Three Stooges in Orbit.

Mission control personnel on Earth monitor the rocketship MR 1 ("Mars Rocket 1") as it approaches Earth orbit following the first crewed expedition to Mars. Personnel are surprised to see the ship on their monitors, for they believed that the vehicle had become lost or destroyed in space. Ground technicians are unable, though, to make contact with anyone on MR 1, so they guide the rocket by remote control to a safe Earth landing. Only two survivors of the original four person crew are found in the ship: Dr. Iris Ryan and Col. Tom O'Bannion, whose entire right arm is covered with a strange green alien growth. The MR 1's mission to Mars is then recounted by Dr. Ryan as she also helps to find a cure for Col. O'Bannion's badly infected arm. In her debriefing, she reports in detail the crew's experiences while traveling to the Red Planet and exploring its surface. She describes their expedition in retrospect, as if it were currently happening. After MR 1 reaches Mars and its crew explores the planet's surface, Dr. Ryan is attacked by a carnivorous plant, which Chief Warrant Officer Jacobs kills with his freeze ray, which he calls "Cleo". The crew then encounters an immense bat rat spider crab creature, at first mistaking its legs for trees. That creature is also blinded and repelled by Jacobs who, again, uses his ray gun. When the crew returns to their ship, they realize that their radio signals are being blocked and the MR 1 is unable to leave Mars due to a mysterious force field. O'Bannion next leads the crew to a Martian lake, where a city with high, impressive structures is visible on the other side, far in the distance. Crossing the water in an inflatable raft, they are stopped by a giant amoeba like creature with a single spinning eye. They hurriedly retreat, the creature pursuing them. As they are entering their ship, the creature catches Jacobs and draws him inside the gelatinous body, soon absorbing him; it has also infected O'Bannion's arm. The creature envelops the ship and is expected to eventually develop acids to eat through it. O'Bannion leads them in rewiring the ship to electrify the outer hull, which drives the creature away after destroying parts of it, then they rewire the ship for lift off. The three survivors manage to lift MR 1 off from the planet since the force field has somehow been deactivated, but Professor Gettell, the MR 1's designer, dies of an apparent heart attack caused by the extreme stresses of the ascent. Once the MR 1 returns to Earth, O'Bannion's infected arm is cured by medical staff using electric shocks. Mission control technicians also examine the MR 1's data recorders from the expedition and find a recording of an alien voice, which announces that the ship's crew were allowed to leave Mars so that they could deliver a message to their home planet. The voice then states that "we of Mars" have been observing human development on Earth for many thousands of years and have determined that humanity's technology has far outpaced progress in cultural advancement. The alien then accuses humankind of invading Mars, warning that if future expeditions ever return to the Red Planet, the Earth would be destroyed in retaliation.

The Angry Red Planet began as The Planet Mars, a treatment written by Sidney Pink about a space voyage to Earth's mysterious neighbor. Pink said in an interview a few years before his 2002 death: "It was written on my kitchen table. My kids were my critics, they'd tell me what was good and what just fell flat". Pink gave his treatment to Melchior after meeting him at a party. Melchior believed the project had potential, so he offered to help write the screenplay if Pink allowed him to direct the film. While Melchior worked on establishing a working script, Pink met Maurer, who was developing CineMagic, a "revolutionary" filming process for creating special effects by combining hand drawn images with live action. However, it soon became apparent the process would not be able to deliver what had been promised with respect to the quality of its effects. Pink recalled that "the damn Cinemagic didn't work like it should. It was supposed to be sort of a 3 D effect. What we came up with was great anyway". Comments made by Pink on the eve of filming provide some evidence regarding how little money was spent to design and build sets for the production. In an interview for a September 7, 1959 news item by Associated Press reporter and writer James Bacon, Pink is quoted about the extreme cost cutting effectiveness of using the new CineMagic process: "Our set for the planet Mars cost us a couple of hundred dollars instead of the thousands we had estimated". Pink also estimates in that interview that the movie "will be made at half the original cost",

American International Pictures released the film in September 1960 with its original running time varying between 83 and 87 minutes. AIP also distributed the film initially as part of double feature billings. At theaters in some regions it was presented with Circus of Horrors, and in other regions it was presented with Beyond the Time Barrier. According to Pink, he had trouble working with AIP, more specifically with the "notorious" Samuel Z. Arkoff. However, not all reviewers in 1959 and early 1960 were critical of the film in general or, in particular, CineMagic's deficiencies in simulating the terrain, fictitious plant life, and monstrous creatures on Mars. Motion Picture Daily reviewer Samuel D. Berns was enthusiastic at the time about the production, calling it "a stimulating experience in suspense and intrigue". Erickson does faintly compliment the film for at least coloring scenes of Mars' surface with a red tinge, which in his opinion gives the sequences "a credibly alien look". However, reviewer Bruce Eder of AllMovie is more positive in his appraisal of the film, commending in particular its overall style of direction:Danish born director/screenwriter Ib Melchior brings a surprisingly light, deft touch to the proceedings, allowing the actors a chance to have fun with their roles—especially Gerald Mohr, still looking and sounding a bit like Humphrey Bogart, as the stalwart mission commander, and Jack Kruschen as the good humored technician in the crew—without losing sight of the adventure and the story line, and meshing it all seamlessly with the special effects driven sequences.

The cover artwork for the 1982 album Walk Among Us by the American punk rock band Misfits features the rat bat spider creature from The Angry Red Planet.

The Angry Red Planet was first released on VHS by Thorn EMI/HBO Video. It was later released on VHS and DVD by MGM Home Entertainment in 2001, as part of their "Midnite Movies" line of home media releases.