Rocketship X-M (1950)

Too much of everything

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

A Masterpiece!

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

As was typically common with these old sci-fi beauties this movie is also know as 'Expedition Moon' and 'Rocketship Expedition Moon'. This movie was also the first outer space flick made directly after WWII, bit of movie knowledge for you there.The plot involves a small group of astronauts that will undertake a mission to the moon. Well I say astronauts but actually one is an ex-fighter pilot, Floyd Graham (Lloyd Bridges). One is a physicist and the designer of the RX-M, Dr. Karl Eckstrom (John Emery). One is an astronomer, Harry Chamberlain (Hugh O'Brian). One is a flight engineer, William Corrigan (Noah Beery) and one is a Chemist and assistant to Eckstrom, Dr. Lisa Van Horn (Osa Massen). Their mission is to simply reach the Moon, but halfway there the rockets give up leaving them floating in space, something to do with the fuel mixture? Anyway after rejigging the fuel consumption from different tanks they are back on the move again. Problem is when the engines fire the rocket blasts out of control at great speed knocking the crew unconscious. They awake to find themselves in orbit around Mars.OK so this being made 19 years before man first set foot on the moon for real, you can forgive them for not getting things quite right. That coupled with the fact there is of course suspension of disbelief required and artistic license used. Nonetheless you can't help but giggle at the oh so quaint ways showcased in this classic. For starters the five explorers are literally your everyday type people. Sure they're highly skilled intelligent people in their chosen fields but that's it; Dr. Eckstrom is obviously too old for this sh*t and Corrigan is obviously too overweight. My initial reaction when the five board their rocket was, hey! where are their spacesuits? Yep in this movie the team all wear what look to be aviator type attire, leather jackets and cargo/combat pants. Not a space helmet or any kind of specialised apparatus amongst them. All the scenes whilst inside the rocket feel like a war movie, they could all be inside a submarine, bomber or tank because the set and props seems to be constructed around that premise. Again unsurprising given the era. The sets do look good though I'll say that, the big port hole windows, bunk-beds and such are amusing but who cares. Its also amusing when the lack of gravity inside the rocket kicks in causing objects to float...accept them apparently. Oh and no more than five minutes or so after the rocket takes off they're all walking around like no ones business (laugh out loud!).The general science and astronomy is all over the place in this movie but to be fair, as said before, they probably just used tonnes of artistic license. I'm sure the director and co didn't really think this way. For example they plan to reach the Moon within a day (or even hours!), but when the rockets engines go nuts they end up reaching Mars within hours! Not entirely sure how long the crew are unconscious for but I don't think it was days or anything. I'm still not overly sure why the engines went berserk in the first place, something about adding the Earth's orbital velocity to the rocket, and the fuel mixture?? Still, the trip to Mars and back is a quick one in this universe.So they reach Mars and somehow still haven't burnt up all their fuel, oxygen, food and water. They decide to land and look around, as you do...no spacesuits!!! No helmets, no nothing, yes its one of those sci-fi classics where you can walk around on other planets unaided. All they use are aviator breathing masks (or gas masks?), binoculars, oh and they have guns too, in case of naughty aliens. Low and behold what do they find? an ancient alien civilisation wiped out by war (darn pesky atomic bombs again) and savage aliens intent on killing them with rocks (would you Adam n Eve it!). Despite that silliness they do a relatively good job with the Martian surface. Sure its clearly some desert in California but with a nice red tint on the film it actually looks quite good.In all honesty what can I say about this gem? There is an astronomical amount of hysterically bad inaccuracies to be found here, I know I haven't covered all of them because there are too many. The acting is a joy to watch as the cast do their best to make this nonsense seem thrilling. Clearly Emery as Eckstrom is having a ball with all his technical space jargon, I could listen to it all day. Then you have the comedic relief in Corrigan who is from Texas and keeps going on about bloody Texas. He also comes across as rather stupid for someone on this mission. As for Bridges, well you can see that future 'Hotshots' tomfoolery shining through, plus he still looks old even though he's young. Quick kudos for Morris Ankrum simply because he's always awesome in these flicks.The special effects are naturally hokey as hell but they do job. Its mostly a character driven plot confined within sets which are pleasing visually. Although there are some nice matte paintings for the Martian surface and the rocket on Earth. The sexism on display at times is hilarious in the fact that its so blatant yet obviously acceptable for the time; and the finale is actually quite bleak which was surprising. I don't think you can go wrong here if you're a fan of corny 50's science fiction. This has got to be one of the best.8/10

In the early 50s, the idea of rockets carrying mankind into space began to look attainable and practical. Space was not just for fantasy anymore. 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. Overarching elements like benevolent governments (or UN), committees, scientists and industrialists are integral to the venture. Experts hold conferences, and if you are really lucky, they will show off a blueprint of the rocketship. The rocketship will usually be a cigar-shaped variant of a German V-2, and will almost always be silver in color. There will also be some semi-solid science mixed in with some really loopy notions about space travel.The crew of the rocketship is usually a blend of scientists, military types, hot-shot alpha males (one or two), and for reasons that probably only made sense in the 50s, a 'regular Joe' kind of character for comic relief (but oh boy is it painful to watch now). Usually an attractive and single woman scientist is present, but no matter what credentials she carries she will be patronized or upstaged by a male at some point, and almost always she will serve coffee to the men (with a smile). Oh yeah, and in the end, one of the alpha males will want to marry her.Other conventions to watch for include the blast-off and its effects on the crew, a few odds and ends become weightless (much to the surprise and delight of the crew), a meteor shower will threaten the ship, and often there will be a space walk along the hull of the ship (with the camera rotated 90 degrees of course).If you enjoy watching for the above elements, congratulations and welcome to the wonderful world of science fiction movies, circa 1950s. I love this stuff.In Rocketship X-M the rocket is based on a 1949 Life magazine moonship design. We get to see the blueprint of the rocket, we learn that it is two stage (as was Life's proposed rocket). Look for bits of V-2 footage on the takeoff and landing of the rocket, but otherwise the special effects look okay. In this movie, great attention is paid to the fuel mixture (from several types of fuel carried on board) and calculations involving that mixture. We learn that these calculations require several hours, and are done by pencil and paper! At one point the crew has to physically alter fuel connections in the fuel bay, which is kind of a cool scene.Rocketship X-M is clearly a classic. As such, it contains many of the genre elements. But in all honesty, the movie drags somewhat because it tries to be so serious and as a 21st century audience member, you just about fall off your chair at the really bizarre and messed up notions of science. But hang in there, it has a great story. The rocket is attempting a flight to the moon, but it goes off course and ends up at Mars (OMG). The crew explores Mars all decked out in obsolete Army surplus gear from WWII (including gas masks), they make an important discovery (Mars looks very cool with the red tone), and attempt to head back to earth to tell the world the crucial lessons they learned to benefit mankind. But do they have enough fuel to get back? Will Lloyd Bridges break down the scientist woman's icy professionalism and get her to fall in love with him?

Apparently there was a 'space race' that most of us are unaware of, though in 1950 it was fast and furious. It seems that George Pal had announced a new picture (DESTINATION MOON) that would feature a moon landing and it was to be the first of many similar films made in the 1950s. However, when the makers of ROCKETSHIP X-M heard about this, they decided to rush this film into production and beat them to the punch, so to speak. However, the DESTINATION MOON people cried foul and so when ROCKETSHIP X-M was marketed, they were forced to include a proviso that it was not DESTINATION MOON. Well, I don't know how these films fared at the box office, but as far as quality goes Pal and the rest of the DESTINATION MOON people had little to worry about, as ROCKETSHIP X-M, though a decent film, wasn't nearly as well made or entertaining. It seems that although it was technically first, it certainly wasn't best. 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. The most obvious was including a female crew member. This set the stage for a million and one sexist and silly remarks and while the film makers might have been trying to say something positive about women's rights, the crew member really came off as just another piece of meat. The second cliché is finding aliens on their mission, though in this case instead of either little green men or horny space babes (such as in QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE or CAT-WOMEN OF THE MOON) they are very primitive and look human. They discover cave men on Mars who apparently like to smash things--including members of the crew. In fact, because the film had so many clichés, when the film was about half-way complete, I predicted to my wife who on the crew would die in what order and I was correct! I'm not THAT smart--the film was just that predictable.In addition to the clichés, the film makers didn't do a very good job of dealing with the scientific aspects of space travel. Part of this might have been ignorance (such as having small objects on the ship float in zero gravity but not bigger ones--as if that mattered) and much of it was probably due to their desire to rush it into production (no pressure suits or other protection when walking on Mars--despite the cold temperatures and pressure difference). 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. After only walking about for a few minutes and not even exploring the Martian cities, the scientist among the crew announces that the Martians destroyed themselves with nuclear bombs and the people living like idiot cave people was the result. How did he know this?! And why did everyone just accept this so quickly? For die-hard fans of sci-fi like myself, this is a must-see because of its historical value and it is reasonably entertaining. Others might find it tough going.

I like this movie and have watched my copy twice since acquiring it a few weeks ago. But you have to view it in the right context.I haven't checked on the dates, but I bet this movie came out after and certainly around the same time as the Collier and Walt Disney popularisations of the vision of spaceflight being promoted by W.Von Braun. This is reflected in the attempt to seem factually correct and scientific. However, whilst certain ideas are put across ( step boosters, for example ) roughly correctly, other things are hilariously wrong.For example, we are told that a rocket ascends to an altitude and then turns ninety degrees to enter space...like reaching the top of a flight of stairs and turning onto the landing! Then we are told that by turning in the direction of the Earths rotation the total velocity of the ship is increased accordingly.This is an hilarious misunderstanding of what really happens. Most space launch centres are located as near the equator as possible where the Earth and anything on its surface is rotating at roughly a thousand miles per hour, including any rocket departing to space, in an Eastward direction ( the same as the rotation of the planet ). Of course, if the ship turned to travel westwards once in space, its speed in relation to the surface of the Earth would be greater, but it would add nothing to the actual velocity of the vehicle. Decsribed in this movie as "air speed"! Similarly, we are told that the travellers only feel free-fall, or "weightlessness" when they reach some thousands of miles from the Earth, outside of the planets gravitational field. Again, comically incorrect. Most crewed spacecraft travel no higher than a couple of hundred miles up, but as long as they ( and, their contents, including crew ) are travelling at an adequate velocity that their momentum in an outward direction balances the pull of gravity inwards, they will orbit in free-fall. Of course, travel far enough from Earth and even a slow object will coast outside the Earths gravity well, but in order to leave Earth orbit, outwards ( towards the Moon for example ) requires the attainment of "escape velocity", around twenty one thousand miles per hour. So the vehicle will have already attained "orbital velocity" ( and "weightlessness" ) by definition.But the movie has vastly more hilarious stuff than this. Someone decided it would be more fun if they missed the moon due to a technical problem, fell asleep for a few days and then woke up to find they had accidentally gone to Mars! The captain then ruminates to the effect that this must have been divine intervention! At which point, any pretence to being scientific is torn into little pieces like confetti and thrown upon the wind amid the merry dance of an increasingly barmy plot.The strength of a film like this in fact is in illustrating "how far we've come". Not least in attitudes to women. 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. An antidote to the cold routine of spaceflight as it has now become in the Twenty First Century.I won't reveal the ending. It is both brave and shocking for a movie of this vintage and character.