Flight to Mars (1951, Lesley Selander)

The first act of Flight to Mars is quirky enough and soapy enough I had hopes for the finish. The film’s about the first crewed expedition to Mars, and I knew it had them landing there and meeting Martians, so I figured there’d be time for more quirkiness and soapiness at the end. It seemed like it’d be a fun, weird conclusion. Unfortunately not.

The quirky in the first act is second-billed Cameron Mitchell’s reporter interviewing all the people going to Mars. It’s a big surprise—the Air Force hasn’t told anyone about it, and the launch is secret because they can’t afford crowd scenes. Mars also doesn’t have the Space Race going in the background—and no one was in space at this point either, so there’s no general understanding of the science; the combination gives it a little charm. And Mitchell’s all right. He’s got the job of exposition dumping, scene after the scene, and he can do it. Most of the actors can do it.

Not unbilled William Forrest, he’s terrible as the general. For a while, it seemed like he wasn’t going to get any lines; he was better without any lines.

Mitchell goes from team member to team member to introduce them, starting with team leader John Litel. He’s the principal scientist. Litel’s not great, not bad, not distinct in any way. It’s not good writing, and Litel gets out his lines, but he’s pretty background for the team leader. Then there’s Richard Gaines, who’s the folksy geologist with family tragedy going on, and Mitchell bonds with him over it. That bonding is the aforementioned quirky. Mars hits pause on the exposition to have this quiet character moment for Gaines and Mitchell. It’s interesting. In that moment, Arthur Strawn’s script is actually interesting. Then it’s over.

And we get to the soapy. Pilot and rocket scientist Arthur Franz (who, despite being third-billed, is the star of the movie) is oblivious to the affections of his assistant and copilot, Virginia Huston. Huston probably ought to be second-billed. She’s fourth. But Huston’s real important for the first half. She stops being important in the second half when Martian girl Marguerite Chapman shows up and draws Franz’s eye. Mitchell’s after Huston, so he tries to aggravate the situation with Franz. It’s at least energetic plotting. Until Mars blows off a second solo scene for Mitchell and Huston. It’s still soapy, just not enthusiastic.

The Mars portion of the film has a dying planet, white guys with symbols on their chests, and technology, so women aren’t trapped in the kitchen. On Mars, women get to work. They can be assistant scientists like Chapman (or spies like Lucille Barkley), just so long as they wear short skirts and high heels. Even Huston gets into the short skirts and high heels (in Mars, do as the Martians do). Meanwhile, all the Earthling males wear these black leather jackets. The silliest costumes are the Martian spacesuits, which look like pajamas with foam helmets.

Mars is in color, which maybe brings it more personality than it really needs. The color’s nice and crisp, but Mars’s costumes and sets can’t withstand too much crispness.

There are some slightly inventive low budget effects—like two good matte paintings, with a big asterisk on the word “good”—and director Selander’s got his moments. But Chapman and Franz aren’t compelling leads, and the script’s not there for Morris Ankrum and Robert Barrat’s political squabbles to make the third act dramatic enough.

Mars isn’t without amusing, diverting moments—especially for fans of serials; I spotted a bunch of serial actors—but it doesn’t live up to the first act. There is one good team conversation while traveling to Mars where the film actually pretends the characters have thoughts; the actors do well with that scene. The movie really lets the cast down (especially second-billed Mitchell).

Also, the rocket ship model makers didn’t pay attention to the spaceship interior gravity logic and the frequently obvious mistake grates. Speaking of gravity… the actors are terrible when they’ve got to pretend to be experiencing acceleration. It’s not budget, it’s not 1951, maybe it’s bad direction, but wow, they all look very silly.

Invisible Agent (1942, Edwin L. Marin)

Just about an hour into Invisible Agent, Axis allies Cedric Hardwicke and Peter Lorre have a falling out. See, Lorre’s smart, actually, while Hardwicke’s just devious. The film had been establishing those traits from the first scene—when they try to strong-arm the Invisible Man formula out of Jon Hall—but what I didn’t realize was Lorre was supposed to be Japanese. Hardwicke says something about how it works in Germany and Lorre starts talking about his country and I’m like… surely he’s not supposed to be Italian.

Nope. He’s supposed to be Japanese. After the falling out scene, the Japanese embassy in Berlin and its staff become a plot point (of course, Lorre’s the only non-Asian person playing a Japanese person so it’s still uncanny and gross and then also problematic just on the propaganda level). But until then… I was giving Invisible Agent a lot more—okay, maybe not more credit, but I certainly wasn’t cognizant of all its defects. If I ever suffer through again, I’m sure I’ll be all the more punished.

Invisible Agent is one of those bad then worse pictures. Sometimes it’s not terrible, but rarely. The first act, before the film introduces femme fatale Ilona Massey (also bad, but gets worse) shows up, is slightly better than what follows. Maybe because there’s still the potential for something in the first act. The concept—the grandson of the original Invisible Man (Claude Rains in the original, who the second film in the series established murdered hundreds) Hall becomes a spy for the Allies, going to Berlin to find some secrets—does at least have possibilities for good set pieces. But the execution of the concept is quite bad. And gets worse as things go along. When buffoon Nazi J. Edward Bromberg is going his screwball comedy thing, it’s actually surprising how bad Curt Siodmak’s script has gotten over the runtime.

There aren’t any good special effects set pieces. The special effects themselves aren’t bad and are at times even effective—the invisible man stuff is more reliable than the military-related stuff, which occasionally has something like a matte painting at an entirely wrong angle and director Marin and editor Edward Curtiss rely on speeding up the film way too much. But if you don’t see the remnants of Hall’s eyes under the cold cream (he’s caked in it so Massey can see him and they can flirt, or whatever it’s called when actors acting badly perform a poorly written script), it’s pretty impressive. Or impressive enough.

Because Invisible Agent is never enough. Hardwicke being really effective as a pervy old Nazi or Lorre being able to be good in an impossible, bad part are not surprising revelations. If Hall weren’t terrible it’d be enough. If Massey weren’t a combination of bad and lost, it… no, it wouldn’t be enough. Hall’s too bad. Siodmak’s script is too bad.

I hope Invisible Agent proves forgettable. I fear it will not. But I hope it does.

Soldiers in White (1942, B. Reeves Eason)

Everett Dodd’s editing makes Soldiers in White painful to watch. Some of the fault is director Eason’s, of course. His insert close-ups are awful. Given Soldiers is half comedy and half Army propaganda film (the titular soldiers are Army doctors), it’s hard to believe Eason was worried about running short and felt the need for more footage.

The narrative concerns William T. Orr as a whiny little intern who gets drafted. He harasses nurse Eleanor Parker and, once he’s wounded, is inspired by fatherly John Litel to knock off the wiseacre stuff and be an army doctor. Orr’s real bad. I kept hoping the moral of the story was he’d get run over.

Parker manages to make Owen Crump’s lame script seem good. Litel, who isn’t bad, can’t manage that feat.

Eason’s direction is weak.

The short’s tepid, of note only for Parker and Wilfred M. Cline’s Technicolor photography.

Flight Angels (1940, Lewis Seiler)

When the studio system collapsed, so did the B-picture promotion system–a star of a B-picture could end up the star of an A-picture… For example, Jimmy Stewart started out in B-pictures, so did Eleanor Parker, so did Humphrey Bogart (I think). Occasionally, B-pictures made A-picture money (The Thin Man). It was a good system and there hasn’t been anything like it since–the rash of soap opera actors going mainstream did have a few good results (Alec Baldwin, Anne Heche) but none lasting–and that phenomenon has ended. It was never as successful as the promotion system and its disappearance is unfortunate, because it did produce good actors.

Flight Angels has an odd mix of actors, career-wise. Virginia Bruce, the star, was on the downswing. Her romantic interest, Dennis Morgan, was on the upswing (he ended up in musicals no less). Jane Wyman has a supporting role and runs wild with it, making the best of the script and turning in the film’s best performance. These actors’ success in light of the script–which alternates between a commercial for American Airlines and an astoundingly sexist portrayal of working women–is Flight Angels biggest surprise. The film doesn’t start out as anything but the commercial, so when the flight attendants–sorry, stewardesses–all get together to talk about marrying rich passengers and scream and run around and… fight (there’s a cat fight in Flight Angels), I couldn’t help but dream of a showing of Flight Angels with a debate afterwards between Margaret Cho and some female Conservative. Many A-features, for example, have a strong sexist attitude running through them (The Women, The Philadelphia Story), but I guess studios reserved the blatancy and cat fights for the B-features. Maybe not many theaters on the coasts played B-features. I suppose it’d be worth investigating. Oh, I forgot… not a history major anymore.

Still, Flight Angels is a well-handled film. Director Seiler has a lot of experience and the film even had one really nice shot. The special effects by Byron Haskin (who later directed) aren’t as nice as the aerial photography. On one hand, Flight Angels is an interesting historical document, on the other, it does have some nice performances from a likable cast. Either way, it’s a diverting seventy minutes.