Rocketship X-M
| Rocketship X-M | |
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| Directed by | Kurt Neumann |
| Produced by | Kurt Neumann |
| Screenplay by | Orville H. Hampton Kurt Neumann Dalton Trumbo |
| Starring |
Lloyd Bridges Osa Massen John Emery Noah Beery, Jr. Hugh O'Brian Morris Ankrum |
| Music by | Ferde Grofé |
| Cinematography | Karl Struss |
| Edited by | Harry Gerstad |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Lippert Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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78 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Budget | $94,000 |
Rocketship X-M (a.k.a. Expedition Moon and originally Rocketship Expedition Moon) is a 1950 American black-and-white science fiction film from Lippert Pictures, the first outer space adventure of the post-World War II era. The film was produced and directed by Kurt Neumann and stars Lloyd Bridges, Osa Massen, John Emery, Noah Beery, Jr., Hugh O'Brian, and Morris Ankrum.
Rocketship X-M tells the story of a Moon expedition that, through a series of unforeseen events, winds up traveling instead to distant Mars. Once on the Red Planet, its crew discovers the remnants of a Martian civilization destroyed long ago by atomic war and now reverted to barbarism.
Four men and a woman blast into outer space from the White Sands Proving Ground aboard the RX-M (Rocketship Expedition-Moon) on humanity's first expedition to Luna. Halfway there, after surviving their jettisoned and runaway first stage and a meteoroid storm, their engines suddenly quit. Recalculating fuel ratios and swapping fuel tank positions fixes the problem. After the engines fire, RX-M rapidly careens out-of-control on a rapid heading beyond the Moon; lowered oxygen pressure also causes the crew to slowly pass out. They slowly revive much later and discover that they have traveled some 50,000,000 miles and are now on a direct heading toward Mars. Quick calculations reveal that RX-M is only 50,000 miles away. Dr. Karl Eckstrom (John Emery) is forced to "pause and observe respectfully while something infinitely greater assumes control".
RX-M passes through the Martian atmosphere and safely lands. The next morning the scientists, clad in aviation oxygen masks due to the low pressure, begin exploring the desolate surface. They come across physical evidence of a now dead advanced Martian civilization: a partially buried-in-the-sand, stylized, Art Deco- or Tiki culture-like metal face sculpture, and in the distance Moderne architecture-like ruins. Their Geiger counter registers dangerous radiation levels, keeping them well away; from the levels detected, there had been an atomic war on Mars in the distant past.
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