1960’s The Angry Red Planet opens with the return of the first manned space flight to Mars.  When the rocketship reaches Earth, NASA is stunned to discover that only two members of the crew — Iris “Irish” Ryan (Naura Hayden) and Colonel Thomas O’Bannion (Gerald Mohr) — are still alive and that O’Bannion seems to have been infected by an intergalactic fungus of some some sort.  Iris tells the story about what happened during their fateful trip to Mars.

I always enjoy the cheap science fiction films of the 50s and 60s, especially the ones that were made before America even conquered the Moon or really even went into space.  Not having anything to really guide their vision of space travel, these films almost always trotted out the old war movie stereotypes and dressed them in a shiny space suit.  In The Angry Red Planet, there’s gravity in space and Prof. Theodore Gettell (Les Termayne) smokes a pipe on the ship.  Warrant Officer Sam Jacobs (Jack Kruschen, who, the same year this film came out, gave an Oscar-nominated performance in The Apartment) reads comic books and wonders if there will be any life on Mars.  Meanwhile, O’Bannion flirts outrageously with Iris and everyone drinks coffee.

The film starts out as a standard low budget sic-fi flick, complete with sexist humor and scientific gobbledeegook, but things pick up once the crew actually reaches Mars.  Of course, the Mars that they find has plant life and looks absolutely nothing like the Mars that we all know and love.  That’s a part of the film’s charm.  Whenever the crew leaves their rocket and explores the Martian landscape, the film suddenly becomes red-tinted.  The tinting works far better than it really has any right to.  That said, I did look away from the screen a few times.  My eyesight is already bad enough without burning it up by watching a tinted movie.

The highlight of the film is…. well, sometimes it’s better just to let the visuals do the talking.

As soon as this fellow showed up, I knew that I was watching some sort of classic.

The Angry Red Planet is a thoroughly silly and implausible movie but, like most guilty pleasures, it’s also a lot of fun.  It’s one of the least accurate science fiction films ever made and I love it.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

1. Half-Baked
2. Save The Last Dance
3. Every Rose Has Its Thorns
4. The Jeremy Kyle Show
5. Invasion USA
6. The Golden Child
7. Final Destination 2
8. Paparazzi
9. The Principal
10. The Substitute
11. Terror In The Family
12. Pandorum
13. Lambada
14. Fear
15. Cocktail
16. Keep Off The Grass
17. Girls, Girls, Girls
18. Class
19. Tart
20. King Kong vs. Godzilla
21. Hawk the Slayer
22. Battle Beyond the Stars
23. Meridian
24. Walk of Shame
25. From Justin To Kelly
26. Project Greenlight
27. Sex Decoy: Love Stings
28. Swimfan
29. On the Line
30. Wolfen
31. Hail Caesar!
32. It’s So Cold In The D
33. In the Mix
34. Healed By Grace
35. Valley of the Dolls
36. The Legend of Billie Jean
37. Death Wish
38. Shipping Wars
39. Ghost Whisperer
40. Parking Wars
41. The Dead Are After Me
42. Harper’s Island
43. The Resurrection of Gavin Stone
44. Paranormal State
45. Utopia
46. Bar Rescue
47. The Powers of Matthew Star
48. Spiker
49. Heavenly Bodies
50. Maid in Manhattan
51. Rage and Honor
52. Saved By The Bell 3. 21 “No Hope With Dope”
53. Happy Gilmore
54. Solarbabies
55. The Dawn of Correction
56. Once You Understand
57. The Voyeurs 
58. Robot Jox
59. Teen Wolf
60. The Running Man
61. Double Dragon
62. Backtrack
63. Julie and Jack
64. Karate Warrior
65. Invaders From Mars
66. Cloverfield
67. Aerobicide 
68. Blood Harvest
69. Shocking Dark
70. Face The Truth
71. Submerged
72. The Canyons
73. Days of Thunder
74. Van Helsing
75. The Night Comes for Us
76. Code of Silence
77. Captain Ron
78. Armageddon
79. Kate’s Secret
80. Point Break
81. The Replacements
82. The Shadow
83. Meteor
84. Last Action Hero
85. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
86. The Horror at 37,000 Feet
87. The ‘Burbs
88. Lifeforce
89. Highschool of the Dead
90. Ice Station Zebra
91. No One Lives
92. Brewster’s Millions
93. Porky’s
94. Revenge of the Nerds
95. The Delta Force
96. The Hidden
97. Roller Boogie
98. Raw Deal
99. Death Merchant Series
100. Ski Patrol
101. The Executioner Series
102. The Destroyer Series
103. Private Teacher
104. The Parker Series
105. Ramba
106. The Troubles of Janice
107. Ironwood
108. Interspecies Reviewers
109. SST — Death Flight
110. Undercover Brother
111. Out for Justice
112. Food Wars!
113. Cherry
114. Death Race
115. The Beast Within
116. Girl Series
117. Gone in 60 Seconds
118. Swordfish
119. Marked For Death
120. The Internship