Harry Horner | Through the Shattered Lens

Chris Cornyn (Peter Graves) and his wife, Linda (Andrea King) are two scientists who have spent the years since World War II listening to transmissions from Mars. The technology that they use was developed by a scientist who may have been a Nazi but the Cornyns feels that the greater good of learning about Mars outweighs the problematic background of their equipment.

One day, the transmitters pick up a message from Mars, announcing that Mars is a Socialist paradise where there is no fear of nuclear war. The Soviets are gleeful because they think the Martian messages will lead to the collapse of NATO. But then the Martians start sending out religious messages, which lead to riots in the USSR and Eastern Europe.

Are the Martians really contacting Earth? Is God really transmitting a message from Mars? Or is a more sinister figure responsible?

Red Planet Mars is one of those films that only could have been made at the height of the Cold War. Despite the title, the film is decidedly Earth-bound and full of stock footage of the nations of the world reacting to the Martians. The main theme is that, Martians or not, nothing is more important than protecting the American way of life. even if that means sacrificing your own life and misleading the world. Even if it is now impossible to listen to his dialogue without thinking about the “Do you like movies about gladiators?” conversations from Airplane!, Peter Graves was the perfect, no-nonsense messenger. An artifact of a different time, the movie’s greatest strength is that it takes its ridiculous story seriously and even today, it leaves you wonder how we would react to messages from Mars. Hopefully, we would today be more skeptical. People in 1953 would believe anything.

In this western, Anthony Quinn plays Dave Robles, a Mexican gunslinger who rides into the town of Mesa, searching for an outlaw named Dan Ritchey (Barry Atwater). When Dave finds Ritchey, he discovers that Ritchey has been invited to Mesa by one of the town’s richest men. Dave doesn’t let that stop him from gunning Ritchey down in the street.

No one in town is upset that Ritchey’s dead. Instead, they’re impressed with how quick Dave is on the draw. When Dave runs another group of outlaws out of town, the townspeople decide to hire him as their new sheriff. Reluctantly, Dave agrees. At first, saloon keeper Ed Bannister (Peter Whitney) thinks that Dave will be easy to control but Dave surprises him by taking his new position seriously. Soon, Dave is having to fight off all sorts of bad guys. Meanwhile, Estella (Katy Jurado), the town’s nurse, goes from distrusting Dave to falling in love with him and begging him to set down his guns and join her in a peaceful life.

Man From Del Rio is a surprisingly good and intelligent B-western. Anthony Quinn gives a brooding performance as Dave, who is a far cry from the type of upright lawmen who typically appeared in the westerns of the period. As played by Quinn, Dave Robles is a brute who becomes the film’s default hero just because everyone else is even worse than he is. Dave may be an outlaw and a killer but he’s neither dishonest nor a sadist, which is what sets him apart from the other bad men who ride through Mesa. Dave only kills when he feels that he has to and he doesn’t do it for pleasure. Because he’s inarticulate and uncomfortable with the trappings of civilization, men like Bannister assume that Robles will be easy to control but he proves them wrong. Quinn’s outstanding performance sets the stage for the type of morally ambiguous western heroes who would become prominent in the late 60s and the 70s. He gets good support from Katy Jurado and, in the role of the town’s previous sheriff, Douglas Spencer.

Along with an interesting plot, Man From Del Rio also has all of the gunfights and tough talk that a western fan could hope for. Capped off by Anthony’s Quinn’s star turn, it’s a superb B-western.