Byron Haskin

An opening narration explains a panorama of a space station and attendant space craft under construction. It goes on to explain the station is used for both observation and construction of spaceships for the conquest of space. Opening scene On board the space station, the crew watches a transport ship approach the station. Barny Merritt (Eric Fleming) complains to his father, General Merrit (Walter Brooke) that he has been onboard the station known as the Wheel for a year without any leave, he requests he return to Earth on the approaching spacecraft. General Merrit denies the request On the rocket being constructed an accident occurs when Roy Cooper (William Redfield) becomes paralyzed while working with high tension cabling. The crewman is taken back to the wheel and is checked out after recovering. The doctor is satisfied he will recover in time. He confides with Capt Merritt that Cooper is suffering from space fatigue, and needs to be returned to Earth. In the rec area Cooper talks about the selection process that got them to on the Mars flight, Sgt Siegle argues that they may just be guinea pigs, and the real crew has not been selected. The six selected crewmen go to the mess hall. Their meal consists of various flavored tablets and water At dinner Sgt Mahoney (Mickey Shaughnessy) explains some of the history of General Merritt, and how his son is an ingrate. Suddenly the wheel is rocked by a concussion. It is reported a meteor hit the installation. Gen Merritt co-ordinates the stabilization of the wheel while damage control crews seal the leak Later, the cargo rocket arrives and begins transferring passengers including Dr George Fenton (William Hopper) The doctor meets Fenton. The space craft being assembled is a mystery. General Merritt thinks the ship is to go to the Moon, but is puzzled why it has wings. Fenton reveals the true destination of the ship is actually Mars. The general is furious about the change. He wanted to go to the Moon as a test run of the ships systems although he considers the mission dangerous, but accepts the command anyway. His son, hearing of the new mission requests his transfer be stopped. He wants to go to Mars with his father. The crew who have been building the ship are going to crew. Unfortunately their numbers have to be whittled down from the original 6 to 3. Merritt asks Siegle (Phil Foster), Imoto (Benson Fong) and Andre Fodor (Ross Martin) to seriously consider their options. The General thinks the mission is poorly thought out and doesnt hesitate to tell the potential volunteers. Imoto with an impassioned speech about the worlds need to find more resources agrees to go. Mahoney then volunteers, but is rejected by the general as being too old. Sanella and Siegle ultimately agree to go. Later the crew watch a tv broadcast from Earth, a special bulletin interrupts the show to announce the official launch of the ship to Mars. Then each of the crew receives a private message from a family member, Fodors mother speaking from Vienna wisher her son the best. Sgt Seigles girlfriend speaks next. She announcers her undying love for Seigle A few hours later the ship launches without incident and begins the year long voyage to Mars The crew settles in, but they soon realize Mahoney has stowed aboard the ship. He is badly injured because of no acceleration chair; however he will survive his injuries. Gen Merritt expresses doubts to his son about mans role in space. As strong Christian he searches the Bible for answers, but finds little comfort in the passages he locates. Later in the flight, an external camera fails Siegle and Fodor are ordered to go outside and make repairs. While working on the camera a huge asteroid comes up on the ship from behind. The two men scramble to attach their safety lines as Merrit undertake an emergency maneuver to save the ship. Assuming the danger has passed the two men continue their work. Suddenly they see a series of flashes and pinging sounds around them. Before they realize the danger Fodor is hit by a micro meteor, screams and drifts away from the ship dead. Siegle is ordered to return to the ship leaving Fodor drifting in space. After some discussion the General decides to go outside and perform a space burial for Fodor. After reading passages from the Bible, he gently pushes the body away from the ship. As the voyage progresses the Generals actions become more erratic. During a routine report to Earth he snaps and begins screaming about the sacrilege of the voyage what an abomination the whole venture is. Capt Merritt reports that the General has been suffering very bad headaches and lack of sleep. Finally reaching Mars, the ship begins its landing. The General is piloting the ship at this stage, he suddenly has a vision, panicked he tries to abort the landing. Seeing the situation, his son overpowers him and completes the landing without incident. Safely down the crew wastes no time getting their suits on and exploring the planet. Imoto removes his glove and grabs a handful of soil. Letting it filter through his fingers he declares it good. He then produces some flower seeds and explains he was going to plant them. Behind them they hear huge amounts of fluid gushing from the ships engines. Merritt fears one of the pipes was ruptured during the landing Reaching the engine room Merrit finds his father is releasing the fluid, which turns out to be water. Gen Merrit fires at his son. A fight ensures in the cramped area and the General is shot and killed. Sgt Mahoney sees the end of the fight and thinks Capt Merritt shot his father intentionally and hopes a court marshal will be called for back on Earth. The crew buries the General and Imoto plants a seed on the grave. Because of the water lost, they face a critical shortage. Capt Merrit begins rationing immediately. The months drag on and the crew celebrates Christmas and moral is slumping due to a lack of water or contact with Earth. Mahoney dwelling on what he saw in the engine room; snaps and begins to believe the General might have been right and the planet along with the ship is cursed. Suddenly they see something outside and to everyone glee, its begun to snow. They set about collecting snow realizing their water shortage is now over. July comes, and it is time to prepare to leave. Imoto has spent his time collecting a large number of samples and remains convinced the planet can be agriculturally productive, especially after seeing one the seeds has germinated. An earthquake rocks the landing site, putting their intended launch time in jeopardy. The ship is now tilted incorrectly and needs to be straightened. By selectively firing the engines they believe they can shift the sand from under the ship and get it pointed correctly. The plan works seconds before they must take off. Excited Merrit fires the engines and the final scene shows the ship lifting into space

La protagonista femenina llega a la selva para comenzar una nueva vida con un marido al que conoce sólo por carta. El primer problema que tiene es que él no parece muy convencido de querer estar con ella en la intimidad, y es bastante hosco en su presencia. El segundo problema es que se aproxima una plaga mortal de hormigas especialmente omnívoras e hiperinteligentes.

The film begins with a voiceover (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) telling the audience that greedy eyes are watching the blue planet. They envy our water, clean air and abundance of resources. The race of beings watching the blue planet had considered moving to another planet in the Solar System but were unable because every other planet is uninhabitable. The voice also tells us that WWI and a WWII have already occurred, but that there is going to be another kind of war, the war of the worlds. At a time when the Earth and Mars were closest to each other in orbit, the Mars beings begin to attack. A strange fireball streaks across the southern California skies and lands in a gully in the San Gabriel mountains east of Los Angeles. Firemen quickly extinguish the fire that has broken out, but authorities are puzzled by the long, cylindrical object that fell to earth and started the fire. The object attracts tourists--and also the attention of Dr. Clayton Forester (Gene Barry) of the Pacific Technical Institute. While everyone else regards the object as anything from a tourist attraction to a potential treasure trove, Forester knows that something is wrong: the object did not come down like an ordinary meteor, and was much more lightweight than any meteor ever reported. What's more, the object is not only hot, but also radioactive. Forester stays in the nearby town at the home of Pastor Matthew Collins (Lewis Martin) and his niece, Sylvia van Buren (Ann Robinson). Three men are left in the surroundings of the object when a hidden lid on the cylinder unscrews, and a long-necked probe rises out. The three try to approach the probe, declaring their friendly intentions--and the probe spits out a heat ray that incinerates the men and starts another fire. At the same time, power and telephone service fails in town, and everyone at the social discovers that his watch has stopped. Forester determines that the watches have been somehow magnetized, and also notes that someone's pocket compass points not to the north, but to the meteorite. Forester returns to the site with the sheriff and another deputy. They find the ashes of the three men surrounding by extreme scorching, and then the probe attacks again, killing the deputy as he tries to drive away. Forester then determines that they are dealing with something from another planet and need to call in the military, especially as another fireball lands nearby as he is talking to the sheriff. While everyone waits for the soldiers to arrive, Forester appears on a radio program and deals with the increasing speculation on the otherworldly origin of the cylinders. A consensus arises that the cylinders come from Mars, now at its closest approach to Earth. Marines from El Toro Marine Base roll in and surround the site, and an Air Force plane drops a flare on it from above. The long-necked probe fires its heat ray at the plane, and then sweeps the area, destroying a radio truck. The Marine colonel calls for reinforcements, and the 6th Army Command arrives, with artillery and tanks. Major General Mann, the commander, tells Forester that other objects like the one they are surrounding have landed in cities all over the world, and that all communication fails after that. Then the probe rises again, and we now see that it is part of a swan-like magnetically levitating low-altitude craft. Two other such craft rise out of the cylinder to join it. The officers give the order to prepare to fire, but Matthew Collins objects, saying that no one has tried to offer them peace before. Disregarding his own safety, he walks toward the three metal swans, reciting the 23rd psalm--and before his niece Sylvia's horrified eyes, the lead swan burns him to death. At once General Mann (Les Tremayne) and Marine Colonel Heffner (Vernon Rich) give the order to fire. The soldiers unleash a barrage of artillery and missile fire--and none of it is effective. The swans possess a magnetic "blister" (a force shield) that deflects any bombardment. The swans quietly take the measure of their opponents and then start to return fire, with heat rays and meson-disrupting energy bursts that disintegrate anything they touch. Forester urges Mann to inform Washington that conventional military forces would be outmatched. Mann leaves, and Heffner fights a holding action before finally ordering a complete retreat--and being disintegrated in mid-sentence. Forester takes Sylvia with him in an Army plane. Flying low to avoid the Air Force jets flying in to try their hand, he clips some trees and crash-lands. He and Sylvia barely have time to escape before a squadron of swans surround the plane. General Mann returns to the city, where skeptical reporters cannot believe his reassurances--and of course he knows better, because nothing has proved effective. Alone in the brush, Forester and Sylvia take shelter in an abandoned farmhouse. There Sylvia confesses her fears and her deep sense of loss following her uncle's death. In the middle of this tender conversation, another cylinder crashes into the side of the house, demolishing most of it and knocking Forester unconscious. Hours later, Forester wakes up, and a terrified Sylvia tells him that the house is surrounded. Forester works diligently to clear a way out, while also trying to observe as much as he can. The Martians lower a different kind of probe, an eye-like camera; Forester, at first taking this for yet another weapon, chops the probe's head from its extender, which swiftly withdraws. A Martian crewman quietly enters the house and touches Sylvia on the shoulder; Forester blinds it with a flashlight and then throws an axe at it, putting it to flight. When Forester realizes that he is holding a scarf now stained with Martian blood, Sylvia loses all control, and Forester has to shout at her to calm down. They then escape, just before the Martians burn down the ruins of the house. As more cylinders come down all over the earth, the Martians' goal becomes painfully clear: to drive all of humanity before them and eventually to kill us all. In Washington, the Secretary of Defense prepares to order the dropping of an atomic bomb on the Los Angeles-area nest. Forester and Sylvia finally arrive at Pacific Tech and turn over the alien camera and the blood-stained scarf. The blood turns out to be anemic, and the camera yields little insight other than that the Martians perceive color a lot differently from humans and that their ability to see is hampered by bright light. At the time, Pacific Tech officials think all this is a moot point, because the atom bomb is going to stop them anyway. But even the atom bomb proves ineffective against the Martians' magnetic force fields. General Mann, clearly frustrated, orders an evacuation of Los Angeles. Forester tells his colleagues that now the anemic blood is important, because only biological weapons will stop the Martians now. The plan is to take as many lab instruments as possible into the mountains and set up another laboratory. But that plan comes to nothing, as looters seize the Pacific Tech vehicles and scatter or beat up all the personnel, including Forester, the pathologist who found out about the anemia, Dr. Dupre (Ann Codee), and Sylvia. As the swans arrive and start systematically burning every building in sight, Forester rushes about, going from church to church, hoping to find Sylvia waiting there, as she once waited after running away as a child. He finds church pastors everywhere praying for deliverance, comfort, or both, and at one church he even finds two of his colleagues. At last he finds Sylvia--and as the two rush toward one another, a nearby swan burns out a stained-glass window, frightening everyone inside. But the attacking swan abruptly heels over, fires only two more seemingly half-hearted bursts, and then crashes into a building and falls to the street. Dead silence descends. Inside the church, Forester leads the people out into the street to see what has happened. They find the downed swan, and as they watch, a door opens and a Martian arm appears, trying to move out. Another swan crashes on the other side of the street and, as Forester watches, the Martian arm turns a mottled gray and falls still. Forester touches it and pronounces it dead. The story repeats itself all over the Earth. The Martians had very underdeveloped immune systems, and as soon as they were exposed to Earth's atmosphere, they became infected with germs that humans have long since developed immunity to, but which proved uniformly fatal to Martians. The metal swans stop and fall where they are, and the invasion is over even more swiftly than it began.

John Vickers joins Custer's cavalry regiment seeking private revenge. John Vickers finally tracks down one of the three men who killed his true love. Before he dies, the miscreant admits that his accomplices joined the cavalry. Vickers, a former officer himself, does likewise, after saving pretty Molly Quade from rowdy Sergeant O'Hara, who sets out to harass the new recruit. After incidents during a battle with the Sioux, Vickers is pretty sure O'Hara is one of his men. But can he reconcile his desire for vengeance with loyalty to the Army? —Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>

After a desperate plot to rob his company office, a mining engineer leaves town humiliated. He takes up work elsewhere, agreeing to help a threatened father and his daughter extract silver ore from their mine before the lease expires. The office of mining engineers and partners Larkin Moffatt and Charlie Storrs is robbed. Storrs accuses Moffatt of complicity with the robbers and fires him. He also asks all major mining companies in the region to avoid hiring Moffatt. Unemployable, Moffatt opens his own small independent assay office in Silver City. His first client, Candace Surrency, leases a mine from the greedy R. R. Jarboe, owner of several mines. Candace Surrency and her father have invested all their funds in the mine lease which is due to expire in 12 days, reverting the mining rights back to its owner, R. R. Jarboe. So far the mine has been dry but the Surrencys have hired Moffatt to do another assay on the latest batch of ore. Moffatt finds silver in large amounts in the test batch, making the Surrencys rich. News of their silver strike spreads fast. Mine owner R. R. Jarboe refuses to extend the mine lease to the Surrencys who won't have enough time to extract and process the silver ore during the remainder of the lease. R. R. Jarboe is sure to benefit from the silver strike once the mine reverts to him. Desperate, the Surrencys ask Moffatt to become the mine's foreman and use his expertise to extract and process the silver ore within the remaining 12 days of lease rights. Aware of R. R. Jarboe's power Moffatt refuses to get involved but changes his mind when noticing Jarboe's ruthless sabotage tactics against the Surrencys. Moffatt and Candace Surrency fall in-love. Unfortunately, Moffatt's old boss and former partner Charlie Storrs shows up in town to buy this particular mine from owner R. R. Jarboe. —nufs68

Frankie Madison leaves prison expecting a share from his ex-partner. But Prohibition bootlegging didn't prepare Frankie for Big Business. Frankie Madison returns to New York after 14 years in prison. Noll Turner, Frankie's former partner in bootlegging, is now a wealthy nightclub manager, and Frankie is expecting him to honor a verbal '50:50' agreement they made when he was caught and Noll got away. Fat chance! Can Frankie, who knows only the strong-arm methods of Prohibition, win out against Big Business? It'll be tough...even with the unlikely alliance of torch singer Kay (Noll's ex-girlfriend). —Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu> After fourteen years in prison for bootlegging, Frankie Madison is released and returns To New York to meet his friend and partner Noll "Dink" Turner. Madison has an agreement with Dink, who is the manager of a successful nightclub, to share half of his business since he did not rat him when he was caught by the police. Dink uses his mistress Kay Lawrence to learn what Madison's real intention are and his friend Dave to explain that he has the right of less than US$ 3,000,00. Madison is not convinced and when Dink decides to get married to Mrs. Alexis Richardson - Kristine Miller, Kay teams up with Madison to retrieve his share. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Frankie Madison has just been released from prison after serving fourteen years for bootlegging, his conviction at the time of prohibition. When he was caught, he and his partner, Noll Turner - nicknamed Dink - knew that in the police pursuit one or both of them may be caught, they having made a deal right then and there to split whatever proceeds 50/50 made by a free one if and when the other was in prison. As Noll never once visited Frankie in prison, he only sending a carton of cigarettes a month, Frankie believes Noll will try to renege on their verbal deal, especially as Noll now operates a thriving nightclub. Frankie is correct especially as Noll has maneuvered behind the scenes to structure the business so that much is not in his own name, and as he has amassed a phalanx of thugs to carry out his more violent urges, some of those heavies who know and like Frankie from the old days, but who have their allegiance to Noll. What ensues is a battle between the "new ways" and the "old ways", Frankie who has no idea of the former, while Noll may have lost sight of the latter. Caught in the middle are: Dave, Noll's business manager who Frankie considers the only person from the old days in Noll's pocket that he can trust; and Kay Lawrence, the singer/pianist at the club who also happens to be Noll's girl. While Noll asked Kay to be friendly to Frankie to obtain information, she not sure about what and unaware of Frankie's recent incarceration, she ends up falling for Frankie, easier on her mind as she is aware that Noll has another woman on the side who can help him further the business, wealthy Alexis Richardson, already a "Mrs." to someone else. —Huggo