Released theatrically as
The Wizard of Mars, this incredibly strange (and cheap) science fiction spin on
The Wizard of Oz involves the journey of a stranded rocketship crew (in the far-off future of 1975), which includes an astronaut named Dorothy (
Eve Bernhardt). Low on oxygen and desperate to find their missing booster rocket, they stumble upon the ruins of an ancient civilization, through which winds a paved road... constructed of strangely-familiar yellow bricks. The road leads them to the central Martian (Emerald) city, in which they are greeted with a projected message from the Wizard himself (the ubiquitous
John Carradine), who tells a melancholy tale of the Martian people's fate, brought upon them by their foolish manipulations of time itself. As his visage fades, he leaves them with a small piece of this time-altering technology, which allows them to return to their ship at a point in time before the accident. Though this may seem like a novel concept in print, this is not the film to carry it off -- writer-producer-director
David Hewitt's reach far exceeds his grasp, thanks to the film's abysmally tiny budget of $33,000.
Famous Monsters magazine founder
Forrest J. Ackerman served as a technical advisor. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide