Search - Conquest of Space on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Movie Release: 1955 DVD Release: 10/19/2004 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV - Closed Captioned Edition: Special Collection Audio Tracks: English Subtitles: English SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 20 mins Studio: Paramount Members Wishing: 3 Genres: Science Fiction, Psychological Sci-Fi See Also: Conquest of Space [Circuit City Exclusive] [Checkpoint], Conquest of Space

George Pal's now-quaint science fiction odyssey concerns a multi-national group on the first space flight to Mars. Pal pulls out all stops in the special effects department, creating "The Wheel" (a earth-orbiting circular space station), rocket launches into space, and a breathtaking near-collision with an asteroid. The film itself concerns the travails of the crew of the spaceship as they make their way to Mars. General Samuel T. Merritt (Walter Brooke) heads the team. Supporting him and along for the ride are his son, Captain Barney Merritt (Eric Fleming), Sergeant Mahony (Mickey Shaughnessy), Jackie Siegle (Phil Foster), and Imoto (Benson Fong). As the ship gets closer to their Martian quest, General Merritt cracks and tries to sabotage both the mission and the crew, babbling about the blasphemy of mankind trespassing upon God's domain. His son is forced to kill him and save the mission, whereupon the crew peacefully lands on the Martian surface and scouts out the terrain like a group of sightseers at Lourdes before returning to Earth. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Walter Brooke - Samuel Merrit
Eric Fleming - Bamey Merrit
Mickey Shaughnessy - Sgt. Mahoney
Phil Foster - Jackie Siegle
William Redfield - Roy Cooper

It tells you something about the order of priorities in George Pal's production of Conquest of Space that the opening credits don't list any of the actors in the movie -- on one level, it's almost as though we're to take the movie as a sort of documentary of things to come, and that's how it seems, until the backstories on two of the characters come to the forefront of events onscreen. The result is an awkward mix of sci-fi/docudrama and sci-fi melodrama, sort of Robert Heinlein's juvenilia sensationalized. The movie's problems notwithstanding, the film has gotten first-class treatment on this DVD, with a beautiful transfer that runs circles around the television showings that the movie received in the 1960s and '70s. The letterboxed image (1.85:1, with 16 x 9 enhancements) glitters, so much so that parts of it look almost 3-D, and take the clarity right up to the limit of the special effects' boundaries. The sound is mastered at a somewhat low volume level, but is otherwise clean and sharp, and pumps up nicely through speakers. There are no extras, not even a trailer -- but the effects look so good, and the movie is so entertaining (if not the profound work of speculative fiction that was intended), that it's thoroughly diverting on its own. The disc opens on a simple, easy-to-use three-selection menu that goes to a second layer for the chapter selections; the 80-minute movie has been given 14 chapter markers, which are more than adequate to outline the fairly simple plot. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide