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Riders to the Stars (1954)
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 5:35 pm    Post subject: Riders to the Stars (1954) Reply with quote

____________

A wonderful title! Very Happy

A very disappointing movie . . . Sad

It's like an ultra-low-budget attempt to make "The Right Stuff". Richard Carlson (star of several terrific 1950s sci-fi films) is both director and star of this decidedly lesser effort. But Carlson shares the blame for this sad failure with a long list of very impressive names. Consider the following.

The screenplay is by Curt Siodmak, the producer is Ivan Tors, and the credits display a list of people who supposedly provided "science advice" on a range of subjects.

The plot consists mostly of conversations between nervous folks who find themselves involved in this new thing called the American space program, wondering if they'll wind up dead in space. On their first mission they plan to capture meteoroids in space and bring them back so that scientists can determine how these objects survive the corrosive effects of cosmic rays, even though mankind's best alloys fall apart in space.

Where the so-called experts on science for this movie got the idea that cosmic rays had this effect on metal is very puzzling.

Equally puzzling is the notion that small meteoroids can be tracked in space, rendezvoused with by spacecraft, and successfully captured.

The few outer-space special effects scenes shown during the last minutes of the film are embarrassingly bad. Models of V2 rockets are shown swinging around wildly on strings. Even worse, lumpy objects that are supposed to be meteoroids are shown swinging around even more wildly. The result looks like a puppet show.

Even the title theme is badly done. It's a melancholy song by Kitty White — another example of good intentions torpedoed by a bad decision.

On the positive side (small as it may be), the astronauts' space suits and their rocket cockpits are well designed — even though the crash couches are angled so far back that the poor astronauts' feet are positioned twelve-inches higher than their heads.

Imagine trying to endure a 12-G blast-off in this position. And yet, Dr. Konrad Buettner is credited with "science advice" pertaining to space medicine!

The credits also state that "acceleration research on the Human Centrifuge was done at the University of Southern California". The movie repeatedly states that the astronauts will experience 12 G's during acceleration.

I can only hope that Dr. Buettner pleaded with the producers not to show the astronauts enduring a 12-G blast-off while positioned in a manner that would cause their heads to explode.

The misused cast is comprised of sci-fi veterans such as Martha Hyer ("First Men in the Moon"), King Donavan ("Invasion of the Body Snatchers"), Dawn Addams ("The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll"), and William Lundigan.

Lundigan later starred in the TV series "Men into Space" during the early 1960s, a show which did everything "Riders to the Stars" should have done, delivering thrills in space on a weekly basis!

Ironically it's William Lundigan shown in the poster above — very appropriate in view of his role as Colonel Edward McCauley in "Men into Space". Very Happy

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2016 9:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Here's the scene I described above; grabbing meteoroids in space. Not real practical I'm afraid. Sad

Watch how the meteoroids swing into frame on the right, turn toward the camera — (They can turn in space? Shocked) — and zoom over the top of the frame completely out of focus.

The science advisers probably told the special effects guys to yank the marionette meteoroids around like that to test of the law of inertia. If so, they proved it was wrong. Very Happy




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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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alltare
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 03, 2016 1:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Those crazy Jeep drivers must have been really bruised after shooting the opening scenes. And the jeeps must have been ruined.
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Rick
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 04, 2016 2:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, you saw it too late, Bud. That's your problem right there.

This was one of the first -- maybe the very first -- sci-fi movie I ever saw. It was released to TV in September of 1956, and, though I don't have a date for my first look at it, I'll bet it was not long after that. I would have been 6 in '56, so I bet I saw it at 7 years old at the latest.

I'll grudgingly admit that RIDERS TO THE STARS is not much of a movie. But it suited this little kid right down to the ground. Rockets, meteors, space suits, a centrifuge ...cool! There's a fair amount of talk-talk in the movie, but I don't think that bugged me at all when I was a kid. It was science, mostly, and that was good enough for me.

So, to a small kid, in the '50s, on a 19 inch, black and white TV set, RIDERS TO THE STARS was a feast and a treat. Thankfully, even today, recognizing its shortcomings, I can still access some of that childish joy.

I'm grateful for that.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 04, 2016 4:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rick wrote:
Well, you saw it too late, Bud. That's your problem right there.

You're right, sir. I've always known that if I hadn't seen The Space Children at a drive-in in 1958 at the age of ten, it wouldn't have become my all-time favorite science fiction film, bar none.

And my user name on All Sci-Fi wouldn't be Bud Brewster. Very Happy

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
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John Thiel
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2017 4:21 pm    Post subject: Pace-setter Reply with quote

It was a pace-setter of a fine movie, all very elementary, but that's just fine. It was just about space flight, but that's an interesting story. It seems to have been forgotten — maybe everyone grasped the movie and didn't need to give it further consideration.
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bulldogtrekker
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2017 5:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like the movie, even though much of the movie science is wrong. William Lundigan is very good in the movie as an astronaut. The movie needs a restoration, just like Gog received. Imgur

I expected the meteor grabbing scene to be similar to the same type of scene in You Only Live Twice, but it wasn't.



You Only Live Twice



Riders to the Stars


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Andrew Kidd
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 22, 2017 12:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I stumbled upon the novelization at Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore in Minneapolis. Alas, I didn't pick it up; I had already had taken four other books off the shelves and I really wanted to purchase them.
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Sens8
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 22, 2017 9:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Count me as someone who likes this one. Not a "great" like, like I have for FORBIDDEN PLANET; but still a like. Of Tors' 3 pics, it's the only one without a monster. Really, it's the only one without a "bad guy" of any kind. The "tense" scenes only come from human frailties. On the other hand, it's full of "sense of wonder". Science can do no wrong, and holds promise. Martha Hyer's got a fine line in the pic, which I unfortunately can't remember close to verbatim, but something about dreams and imagination.

It could use a faster pace; and accurate science, yes, especially since it does seem to want to take an educational role with the audience (the rocket and mice stock footage were all over TV back then, also centrifuge shots tho the one's here seem to have been "taken for the film". More detailed characterizations and some better ones too. And rocketship effects without damn' models being bobbled up and down on strings. But withall, for me, an enjoyment, good for a quiet Sunday afternoon once in awhile.

Oh and, Andrew, I read Siodmak's novelization some years back but, even without details in my recall, I do remember finding it too wordy and starchy to be enjoyable - at least, as a companion to the film's aesthetic.

FWIW...
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Rick
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 22, 2017 12:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I did read the novelization about a year ago and somewhat enjoyed it. By the way, though Curt Siodmak's name is writ large on the cover, the book was actually written by Robert Smith (who is credited on the book, but not so boldly as Siodmak.) Here's what I wrote elsewhere about the novelization.

We don't see poor Bob Smith's name anywhere on the cover. Just that guy Siodmak.

This book was copyright 1953. No publication date is given, but, since most of the books listed for sale in the back pages are from '53 or earlier, this is evidently from that same time.

The book follows the film very closely, particularly in the broad strokes. There are no major differences, and the little differences are inconsequential. It's not badly written, but neither was it likely a candidate for the National Book Award. It reads as just a couple of weeks' work for a decent writer. Occasionally there's a sense of slumming, as if Smith struggled with a bout of 'why am I doing this?' But I may be projecting here. Probably am.

The author (interpreter? re-author?) does have his moments, though. There's a passage of conversation among the three astronauts which is clever, funny, very human and natural, and is much better than anything heard in the movie's dialogue. It's a minor scene, nothing to do with the story, really, but it stood out for me. Probably projecting again, but I imagined Smith writing that, feeling 'I've still got it!', taking some pride in what must have seemed drudgery. I hope he did. It truly was a very nice little passage and he would have every right to take pride in it.

I did have some trouble keeping track of characters in the early going. There are several to track, including the three astronauts, a girlfriend, and a handful of doctors and scientists. Sometimes they're referred to by first names, sometimes last names and there were just too many of them piled up in the introductory section. Of course, a movie can alleviate this problem simply by putting familiar, or at least identifiable, faces on screen. It's easy to tell Richard Carlson from William Lundigan from Herbert Marshall from King Donovan.

Something that's mentioned in the movie, but really stressed in the book is the whole WHY of what these folks are doing. It's made painfully, 1950s, Cold War-clear that WE (the U.S. of A.) must be the ones in control of space. Because if WE control a space station, then WE can watch everything on earth and WE can assure world peace. On the other hand, if THEY get up there, uh-oh, look out, Charlie, no telling what sort of wholesale earthly destruction we might be facing.

Also very '50s -- the cigarettes. Of course, there are plenty of coffin nails on display in the movie, as in most films of that era. But in the novel, it's an epidemic. I don't think a page goes by without at least one mention of cigarettes or of smoking. "Got a..." "Have a...." "Want a..." "I need a..." Smart enough to blast into space, but too stupid to realize that swallowing tobacco smoke might not be that healthy.

Smith has a real problem with the character development of our three astronauts. We spend a lot of pages with them on earth as they prepare for space, and we come to know them pretty well. Then they blast off and two of the three of them change drastically. Of course, one could argue that the shock of space travel might well change someone, and it might. But these folks simply become different characters when they're up in the ether. It was interesting, in re-watching the movie, to see that the same thing pretty much happens there, except in the movie's case, the actors can help smooth things over. They can throw some shading into the early scenes which might suggest something unseen inside their psyches. And they might be able to play the transitional space scenes in such a way as to make them more palatable.

Robert Smith doesn't have the benefit of actors, though. He has to tell the story from the black and white of the screenplay he's been handed. He probably didn't have the time, page-space, or inclination to justify these character shifts. Even had he tried... I don't know. Might have taken a Dostoyevsky to bring it off.

It's funny, in these old movies, to judge what they predict with what comes to pass. In this story, we have our astronaut, first (surviving) man into space...he's finished his exciting mission and now, rather than posing for LIFE magazine, or guesting on the Steve Allen Show or enjoying a ticker tape parade or going to the White House to get a medal from Ike, he says something like, "well, I don't know...guess I'll go back to my teaching job." I don't think this was an expression of humility, I think it was just a weird misjudgment of how astronauts -- particularly the early ones -- would be perceived and honored and lionized by the public.

RIDERS TO THE STARS was a movie which I saw when I was very young indeed. It was one of the very first s-f films I ever saw, maybe the first. Therefore it has an outsized place in my estimation. It's not that good, frankly, but when I was about eight years old, it was just the neatest thing in the history of the world. And that's why I bought and read the book. I do not normally read novelizations. There are novels to read, so reading regurgitations just seems not only a waste of time but almost immoral. But this was a special case -- for me. I don't see myself reading many more novelizations. No, let's be honest, I don't see myself reading any more.

It's not great literature, this RIDERS TO THE STARS, but it's cleanly and professionally written. It has improvements on the movie as well as spots in which it comes up short of what the movie achieves. I can only recommend it to other fans of this particular movie. And that's all right, since I don't imagine the thing has been in print for over 60 years.

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alltare
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 23, 2017 1:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

There is something special about Tors' scifi movies and TV shows. I like the dry scientific (and pseudo scientific) banter and the dearth of emotional hysteria of his stories. The "space fever" that Richard Carlson experienced in RIDERS is one of the few exceptions to this.

I saw all of these Tors products as a kid, and that's about when I became interested in "hard" scifi books, too. Authors like Asimov and Clarke were my favorites. All of these movies and books had one thing in common: they were very "scientific" and had a sense of wonder that others didn't have. Doc Smith's books, for example, used the Deus ex Machina gimmick way too often, whereas the 3 people mentioned above managed to weave that concept into their stories more effectively and more technologically based, if they used it at all.
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Jack Deth
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 23, 2017 9:48 pm    Post subject: Riders To The Stars: Reply with quote

Seem to remember a lot of late 1940 stock footage of American re-engineered V-2 on the deserted scaffolding and pads of Muroc Dry Lake Bed (Later, Edwards AFB) and White Sands Missile Range when I saw this flick on DC's WTTG-5 'The World Beyond' as a kid in the 1960s.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 04, 2017 11:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

alltare wrote:
There is something special about Tors' scifi movies and TV shows. I like the dry scientific (and pseudo scientific) banter and the dearth of emotional hysteria of his stories. The "space fever" that Richard Carlson experienced in RIDERS is one of the few exceptions to this.

My childhood experiences with Tors were Science Fiction Theatre and The Man and the Challenge during their initial runs.

But those two series certainly speak well of Tors when it comes to "hard science fiction".

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John Thiel
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 10:20 am    Post subject: Riders to the Stars Reply with quote

I was pleased to find Riders to the Stars in All Sci-Fi's movie viewing room, and had the pleasure of re-watching it after many years. The movie seems to be all but forgotten, but is one of the best science fiction movies ever made, being straight science fiction and with a highly intelligible focus. I remember it as being an hour and a half but it appears here as an hour and seventeen minutes, which may account for some of what I recall not being in it. And the dialogue is hard to follow as the actors (they can act) are all talking at the same time, and an announcer is heard over it. Nevertheless it is fully viewable and I suggest to others to take advantage of this opportunity to watch it and perhaps discuss it.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 10:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

John, we're delighted to hear that our members are enjoying All Sci-Fi's Movie Room! Very Happy

IMDb does say that the film's running time is 1 hour 21 minutes — which is four minutes shorter than the 1 hour 17 minute version on DailyMotion which you watched. And when I took a quick look at it just now, there was cut jump in the film right before the centrifuge scene. So, perhaps that version does have some missing parts. Sad

I was surprised to discover that neither Amazon nor anyone else is selling DVDs of this movie, so it does indeed seem to be forgotten, as you said. This film a special favorite of All Sci-Fi member Bulldogtrekker, who is the official moderator of our Movie Room.

If I'd found it Amazon for a reasonable price, I'd have bought it and sent it to BDT on his birthday! He and I have been doing synchro-cinemas (chatting on Facebook while watching movies together) several times a week for about six years, and it would have been the perfect gift. Very Happy

Hopefully it will air on TCM soon and you'll be able to see the uncut movie. Meanwhile, enjoy this article about it on the Turner Classic Movie website!

Riders to the Stars - TCM Overview

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