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Flying Disc Man from Mars (1950)

 
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 26, 2015 7:25 pm    Post subject: Flying Disc Man from Mars (1950) Reply with quote

_______

This is the sequel to the Republic serial, "The Purple Monster Strikes". I've never seen it, but it sounds interesting -- but then, they all do, on paper.

Mota the Martian threatens Earth again when he returns in his bat-winged spacecraft and establishes a base in a volcano. Watch for cribbed scenes from "King of the Rocket Men" (1949).

I read that we should beware of a badly edited feature version released in 1958, entitle "Missile Monsters". Directed by Fred Brannon. Starring Lois Collier, James Craven, Gregory Gay, and Walter Reed.

Can anybody recommend it?

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Robert (Butch) Day
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 6:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not really. But judge for yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXgUnUBXt6Q

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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 8:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I can rarely now recommend any sci-fi entertainment I enjoyed as a kid, especially those in serialized form. I still, however, have an enduring fondness for the hardware from those times. Accordingly, here are a few screen grabs of the "disc" aircraft.

One of the first things we notice is that Mars buys their flying machines from Mitsubishi.









~~~~~~~~~
Edit 3 Dec 2017: Changed image hosting links.
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scotpens
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 12:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

orzel-w wrote:
One of the first things we notice is that Mars buys their flying machines from Mitsubishi.

In that case, wouldn't it look more like this?



Of course, all the shots of the Martian "semi-disc" are stock footage from the earlier serial King of the Mounties in which the aircraft is a Japanese "Falcon Plane" (hence the Rising Sun logo). Which, in turn, was modified from a Nazi "Bat Plane" used in the even earlier serial Spy Smasher!




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Brent Gair
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 06, 2015 3:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is coming out on Blu-ray. I just pre-ordered it.

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Brigz
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 27, 2015 2:36 am    Post subject: Flying Disc Man From Mars Reply with quote

This serial was shown on TV more times than any other scifi Saturday morning movie/serial back in the mid to late fifties. I must have seen it six or seven times as a kid and grew to hate it.

Why did I keep watching it if I hated it so much?

Because back then Saturday morning was a ritual of sacred TV shows and films. Sky King, Fury, Rin-tin-tin, Lassie, The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid, Disney things like Zorro, Spin and Marty, The Hardy Boys, Circus Boy (might as well give Mickey Dolenz a mention) and on and on. It was nothing like Saturday morning TV today. You had all these excellent shows but you only had three channels.

To make matters worse, you didn't always know what movie might be on. It was often listed as "To Be Announced." So, you're a kid sitting anxiously in front of the TV knowing some kind of scifi movie is going to be on and you are crossing your fingers that it won't be Flying Disc Man from Mars, and son of a bitch it's the damned Flying Disc Man from Mars again. The only thing worse was it might turn out to be Robot Monster.

I'm very surprised you haven't seen it Bud.

Dave B.
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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 27, 2015 3:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Brent Gair wrote:
This is coming out on Blu-ray.

I shall be waiting on pins and needles for a report on image quality!

Brigz wrote:
It was often listed as "To Be Announced."

When I was a mere lad I got to thinking that the listing "TBA" meant a farm report.
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Brent Gair
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 16, 2015 10:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I just finished watching this.

For the most part, the audio/video quality is excellent. Generally, it's as good as most feature films of the era. I noticed no jump cuts or unusual edits. There is surprisingly little print damage. Contrast and grey scale are of above average quality and there is a proper level of fine grain with no obvious signs of digital tampering. Excellent job.

The only caveats are as follows: In chapter one (just after the 14:00 minute mark) there are two brief instances where we can observe that the film has been torn and somewhat clumsily repaired. These moments are just flashes and the bad repair is a better alternative than just chopping the damage and creating a jump cut. One fight scene has the camera cranked to speed up the action and this creates some strobing of the image. Finally, the last two chapters seem to have an abundance of duped material that results in a softer image and harsher contrast. These shortcomings represent just a small amount of the total running time.

The online reviews are quite positive and DVDbeaver reports an average transfer rate of about 35mbps which is very high (that's a good thing).

Overall, the serial was a lot of fun but it suffered from problems that have previously been reported: no flying discs and the man from Mars was just a cranky old guy. There's nothing much sci-fi about it. Replace the Martian with a Russian and replace the semi-disc with a modern plane and you could film the same serial with the same dialogue and the same plot. It's basically cops-and-robbers with bad guys trying to steal something (uranium) and the good guys trying to stop them.

But that "semi-disc" really needs to be a big scratchbuilt model!
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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 17, 2015 3:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Brent Gair wrote:
But that "semi-disc" really needs to be a big scratchbuilt model!

I know somebody who's up to the challenge. Wink

Here's what I could make of it, short of having Blu-ray images to scrutinize.



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Brent Gair
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 17, 2015 9:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey, thanks orzel-w! That looks very accurate to my eye. I've saved that image and I'm going to do some more research on this ship.

It's one of the better "sci-fi'ish" ships from those old serials. In many respects, it's a logical design incorporating advanced features such as a blended fuselage airfoil like the old Burnelli:



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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 17, 2015 1:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I found it amusing in King of the Mounties where they mentioned that the hollow wings were filled with helium for neutral buoyancy.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 2:53 pm    Post subject: Re: Flying Disc Man From Mars Reply with quote

Brigz wrote:
This serial was shown on TV more times than any other scifi Saturday morning movie/serial back in the mid to late fifties. I must have seen it six or seven times as a kid and grew to hate it. Why did I keep watching it if I hated it so much?

Because back then Saturday morning was a ritual of sacred TV shows and films. Sky King, Fury, Rin-tin-tin, Lassie, The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid, Disney things like Zorro, Spin and Marty, The Hardy Boys, Circus Boy (might as well give Mickey Dolenz a mention) and on and on.

I had the same ritual in the 1950s, and even though this serial didn't seem to be one of the ones shown on Atlanta stations back then, I have fond memories of the Flash Gordon serials, along with several others you named, Dave. Very Happy
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Wed May 17, 2017 9:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I became enamoured of the old serials later in the sixties. They were all new to me and I quickly fell in love with the rock-em sock-em (And never lose your hat!!) style of them!

Nothing since has really grabbed my "Sense of wonder" as these old 15 minutes a week wonders!

The "flying wing" from this serial was a copy of Spy Smasher's Gyro-sub from the comics!
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