What? No DVD?

RED PLANET MARS is definitely not a comedy, except in an inadvertent sense. And you'll probably find this disappointing, considering what you wrote, but no, they do not go to Mars or any other planet.

It's a cold war film about an American scientist who thinks he's established radio contact with Mars using a device invented by a fugitive Nazi scientist. The messages tell of all the technical wonders on Mars, which in turn cause panic and economic ruin in the West. Meanwhile the Soviets have secretly bankrolled the Nazi, who has built his own transmitter and is eavesdropping on the American's messages. Then, suddenly, just as the West is teetering on the brink of disaster, Mars starts transmitting religious messages that spark a religious revival in the Communist bloc and lead to the overthrow of the Soviet regime and its satellites.

I won't go any further but this is one of the most bizarre (though definitely original) sort-of sci-fi films ever made, touching not only on science fiction but economics, religion, Communism, Nazism and so forth. There are no spaceships, no scenes on other planets, no aliens (at least none that are seen or heard), no monsters, no fantastic gizmos, absolutely nothing that you normally find in a sci-fi film. It's basically an anti-Communist movie with a science fiction gimmick as its hook, plus a heavy dose of religion as a cure for the world's ills.

I've always really liked this movie precisely because it's so different and downright preposterous. And it does have a good cast. Worth seeing, but as I said, if you're only looking for spaceships and aliens and flights to other planets, this is not for you.

By the way, the DVD is put out by a crummy company called Cheezy Flicks, which ruins otherwise okay (or even good) movies by the sophomoric way they treat them. The DVD is okay, but I wish MGM/UA would put out its own, proper, release, as they did on VHS.

Sorry, that's the same old Cheezy Flicks DVD.