The Martian Chronicles: Part 1 Movie Review

Hollywood had long planned to film Ray Bradbury's 1950 collection of interlinked vignettes about mankind's exploration and tentative conquest of the planet Mars, but this limping network TV miniseries (marketed on tape as three separate 90-minute episodes) is a disappointment, with flimsy f/x, weak dialogue, and very sparse doses of Bradbury's trademark lyricism surviving Richard Matheson's script. First cassette, “The Expeditions,” depicts first three manned NASA expeditions to Mars, and the humans’ often fatal reception at the hands of the placidly mystical Martians. As in the book, Mars – here impersonated by the islands of Malta and Lanzarote – is less a scientific reality than a place of dreams, yearning and nostalgia. Maybe that's why production values are on par with Fantasy Island.

1979 120m/C Rock Hudson, Bernie Casey, Nicholas Hammond, Darren McGavin; D: Michael Anderson Sr.; W: Richard Matheson. VHS, Beta FRH