1964 - ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS, Good Science Fiction

A good reliable science fiction film anyway you cut.  The director Bryon Haskin was a talented craftsman who knew his way around this genre.  The film is also smart enough and self aware enough to acknowledge that it is based on Daniel Defoe's novel.

 A great deal of the film was shot in Death Valley by master color cinematographer Winton Hoch.  Hoch was a named usually associated with John Ford and frequently Irwin Allen.  The sky was so blue it allowed the special effects technicians to add optical work with a great deal of  clarity,  unusual for a modestly budgeted 1960's science fiction film.

The acting, story and design have been carefully thought thru.  The story moves along as the astronaut  Christopher Draper encounters challenges surviving in the Martian environment.  This is Hollywood movie making at it's best, with the filmmakers bringing a lot of skill to a premise which could have been very ridiculous.

The film wasn't a success when it was released, but has grown it stature with time.

 Ib Melchior and John Higgins wrote the screenplay, 110 minutes. 

1953 - WAR OF THE WORLDS - now a Criterion Blu Ray

 Criterion has released a 4k Blu ray enhancement of George Pal's 50's classic.  The film looks very good. 

The big news with the release is the removal of the wires that held the Martian War machine models up during the special effects sequences.  Controversial or not it looks very cool to see these creepy things floating across the landscape without wires.

War Of The Worlds was a rather modest production in terms of budget but the producer George Pal and the director Bryon Haskin packed a lot into it along with the awesome Paramount special effects team.

  

Still one of the finest science fiction films from the 1950's.

Written by Barré Lyndon the film runs an efficient 85 minutes.