FANTASIA OBSCURA: The Dangers of Space Travel and Ice Caves on the Moon?
There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.
Sometimes, if you just give her a chance, you will look her in the eyes and not have your gaze wander over onto… other parts…
Mutiny in Outer Space (1965)
Distributed by: Woolner Brothers Pictures
Directed by: Hugo Grimaldi
When the Apollo 11 astronauts came back to Earth, they spent 21 days in quarantine to insure that they didn’t bring back anything from the moon other than rocks and great pictures. No one had any idea what kind of organisms might be there, so it made perfect sense to play it safe with them on our behalf.
Which is probably something the folks in this film should have considered…
Our film takes place in the far of world of 1990-something (someone mumbles the date as they read it off of a correspondence). It’s an interesting time to be alive; we apparently won the Third World War, we have regular service on one lunar base with another in the planning stages, and we established the US Space Authority to oversee our efforts off-world (which seems a lot better managed than what we’ve got right now).
When we open, we’re on the bridge of Space Station X-7, commanded by Col. Frank Cromwell (Richard Garland). He has a crack crew who are well prepared and able to handle any emergency; we watch as he and most trusted aide, Lt. Connie Engstrom (Pamela Curran), perform an evasive maneuver, staying clear of a discarded communications satellite from the 1960s.
(Which, hey, considering what a real problem discarded orbital junk is today, kudos to them…)
On their way to X-7 is a flight from the moon, carrying samples from ice caves found on the moon that could make building the next base cheaper, according to USSA chief General Knowland (Glenn Langan). Piloted by Major Gordon Towers (William Leslie) and co-pilot Capt. Dan Weber (Carl Crow), the ship has orders to deliver the samples and wait for extraction on a later supply ship. This is fine as far as Towers is concerned, as serving aboard the station is his girlfriend, civilian biochemist Dr. Faith Montaine (Dolores Faith). She’s aboard to run experiments on whether plants can grow normally in space, whether she paid $52 million to go up there, we don’t get told…
Try as Towers and Montaine might to initiate docking maneuvers, ifyoukonwwhatImean, they never get the chance; we find out that Weber is sick, having picked up fungal spores from the ice caves on the moon. Within a short amount of time, the fungus consumes him, putting an effective end to his burgeoning career with the USSA as fast as it takes to put on a red shirt…
The fungus is the least of their problems, however. We find out casually that Cromwell requested a two-month extension as commander of the X-7, and has lately been running himself into the ground. When Cromwell fails to avoid a meteor swarm as easily as he did the com-sat, it’s the first sign we have that he’s worn himself down to the point that he needs to be replaced.
Which proves difficult to do; when Towers tries to relieve Cromwell of command, Cromwell gets the upper hand, and reports the matter back down below as a mutiny. He’s fully committed to his career and command, even though “fully committed” is a loaded choice of words to use as he cracks up and endangers everyone around him.
And that’s not even taking into account the fungus, which soon spreads throughout and over the station…
Much like the fungus that took over Captain Weber and the X-7, there’s a lot of dross in the film that threatens to kill the living entities under it. The effects work and sets are pretty threadbare, which was to be expected for a film shot over six days for $90,000 (about $558,000 in today’s dollars). Grimaldi’s direction was pretty sloppy, which considering he was doing The Human Duplicators at the same time in order that both pics be released on the drive-in chain as a double feature, was probably to be expected. Such little things as his wildly inappropriate choices for stock music to score scenes, and using sonar pings to represent items being tracked in space, are especially notable.
That said, there’s the basic story that Grimaldi came up with along with Arthur C. Pierce, who got credit for the screenplay (and avoided blame for directing, which he supposedly did in some scenes). The basics of the story are pretty straightforward, but as noted above, there are details thrown in that make the script crackle at points.
And then, there’s the women in the script. Both Engstrom and Montaine are hardly your stock female characters found in other cheapie-sci-fi films of the time (or a lot of tent pole films today). They have their careers, and when called upon to rely on their training they perform exceptionally, especially Engstrom’s efforts to get Cromwell off the con and Montaine’s examination of the fungus. They both contribute to the story in ways we usually don’t get to see women do.
Admittedly, it may be hard to notice this: In this alternate history, uniform regulations are not standardized for both sexes, so the women end up in form-highlighting gear that accentuates their features, and neither of them would pass the Bechdel Test by any measure. It’s not perfect, but sometimes you have to take what you got and make the most of it.
It’s kinda sad, really, that the best place for a woman to get into STEM happens to be an alternate universe where somehow World War Three wasn’t the end of everything and when the Americans took over space they had to constantly worry about some satellite that used to beam the sitcom Quark to the west coast for NBC.
Still, be it ever so cheaply humble…
NEXT TIME: We just came back from the moon, and you want to go to Venus now? Are you serious?
…looking at you three numskulls, probably not, but still!
