Director: Byron Haskin
Tagline: “See how it will happen—in your lifetime!”
Plot: As the breathless opening narration informs us, “This is a story of tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow!” (Presumably in post, the filmmakers edited out “Or maybe the following week! Definitely by Friday. Or March? Well, we’ve got that thing with our family in March, and then spring is so busy with the kids finishing school, and there’s the annual budget due at work, and summer is a total wash—but it will happen! As some point, post-tomorrow, maybe next fall-ish, but we’re not really committing to anything in writing!”)
In the not-too-distant future, the combined forces of Earth’s best and brightest (most of whom speak English, and with a couple exceptions, are hella white) have built the Wheel, an orbiting space station with internal gravity, and a dedicated, slightly nutty crew. Walter Brooke rules over his men with an iron fist, driving them toward one goal: the construction of a spacecraft that will take mankind to the Moon. To this aim, he and the Supreme International Space Authority have selected a group of brilliant technicians and scientists to put together and presumably pilot a ship to the stars. This team of übermenschen is trained separately from the others on the space station, causing a wee bit of friction:
Some things to note: 1) The super-group eats with the rest of the crew, but are only allowed pills, that classic science-fiction future-food staple. 2) The pills are ridiculously precise, from “Roast Beef” to “Chicken Pie” to actual “Cream” and “Sugar” for the “Coffee” pills. Three, competition to remain on the pill-eating group is fierce, and when one member washes out (after getting a quick case of “space fatigue”), Brooke tells this incredibly stressed, strung-out guy that he’s failed by sending him a full meal of real food in front of everyone else in the ship. The failure is never seen again, most likely because he exited through the nearest airlock after choking down a few bites of steak and shame-sauce.
When the message comes from headquarters that it’s time for the ship to take flight, it’s as much a relief as it is a new source of anxiety. But the moon is no longer the goal. Since Brooke is the only man who could possibly lead the expedition, and since he’s getting on in years, the SISA has decided to forego the lunar-landing test stage and jump straight for the big prize: Mars.
Key scenes: Brooke hems and haws, but finally agrees to lead the new mission. His son, Eric Fleming, volunteers as well, despite having put in for a transfer back to Earth. Then we get the inevitable volunteer sequence, which reaches its peak when Benson Fong gives the following speech explaining why interplanetary travel is crucial if mankind wants to be able to keep reaching the top shelf (literally):
The final roster for the crew of the U.S.S. Probably Gonna Die Screaming is Brooke, Fleming, Fong, medic Ross Martin, and Phil Foster, a.k.a. “The Brooklyn Guy,” one of the earliest examples of that most loathsome of all genre types, the broadly accented comic relief who makes up for what he lacks in book-smarts with a whole lot of heart. (Or, in this case, Brooke says, “I don’t think there’s a man on the Wheel with less formal education than you possess,” but apparently that doesn’t stop Foster from being a genius with electronics.) Foster’s mugging is egregious and curiously mis-timed, like a man used to the stage who can’t get over the absence of applause.
No time is spared in preparations—the mission is scheduled to leave at 11:46 the next morning, in order to coincide precisely with Mars’ orbit. The launch into deep space goes off without a hitch, but almost immediately, the men discover they have a stowaway aboard: Mickey Shaughnessy, the sergeant responsible for training the specialized group. He’s deeply in love with Brooke—well, all right, he’s deeply loyal to Brooke, but by the end of the film, his commitment to his commanding officer (with whom he’s served most of his military career) resembles the kind of dare-not-speak-its-name obsession that got edited out of Spartacus.