Elizabeth, is yesterday's photo from "The Singing Wilderness"? I like how the book is opened to "Summer", it's like you're willing it to happen, lol. :) It's working, too - I just checked your weather and the temps are coming up over the next ten days, mid 70s to low 80s. Summer will soon be upon you! :)
I had a nice hike at Santa Susana this afternoon. I wasn't expecting it to be open because it's a state park, and the recent opening was supposed to apply only to city parks and trails, but there were other folks there, and a sign saying "please maintain social distancing", so I went in and ended up hiking all the way to the top of The Slide, as they call it. It was a gorgeous day and I am so glad to have access to the parks once again. :)
Last night's movie was "Red Planet Mars"(1952), and if you were expecting - as I was - a rocketship adventure, or an alien invasion, you may be unprepared for the curveball actually thrown, a religious and political morality play that is based on a play by John L. Balderston, who, I was impressed to discover, wrote the screenplays for "Frankenstein", "The Bride of Frankenstein", "The Mummy", "Gaslight" and "Last of the Mohicans" among many others. In other words, he belongs in the Screenwriter's Hall of Fame. I'd never heard of him before tonight, and I was wary when the opening credits said "based on a play" because that often indicates a content that includes the philosophical leanings of the playwright. Theatrical drama is author-driven and only needs to sell tickets to a single venue, whereas film is a collaboration based on what will fill seats across the nation or world. In theater, the playwright can afford to unload his entire ideology on the audience, which can sometimes make for a heavy-handed experience.
Peter Graves stars as "Chris Cronyn", a radio astronomer working in conjunction with a team at Palomar Observatory in San Diego. Through the Hale Telecope, they've observed canals on Mars that reflect light, indicating they are filled with water. Adjacent to the canals are enormous mountains that shrink overnight. The astronomers theorize that the mountains are made of ice, and that The Martians have found a way to melt them as a source of irrigation.
"To melt that amount of ice, which must weight hundreds of thousands of tons, and to do so in such a short time would require a power source far beyond anything we've developed".
The likelihood of an advanced civilization on Mars inspires Graves to renew his efforts to communicate with them. "Just think, if they are willing, they could help us move forward a thousand years"! He has a state-of-the-art laboratory at home, from which he now prepares to send more signals. His wife (Andrea King) is very much against this. She is also a scientist, but has rejected the idea of progress now that it has led to the atomic bomb. "I think it's dangerous", she tells her husband. "What if they aren't friendly? And even if they are, what has technology ever brought us but death and destruction"?
Graves offers the alternative view : "Yes, but it's also brought us antibiotics, and refrigeration. It's given us the telephone and the airplane, and made our lives safer and easier in countless ways"!
She relents and they begin working together as they have in the past. Graves taps out signals while his wife monitors an oscilloscope, awaiting a possible response. Even with their one-of-a-kind "hydrogen valve" transmitter, it takes six minutes to receive a reply. Nothing seems to be happening. "Could it be that they don't understand us? Maybe they think it's static. I've been using random numbers. What if we sent something universal"?
Just then their Boy Genius walks in : "I know, Dad! What if you used Pi"?
"Yes! That's perfect! Surely if they know mathematics they'd be aware of the constant for Pi"! He begins tapping it out; 3.14159......."I'll give them the first six digits. If they add to it, we'll know they've understood us. How did you ever think of this, Stewart"? The kid holds up the remainder of a pie crust. "Dessert was pretty good tonight", he says.
After six minutes, a signal comes back : "265359", the next six digits of Pi. The breakthrough is complete. The Cronyns have made contact with intelligent life on Mars! Newspapers worldwide trumpet the headlines. Reporters camp out on the Cronyn's property, jostling for an interview. But there are side effects to the news. The Stock Market is crashing. Farm prices fall, unemployment skyrockets. It's not too different from the Coronavirus Pandemic, haha. Washington is getting nervous. The Pentagon sends out an Admiral from the Office of Naval Intelligence to keep an eye on the Cronyns and their program. Soon, it is classified as Top Secret. All new signals and replies will be closely guarded and kept away from the press.
Over in Moscow, the Soviets have been very much enjoying the collapse of the American economy. This time I will ask you to imagine a thick Russian accent so I don't have to translate all the words, which is time consuming lol. "This is magnificent! They are doing it to themselves! We don't even need to unleash our military". Cronyn and the Pentagon also aren't aware that the Russians have been monitoring every signal transmission so far. Yes indeed, they have their own radio astronomer hidden away, at an outpost high up in the Andes Mountains. He is "Franz Calder" (Herbert Berghof), a former Nazi captured by the Soviets at the end of the war. Calder is the real genius behind the Mars Communication Technology. He was the one who invented the Hydrogen Valve Transmitter! "It was stolen from me while I was in prison"! This is true; Cronyn got hold of Calder's papers after the Nuremberg Trials and made his own Valve, but he's really just a copycat. Calder, now liberated, is getting his revenge by providing his Russian bosses with every response Cronyn receives. Any technological benefits the Americans get from The Martians will thus be nullified as the Russkies will have them too.
But then comes a surprise, completely out of the blue. A signal comes back of such consequence that it could reshape human society. After decoding it, Cronyn reports that it's from a Bible verse. Please bear with me as I am not a Biblical scholar; it's along the lines of "You have not loved one another as I commanded". Cronyn is astonished, overwhelmed. He wants this message released to the press immediately. "Think of the implications! It could bring about world peace. It could restore order in the market! We must get it out there to the people, I beseech you". The Joint Chiefs don't agree. They think it would cause panic on a catastrophic scale. But Cronyn pleads his case and is given the okay. The news goes out about the Words from Mars. Oh my goodness! Are there Christians up there? Or possibly The Redeemer Himself?!!
The news has two effects. In America, order is indeed restored. Peace comes over the land, and reassurance. People feel safe knowing a Higher Power is really and truly watching over them, and they begin to follow the Command referred to in the message : "Love one another". In the Soviet Union, however, the Russians are using the news to crack down on religious gatherings, more than ever before. Priests are shot in front of their congregations. Churches are bulldozed. Screenwriter Balderston is giving us a large dose of 1952 Red Scare Paranoia.
But wait! There is a visitor to the Cronyn laboratory. Lo and behold, it is Franz Calder, the isolated Nazi scientist. He's come all the way from his cabin in the Andes to share something with the Cronyns. Yes, he's getting a kick out of betraying the Soviets, but he's not there to help the Americans either. His secret is so explosive that I can't reveal it to you, I'm terribly sorry. But Calder's shocking news will not be the final twist in this somewhat proselytizing story. Who do you think will have the final say in a movie about Biblical messages from Mars?
Don't get me wrong; the theme is really very beautiful. There's no condemnation, no fire and brimstone or fundamentalism. Balderston even adjusts the Martian message to include other religions. It's just that the script was written at the height of the Cold War, so it feels a little preachy at times. For what it is, though, it's a very thought provoking film, with many "what ifs" presented and looked at from all sides. Balderston is obviously very Christian himself - as I said, he also wrote the play on which the film is based, so the ideas are his, through and through. If you don't mind a Christian message movie set to a sci-fi background with some Godless Russian Paranoia thrown in, then you will probably like "Red Planet Mars". I did, and I'm giving it Two Big Thumbs Up. It's certainly an original concept. /////
That's all I know for the moment. It's time for my walk, then back at the Usual Time.
Tons and tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment