A curious thing happened to Hollywood way back on October 4, 1957. Those wily Soviets launched the very first orbiting satellite; Sputnik. This touched off a fresh panic in America! The Russians were ahead of us in the conquest of space! The government assured us that the Russians were out to control all of space and then we would all surely die. The Space Race was born and Hollywood had a special role to play in that race. Y'see, up until that time science and math were kind of secondary studies, behind English and history in the American schools. Suddenly Washington needed top science talent and pronto! English was given the back seat and math and science came to to forefront for the first time ever! It wasn't enough just to emphasize the rational studies in the schools or to instill the fear of imminent peril in the minds of the American populace. No. We needed to make America's youth actually want to become scientists. Scientists needed to be cool! Enter Hollywood.
Before the Sputnik scare the studios tended to portray scientists as either cold unemotional nerds or madmen with thick foreign accents bent on some crazy scheme that unleashes an unholy terror upon innocent people. Glamorous they weren't. But now, with Washington imploring them to help brainwash the kids into science careers, Hollywood unleashed a torrent of Grade B flicks that featured rugged, good lookin', two-fisted, square jawed scientists as the dashing hero. Movies like "This Island Earth" and "Riders To the Stars" are just two of the many films that featured this new kind of celluloid hero; The Brainy Stud.
Having established the historical context for this movie I have to admit that "Riders To The Stars" is a pretty lame piece of work. Yes, the modern scientist of the 50's was smart and handsome, but I doubt that when you're working at Carnegie-Mellon you get a lot of chances to meet, much less date, a fashion model. This movie assures us that this is just what's happening to Dr. Lockwood. In fact, he desperately wants to marry her. She, on the other hand, isn't so sure she wants to marry him. Then there's Dr. Stanton, the toughest and studliest scientist of them all! He falls for sexy Dr. Flynn at Space Travel Boot Camp. Basically this movie is a thin attempt to build some suspense around a manned mission to capture a meteor, because they stay crunchy in milk or something. In order to pad the film you get the soap opera schmaltz I described earlier. There are 3 macho brainiacs who are put thru rigorous training for their outer space adventure and the bulk of the film's run time is spent showing the preparations, either live action or endless stock footage of rocket assembly. Finally the big day comes and it is announced by Dr. Daddy Flynn that the meteor shower is just minutes away! The 3 valiant eggheads strap in for God and country and blast off into the unknown!! Will they be successful? Will they all survive?? Will we ever really care??? This movie is way overrated on this site. Goofy enough to be some fun if you're in the mood but there are much better examples of the genre out there.
Before the Sputnik scare the studios tended to portray scientists as either cold unemotional nerds or madmen with thick foreign accents bent on some crazy scheme that unleashes an unholy terror upon innocent people. Glamorous they weren't. But now, with Washington imploring them to help brainwash the kids into science careers, Hollywood unleashed a torrent of Grade B flicks that featured rugged, good lookin', two-fisted, square jawed scientists as the dashing hero. Movies like "This Island Earth" and "Riders To the Stars" are just two of the many films that featured this new kind of celluloid hero; The Brainy Stud.
Having established the historical context for this movie I have to admit that "Riders To The Stars" is a pretty lame piece of work. Yes, the modern scientist of the 50's was smart and handsome, but I doubt that when you're working at Carnegie-Mellon you get a lot of chances to meet, much less date, a fashion model. This movie assures us that this is just what's happening to Dr. Lockwood. In fact, he desperately wants to marry her. She, on the other hand, isn't so sure she wants to marry him. Then there's Dr. Stanton, the toughest and studliest scientist of them all! He falls for sexy Dr. Flynn at Space Travel Boot Camp. Basically this movie is a thin attempt to build some suspense around a manned mission to capture a meteor, because they stay crunchy in milk or something. In order to pad the film you get the soap opera schmaltz I described earlier. There are 3 macho brainiacs who are put thru rigorous training for their outer space adventure and the bulk of the film's run time is spent showing the preparations, either live action or endless stock footage of rocket assembly. Finally the big day comes and it is announced by Dr. Daddy Flynn that the meteor shower is just minutes away! The 3 valiant eggheads strap in for God and country and blast off into the unknown!! Will they be successful? Will they all survive?? Will we ever really care??? This movie is way overrated on this site. Goofy enough to be some fun if you're in the mood but there are much better examples of the genre out there.