Matinee Musings: Conquest of Space

Note: To keep this blog's connection with the classic TV series Perry Mason, I'm compelled to point out that Dr. Elsbach is played by Michael Fox who appeared in 25 episodes, usually as a doctor or forensic pathologist. Chinese guy playing a Japanese guy named Imoto, Benson Fong guest starred as the accused in TCOT Caretaker’s Cat. For some odd reason, William Hopper (Paul Drake) is billed higher than Fong though Hopper is in only two brief scenes and Fong is almost always in a scene. 

Conquest of Space
1955 / 1:20
Tagline: “Dramatic Effects Never Before Equaled - Or Even Imagined!”
[internet archive]

The Commander, a figure carved from the granite of military tradition, is a cinematic archetype - stern, rule-bound, and yet quietly aware of the psychological erosion that comes with prolonged duty in space. The Wheel, a rotating space station that doubles as a construction port and a fort, becomes a metaphor for the grinding monotony of interstellar vigilance. The crew, suffering from the tedium of their orbital tour of duty, begins to unravel: irritability, nausea, dizziness, and a creeping sense of existential dread permeate the mise-en-scène.

When the mission is unexpectedly re-routed from the Moon to Mars, the Commander’s reaction is not rebellion but resignation - a classic gesture of the professional soldier, the kind of man who thinks “Mine is not to reason why.” His stoicism is not heroic in the sense Marcus Aurelius would endorse, but tragic: a man burdened by his unbending sense of duty, but also haunted by the dark implications of his own obedience. The stakes are high - Earth’s survival depends on the success of this mission - but the film’s true drama lies in the Commander’s internal conflict, his slow descent into metaphysical unease.

As the narrative unfolds, the film anticipates a familiar trope in science fiction cinema: the psychological breakdown of a crew member, the “madness in space” motif that would later be explored from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Ren & Stimpy. But here, the breakdown is not merely personal - it’s philosophical. The Commander begins to question the very premise of the mission, suggesting that humanity’s reach into the cosmos may be a form of cosmic trespass, a violation of the divine order.

The supporting cast, while not given the depth of characterization one finds in Citizen Kane, nonetheless serves the themes the director explores. The members of the crew are unable to articulate the moral dimensions of space exploration to their CO and thus unable to dispute his religious and philosophical misgivings about the mission. Their inability to form and express an argument becomes a critique of technocratic culture - a reminder that scientific progress is a hollow, if not hazardous, enterprise without reflection about values and the ability to formulate and argue your point of view to unknowing or unsteady authority.

Visually, the film is a mixed bag. The Technicolor palette is both a strength and a liability: the close-ups, a staple of television aesthetics, sometimes betray the limitations of the medium, but the spacewalk sequences are genuinely striking. The Angry Red Planet, rendered in vivid hues, is a painterly abstraction - a hostile, beautiful terrain that reflects the inner turmoil of the characters.

Not wanting to oversell this picture, I grant that this is a film that lacks the polish of later sci-fi epics. But in the final analysis, it compensates with a sincerity of purpose and a thematic ambition that elevates it above its pulp origins with a meditation on duty, doubt, and the limits of human ambition.