arthur_tafero This film was grossly disappointing. It gives a promise of science-fiction and then turns into another version of "The Next Voice You Here", a religious babel about God giving a speech on the radio to mankind. This one is pretty much the same. The religious evangelism is obnoxious to the point of nausea.What Peter Graves is doing in this film, other than collecting a paycheck is beyond me. I'm sure Fury would be spinning in that horse's grave, if the horse could see this film. I did enjoy the appearance of the actor from The Millionaire, Marvin Miller as a Russian official. Other than that, there is nothing to recommend this setup for an extremely disappointing conclusion, which I will not divulge.You are better off watching an episode of Science-Fiction Theater.

utgard14 Radio transmissions believed to be from Mars turn out to have quite different origins in this intriguing Cold War-era sci-fi film that seems to be polarizing today, if IMDb is anything to go by (and I wonder). Peter Graves does a good job but Herbert Berghof steals the show as a former Nazi now working for the Russians. Andrea King is pretty annoying as the hysterical wife of Graves' character. The rest of the cast is solid. I like this movie because it's interesting with a unique plot. It's talky, yes, but that's not inherently a bad thing. It's a thought-provoking movie with some historical interest, not just a special effects spectacle. Because it has political and religious elements, it will trigger Certain Types. If you are one of those, gird your loins before watching.

zetes An interesting sci-fi flick that attempts to be intellectual instead of thrilling, but in reality it's too stupid. Peter Graves stars as a scientist who contacts Mars. After a series of communications, it turns out that God Himself is from the Red Planet and is disappointed with the Earthlings and their Cold War. As silly as that sounds, I don't think that premise itself is what ruins the film. It's just that the film isn't at all interested in the implications of that revelation, but far more interested in demonizing the Soviets, who gleefully machine-gun down people gathered in prayer, and patting the Americans on the back for being so God fearing (Andrea King, who plays Graves' wife, is so obnoxiously self-righteous you just want to murder her). There's an interesting twist late in the picture, but they immediately undercut it. This is a virtual remake of a much better film from a couple of years previous, William A. Wellman's The Next Voice You Hear. That one was a far more intellectually curious story about God speaking up about the Cold War (and the following year's much more famous The Day the Earth Stood Still strikes me as a virtual remake of that film).

JoeB131 This movie is a lot less than what it was presented as.The notion was that a couple of scientists have discovered a way to communicate with Mars using the invention of an ex-Nazi scientist. Other scientists discovered that the Martians had the ability to obliterate their ice-caps in a week, so they must have some pretty impressive technology.The female lead in this film chewed the scenery at every opportunity, and the film is full of COld War propaganda. Even Peter Graves seems a bit hammy in the role.The Martians send messages saying how awesome their technology is, and the results is the world economy collapses, which is kind of silly. Then they send a religious message, as in "Why didn't you listen to Jesus when he stopped by." Which causes the fall of the Soviet Bloc.No, seriously, I think this was the plot or something.But the messages really came from the disgraced Nazi scientists, who apparently foresaw how rumors could ruin everything.