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Greetings, and welcome to VIEWING THE CLASSICS. Here you'll find capsule reviews of vintage movies from the early days of cinema through the 1970s, with a special emphasis on sci-fi, horror, and mystery movies. Be sure to check out the Pages links, where you can find a Film Index of all my reviews, links to the reviews organized by cast members, directors, and other contributors, and links to my reviews of the films of talented young director Joshua Kennedy.

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Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Riders To The Stars (1954)

Starring William Lundigan, Herbert Marshall, Richard Carlson, Martha Hyer, Dawn Addams
Directed by Richard Carlson
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A government agency invites 12 renowned scientists and leads them through rigorous tests to find candidates to pilot a rocket designed to catch a meteor.  

Although it has a solid science fiction premise, personable actors, and many realistic scenes, the film suffers from some weak special effects and an overabundance of stock footage.  Nevertheless it's still fun, and is notable for providing veteran actor Carlson with his directorial debut.  Produced by Ivan Tors, it plays like a feature length episode of his television series, Science Fiction Theatre, with a good deal of attention paid to scientific details, including a well-edited centrifuge sequence.  The picture's screenplay is by Curt Siodmak, better known for his 1940s horror films for Universal Pictures.

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