The Wizard of Mars
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| The Wizard of Mars | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | David L. Hewitt |
| Produced by | David L. Hewitt Joe Karston Gary R. Heacock |
| Written by | Armando Busick (story) David L. Hewitt |
| Starring | John Carradine Roger Gentry Vic McGee Jerry Rannow Eve Bernhardt |
| Music by | Frank A. Coe |
| Cinematography | Austin McKinney |
| Editing by | Tom Graeff |
| Distributed by | American General Pictures Inc. |
| Release date(s) | 1965 |
| Running time | 85 minutes |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $33,000 (estimated) |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Wizard of Mars is a 1965 low budget science fiction film takeoff of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz co-written and directed by stage magician David L. Hewitt. The title character is portrayed by John Carradine, who gives a lengthy monologue as a projection near the end of the film. The film centers on four astronauts--Steve (Roger Gentry), "Doc" (Vic McGee), Charlie (Jerry Rannow), and of course, Dorothy (Eve Bernhardt), shown aboard ship wearing Silver Shoes--who dream they are struck by a storm and encounter the Horrors of the Red Planet (one of the film's video retitlings), and eventually follow a "Golden Road" to the Ancient City where they encounter the title character, who is the collective consciousness of all Martians.
Thematically, the film is very similar to John Boorman's Zardoz (1974), in that it deals with an immortal community longing for death.
[edit] Retitlings
In the early 1980s, the film was not only released on video by NTA Home Video (an imprint of Republic Pictures) with its title intact, but also as the aforementioned Horrors of the Red Planet in 1988 by Genesis Home Video and later by Burbank Video and Star Classics Home Video in the LP mode. The latter two editions topped the cast list (as given on the cover) with Lon Chaney. This probably resulted from a confusion of this film and Hewitt's Doctor Terror's Gallery of Horrors, which also included Carradine, Gentry, and McGee in its cast. Also in the early 1980s, Regal Video Inc. released both of these films under the misleading title Alien Massacre in identical packaging. It is not clear why both films were deliberately retitled eponymously, as the films were retitled on-screen as well as on the cover. John Carradine's credit says "John Carradine as", which makes the retitlings rather ludicrous. Alien Massacre came close to replicating the original font and starry background, while Horrors of the Red Planet is in small letters on a completely black screen, with a jump that suggests it was done with a linear editor.
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