In the days before space travel, there were a lot of quaint ideas about what might exist on other planets. However, the Mars depicted in this Italian film, which credits neither director nor actors, is even pretty silly for its day. A professor believes that Mars is inhabited. His son and his daughter's fiancée think so too, so they gather together a crew and "airship" (a rickety thing that probably wouldn't fly 500 feet, much less a few million miles) to find out. When they land on the red planet, the Martians are waiting for them and greet them graciously. The Mars shown here is a sort of heaven where everyone walks around in white robes, no one works, and all the inhabitants are nice to each other. The locals dance, and there are places with names like the Grotto of Love and the River of Eternity. One of the explorers falls in love with the daughter of the head Martian, and she agrees to accompany the Earthlings back home so that she can help spread Martian goodness.
by Janiss Garza
synopsis
