''Riders to the Stars'' is a 1954 independently made American

science fiction film Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstellar ...

produced by

Ivan Tors Ivan Tors (born Iván Törzs; June 12, 1916 – June 4, 1983) was a Hungarian playwright, film director, screenwriter, and film and television producer with an emphasis on non-violent but exciting science fiction, underwater sequences, and s ...

Productions and released by

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the studi ...

. The film was directed by Richard Carlson (who also stars) and

Herbert L. Strock Herbert L. Strock (January 13, 1918 – November 30, 2005) was an American television producer and director, and a B-movie director of titles such as ''I Was a Teenage Frankenstein'' (1957), '' How to Make a Monster'' (1958), and ''The Crawling ...

(uncredited) and also stars

William Lundigan William Paul Lundigan (June 12, 1914 – December 20, 1975) was an American film actor. His more than 125 films include ''Dodge City'' (1939), ''The Fighting 69th'' (1940), ''The Sea Hawk'' (1940), ''Santa Fe Trail'' (1940), ''Dishonored Lady'' ...

Martha Hyer Martha Hyer (August 10, 1924 – May 31, 2014) was an American actress who played Gwen French in ''Some Came Running'' (1958), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her autobiography, ''Finding My Way ...

, and

Herbert Marshall Herbert Brough Falcon Marshall (23 May 1890 – 22 January 1966) was an English stage, screen and radio actor who starred in many popular and well-regarded Hollywood films in the 1930s and 1940s. After a successful theatrical career in the Uni ...

. ''Riders to the Stars'' is the second film in Ivan Tors' "Office of Scientific Investigation" (OSI) trilogy, which was preceded by ''

The Magnetic Monster ''The Magnetic Monster'' is a 1953 independently made American black-and-white science fiction film, produced by Ivan Tors and George Van Marter, directed by Curt Siodmak and (uncredited) Herbert L. Strock. The film stars Richard Carlson, King ...

'' (1953) and followed by '' Gog'' (1954).Warren 1982.

Plot

A group of highly qualified single men, including Dr. Richard Stanton (

) and Dr. Jerry Lockwood ( Richard Carlson), are recruited for a top secret project. They undergo a series of rigorous physical and psychological tests, during which Stanton becomes attracted to the beautiful Dr. Jane Flynn (

), one of the scientists testing the candidates. After most of the candidates have been eliminated from consideration, the four remaining are told about the purpose of the project. Stanton's father, Dr. Donald Stanton (Herbert Marshall), is the man in charge. He and his colleagues are working on manned space travel. They have found, however, that even the best quality metal alloys available eventually turn brittle in the harsh environment of outer space. Since metal-based meteors are not subject to these

metal fatigue In materials science, fatigue is the initiation and propagation of cracks in a material due to cyclic loading. Once a fatigue crack has initiated, it grows a small amount with each loading cycle, typically producing striations on some parts o ...

stresses, the scientists want to recover samples before they enter the Earth's atmosphere to discover how the meteors' "outer shell" protects them. To accomplish this, they need to send men into space, something that has never been done before. Stanton, Lockwood, and Walter Gordon (

Robert Karnes Robert Anthony Karnes (June 19, 1917 – December 4, 1979) was an American film, stage and television actor. Life and career Karnes was born in Kentucky. He served in World War II, where he had interest into acting and going to Hollywood, Cal ...

) accept the dangerous assignment, while the fourth candidate quits. Three one-man rockets are launched a couple of hundred miles into space in order to intercept an incoming meteor swarm. Gordon makes the first run to capture a meteor; it turns out to be too large for his spaceship's nose scoop, and the ship is destroyed in the collision that follows. Lockwood suffers a mental breakdown when his view screen shows Gordon's still space-suited but now skeletal and weightless body floating toward him. Panicked and delusional, he fires his rocket engines and blasts away from Earth, heading into deep space to his doom. Stanton then misses the main swarm, but a stray meteor crosses his orbital path. He decides to pursue it, despite a warning from ground control that he may use too much fuel in the attempt and burn up upon re-entry. Stanton snags the meteor in time and manages to survive a crash landing with the now captured meteor safely intact. He is rewarded for his heroism with a kiss from Dr. Flynn. When the meteor is examined, it is discovered to have an outer coating of crystalline pure carbon. With this discovery, the U. S. can now build safer rockets and space stations for the inevitable conquest of space.

Cast

as Dr. Richard Donald Stanton *

as Dr. Donald L. Stanton / Narrator * Richard Carlson as Dr. Jerome "Jerry" Lockwood *

as Dr. Jane Flynn *

Dawn Addams Victoria Dawn Addams (21 September 1930 – 7 May 1985) was a British actress, particularly in Hollywood motion pictures of the 1950s and on British television in the 1960s and 1970s. She became a princess in 1954 (until 1971). Early years Ad ...

as Susan Manners *

as Walter J. Gordon *

Lawrence Dobkin Lawrence Dobkin (September 16, 1919 – October 28, 2002) was an American television director, character actor and screenwriter whose career spanned seven decades. Dobkin was a prolific performer during the Golden Age of Radio. He narrat ...

as Dr. Delmar *

George Eldredge George Edwin Eldredge (September 10, 1898 – March 12, 1977) was an American actor who appeared in over 180 movies during a career that stretched from the 1930s to the early 1960s. He also had a prolific television career during the 1950 ...

as Dr. Paul Drayden *

Dan Riss Frederic Daniel Riss (March 22, 1910 – August 28, 1970) was an American actor who had a career from 1949 to 1965. Filmography References External links * 1910 births 1970 deaths 20th-century American male actors American male f ...

as Dr. Frank Warner * Michael Fox as Dr. Klinger (Psychiatrist) *

King Donovan King Donovan (January 25, 1918 – June 30, 1987) was an American film, stage, and television actor, as well as a film and television director. Early years Francis King Donovan was born in Manhattan on January 25, 1918. His parents were vaudev ...

as James F. O'Herli, Security * Kem Dibbs as David Wells *

James Best Jewel Franklin Guy (July 26, 1926 – April 6, 2015), known professionally as James Best, was an American television, film, stage, and voice actor, as well as a writer, director, acting coach, artist, college professor, and musician. Duri ...

as Sidney K. Fuller

Production

''Riders to the Stars'' was Richard Carlson's first film as both director and star. In order to create a more authentic feel for the story, contemporary newsreel footage was used of United States' launches of German V-2 rockets captured by the United States Army at the end of World War II . Additionally, one authentic sequence shows "two white rats in a rocket beyond the force of gravity ... one of the most startling series of photographs ever made". Five years later, actor William Lundigan would go on to star in the syndicated space science fiction television series '' Men Into Space'' (1959), which could be considered a sequel to or at least a continuation of the ideas explored in ''Riders to the Stars''. ''Riders to the Stars'' was filmed and released theatrically in SuperCinecolor provided by '' Color Corporation of America,'' but prints struck for television syndication were in

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

. Turner Classic Movies airs the color version.

Reception

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' was critical of ''Riders to the Stars'', calling it lackluster and gimmicky. "Spliced in to give all the idiotic, pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo a precarious footing in fact are newsreel shots ..."Goodbout, Oscar A. (O.A.G.)
"Movie review: 'Riders to the Stars' (1954); At the Globe."
''The New York Times'', March 20, 1954. Later reviews, however, noted that the filmmakers had created a "near-documentary" by using rocket footage and scientific equipment as a precursor to the coming space age, all within an "unremarkable film".Ashlin, Scott. "Review: Riders to the Stars (1954)." ''1000 Misspent Hours and Counting''. Retrieved: July 20, 2015.

References

Notes

# German V-2 rockets captured by the United States Army at the end of World War II were used as sounding rockets to carry scientific instruments into the Earth's upper atmosphere at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR).

V-2 sounding rocket German V-2 rockets captured by the United States Army at the end of World War II were used as sounding rockets to carry scientific instruments into the Earth's upper atmosphere at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) for a program of atmospheric and s ...

Citations

Bibliography

* Warren, Bill. ''Keep Watching The Skies'' Vol I: 1950–1957. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 1982. . * Westfahl, Gary. ''The Spacesuit Film: A History, 1918-1969''. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2012. .

External links

* *
Riders to the Stars (1954) The New York Times
{{DEFAULTSORT:Riders to the Stars 1954 films American science fiction drama films 1950s science fiction drama films American space adventure films 1950s English-language films Films about astronauts Films directed by Herbert L. Strock Films scored by Harry Sukman Films with screenplays by Curt Siodmak United Artists films 1954 drama films Films directed by Richard Carlson 1950s American films