Reviews

I remember this show being advertised on the Arts and Entertainment channel in the early 80s as being from the producer of All Creatures Great and Small, and though it was a bit more contemporary, it certainly had similarities with that classic series. Both shows had a main protagonist who was a young, practicing vet who learns that the job entails more than he learned in school. In this series , it starts out that this young vet takes the job as a zoo vet out of necessity, with every intention of eventually becoming a regular dog and cat vet, but soon becomes fascinated by all the exotic animals, and eventually becomes a sought-out expert on the subject.....the other thing I remember is that the vet was sort of a lovelorn sad sack, when not treating the animals.....only about ten episodes were shown on A&E.....so I never saw the change in decades the synopsis refers to....

to the person who thought Buddy used power pills, I think you are recalling another show that was on CBS around the same time called Mr. Terrific. I think of both shows in the same breath as well. They had a similar look and sensibility about them. The scene I remember about this show, and I don't know why , is where Buddy ( who wasn't too smart) is working at a Coney island type snack bar. Hes being instructed on the art of selling frosty type ice cream cones.....when a little girl comes up and asks for a frosty....he goes to the frosty machine, swirls the ice cream onto the cone and hands it to girl, who says , "thank you ", and walks away......he asks the person training him how he did, and they say "great, except for one thing, you didn't get her money!"....as a kid, that struck me as funny......

First, I have to mention how I came to view this film. I'm American, with a nephew who lives in Siberia (he owns several coffee shops in Novosibirsk) . Anyway, on his last visit he gave me a few Russian DVDs to enjoy. Two were action adventure films (a revenge drama and Russian Mafia hit-man film). The third was this film. I had no idea what it was about, since the words on the box cover were totally in Russian (note: the DVD wouldn't even play on an American DVD player, but my laptop accommodated me). Fortunately it had English subtitles. The title of the film in my subtitles, however, was "Moving", not "In Movement".

At first, I thought it was going to be another action film about a reporter getting in over his head with the mob, but as it turned out, it was a very polished character study about a man in search of something (though he may not know it)that will give his life worth. Through his work, his friends, and especially , in the arms of many different women, he tries to achieve this, though it takes a while for this theme to become apparent. As was mentioned in the synopsis, this film has some elements of La Dolce Vita, as well as Antonioni's Blow Up, both dealing with characters who need to get in touch with themselves as well as connect to others. A refreshing film, since I haven't seen a character study of this caliber (hes not totally likable)since Five Easy Pieces. I must also mention a scene toward the end of this film involving the main character, a train, and a woman on a horse, that is not only a brilliant piece of visual storytelling, but metaphor for the character's predicament, as well as a signature shot for the entire film. I was totally blown away by the shot, and , believe me, jaded as I am after so many years of movie watching, that isn't easy to do. But its the hope of seeing such scenes that keeps me watching films. My explanation of the scene isn't too specific, and thats because it has to be seen, which I know will be hard for many, considering the difficulty one will have finding a copy of this film, but its worth it....

I just bought the DVD of this film, since this was the first George Pal sci-fi film in cinemascope, and I thought it would look pretty good in the letterbox format. The quality was slightly better than the television versions I'd seen in the past, but not incredibly so. The DVD was pretty cheap, so I'm not that disappointed. This film has always interested me because I've always been able to pinpoint when a film was made just by its look, and this one stumped me as a kid. When I first saw this in the seventies on TV I thought, "gee, this is either a very good scifi film from the fifties , or a cheap, bad scifi film from the sixties"....since the effects were elaborate, but hokey, and virtually all the actors were from, or in the case of this film, about to be, familiar TV faces,,,,,with some actors terribly miscast, such as Phil Foster (Laverne DeFazios dad)as a master electrician, and Mickey O'shawnessey as the general's lapdog.....of course, once I realized this was made in 1955, and was a George Pal production, I knew the science would be relatively accurate for the era , and was. In fact its straight out of Von Braun's blueprints, which were eventually altered quite a bit when we actually went to the moon.

What really hurts the film for me, is the silly script which propels the "plot" such as it is. I mean, can you actually believe that the commander of the space station would assemble an enormous spacecraft and only question its design and "whats it for" after it is finished. Then , be told by the designer that it was made to travel to Mars and not the moon, as everyone had expected......and you leave, tomorrow!.....right, just like that, just hop in and go.... Then, as in George Pal's Destination Moon, you constantly have the dumb astronaut (in this case,Foster) asking stupid questions, so that the "audience" can get some accurate scientific explanation for why they can or cannot do something in space. For example , Foster is afraid to go outside the ship (going 20,000 mph)because he thinks he'll fall off and be left behind, but is assured that hes going as fast as the ship and there's no wind friction to blow him off. I mean, would you let someone that clueless go outside the ship to make repairs? Then there's the scene where the Foster is informed they wont be able to take off for a year, the next time the earth aligns with mars......gee, I kinda would like to know those little things before I volunteered for that mission......I kinda understand that its hard to relate all the scientific facts to the audience without sounding academic, but springing it on them in dialogue where the characters should reasonably already know the score.......reminds me of something Kubrick said when he was making 2001: a Space Odyssey....he never wanted to have a scientist in his space movie have to explain scientific principles to the audience....like Mr . Wizard,,,"well, Jimmy , it works like this",,,,,I paraphrase, of course....

I'm a huge scifi buff, but was much too young to get a grasp of what this show was all about (I was 3 or 4 at the time). However, every time I saw William Lundigan in anything else I always thought about the show. What struck me (and these are the compressed memories of a child, remember) was that it seemed that while in every episode I saw the Col. on some sort of space mission, it always seemed that he was always home in time for dinner, as if this were a 9 to 5 job, and like Ward Cleaver would tuck the kids in at night....but perhaps I'm confusing this with something else......the effects and space outfits reminded me a lot of the old outer limits episode where "space spores" invaded a space station.....

I had to beg my mom to take me to see it. Until then (in 1964), the only films I got to see in the theaters were Elvis movies and the occasional Rock Hudson/Doris Day flick. But I always had a penchant for films about space (some people say I have a head full of it). And this film represents much of what I like about a good space flick. Its all about the adventure of encountering truly daunting obstacles in the hostile environments we must face once we leave the sheltering atmosphere of mother earth. The struggle of an astronaut trying to keep his fragile human existence from being extinguished on a distant planet is the ultimate game of survival. And I think the first hour of this film, for its time, realistically tries to depict this. Probably the biggest risk the film takes is that for the first hour its a one man show, and actor Paul Mantee acquits himself well. (I remember all the talk about the movie Castaway , and how they were worried about Hanks on screen by himself for most of the movie...would people accept it? What a bunch of hooey!...if its a good story, of course they would). The second half turns into sort of a pulp sci-fi adventure , with Friday's arrival, and it does liven the film up a bit. Its almost as if you have two separate films....the fairly plausible, fight-for- survival first half, and the sci-fi fantasy second half. Somehow it still works. On repeated viewings, the things I admire most about the film (and what I think makes the film work so well) are the small touches that make the one-man show portion of the film work. The idea of having the unmanned, derelict mother ship periodically screaming across the martian night sky to haunt the astronaut is a master stroke. Not only is it a great taunt, since it has supplies but no fuel left to make a remote control landing. But it also serves as a great segue device between scenes, as are the imaginative aurora-borealis type lights that brings beauty to the nights of this hostile world. Its as if the filmmakers knew that the planet Mars had to be a costar in the film. Which brings me to probably the main reason the film has endured, and thats the brilliant cinematography by Oscar-winner Winton Hoch. A master of scenic shots (The Quiet Man, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon), Hoch makes a convincing martian landscape out of Death Valley. Almost every critique I've ever read of the film acknowledges the polished look of the martian scenes. Even recent, expensive films, like Red Planet, don't measure up (even though they may look closer to how the actual planet looks....ugly).....All in all, considering the paltry budget (just look at the old Destination Moon spacesuits used by the Alien slave masters), this is an intelligent space movie (and they are in short supply). Of course, to some extent, I realize that I still see this film through the eyes of the child I was, and I'm glad for that.

when I saw this over 20 years ago in high school, I was told it was the second in a French trilogy based on Ambrose Bierce's civil war short stories. The first, and most popular, was An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge, which gained much of its popularity by being shown as a special episode of the Twilight Zone. Chickamauga takes place at a wooded homestead that , because of happenstance, becomes a battleground when Union and Confederate forces meet there. It is told from the viewpoint of a little boy who witnesses the battle. The view point is surreal....the child doesnt seem to realize the carnage is real....I recall one strange scene where a wounded soldier, crawling on all fours, reminds the kid of a hog, and he proceeds to ride him like a toy horse....the film had many striking black and white images such as these....I believe only Owl creek Bridge, through the twilight zone dvds, is available for viewing.....perhaps one day they'll release all three on one disc....