The Wizard of Mars

Infobox Film
name = The Wizard of Mars


image_size =
caption =
director = David L. Hewitt
producer = David L. Hewitt
Joe Karston
Gary R. Heacock
writer = Armando Busick (story)
David L. Hewitt
starring = John Carradine
Roger Gentry
Vic McGee
Jerry Rannow
Eve Bernhardt
music = Frank A. Coe
cinematography = Austin McKinney
editing = Tom Graeff
distributor = American General Pictures Inc.
released = 1965
runtime = 85 minutes
country = USA
language = English
budget = $33,000 (estimated)
gross =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:23163
imdb_id = 0059920

"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.

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.