Film / Zombies Of The Stratosphere

"I had a very important job in what we used to call a serial. Each Saturday afternoon, a 50-minute with a cliffhanger at the end. The hero or the heroine is in terrible trouble—come back next week and see what happens. And I was in one of those, I was very important in it, and I thought it would rocket me to stardom. It was called Zombies of the Stratosphere. And I was one. One of four that came from Mars. We stole a pickup truck and a revolver, and we were going to take over Earth."

— Leonard Nimoy

Another Republic Pictures Film Serial starring a Jet Pack-wearing hero, the 1952 Zombies of the Stratosphere was produced in the lengthy production hiatus between episodes 3 and 4-9 of Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe. It was meant as a sequel to the Commando Cody adventure Radar Men from the Moon, but for reasons unknown the hero's name was changed from "Commando Cody" to the bland "Larry Martin".

Known among Trekkies as The One With… Leonard Nimoy, who plays Narab, one of the eponymous 'zombies'. It also has John Crawford as Roth, a gangster working for the Martians.

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This serial has the following tropes:

• Aquatic Mook: Narab attacks Larry when he tries to explore the flooded mine shaft.
• Almost Dead Guy: Averted as some dialogue at the end reveals that Narab survived his injuries after telling Larry about the H-bomb.
• Cement Shoes: The Chapter 7 Cliffhanger involves Sue Davis being dragged off a dock to drown while tied to an anchor.
• Chairman of the Brawl: Used not only for brawling but to hold back a Killer Robot.
• Chase Scene
  • Larry rockets after the truck carrying Marex and lands on the roof. They're able to scrape him off, but not before he plants a Tracking Device. A more dangerous version happens when Larry jets onto the back of a truck and the villains respond by driving it towards a cliff and jumping out. Naturally the next chapter reveals that Larry has jetpacked out of the cockadoodie truck in time.
  • Bob ends up handcuffed to a Runaway Train that the villains are trying to rob of its cargo of uranium. Larry uses a tank being converted into an agricultural tractor as an all-terrain vehicle to chase after the train and free him before it hits an oncoming passenger train. The train gets diverted onto a damaged track and crashes for the requisite Cliffhanger, presumably spreading radioactive material across the countryside.
  • When the villains try to move their supplies by boat, naturally a boat chase ensues. There's even an Inevitable Waterfall with our hero knocked out for the Cliffhanger, only to recover Just in Time to leap out before the boat goes over a dam spillway. Another boat chase ends in a less exciting conclusion when the villains throw a fishing net overboard, fouling the propeller of the pursuing boat. Then a third boat chase has a Cliffhanger of Larry unconscious on a motorboat loaded with bombs and a broken steering wheel, on an unwitting kamikaze course for a surfaced submarine.
• Colorization: Colorized when shown on television in The '90s. They attempt to avert Human Aliens by making the Martians green.
• Compilation Movie: Edited down to 70 minutes as Satan's Satellites (which doesn't have Satan in it any more than zombies). The movie was screened in a Double Feature with Missile Monsters, a compilation movie of the 1950's Republic serial Flying Disc Man from Mars.
• Deadly Gas:
  • The villains try to shoot down Larry's rocketship with a gas shell. Fortunately strapping on a rocketsuit helmet is all that's needed to counteract its effects, as apparently these technologically-advanced Martians have never heard of nerve gas.
  • Marex and Narab use gas grenades to clear Larry and Bob from the tunnel so they can escape.
• Deus ex Nukina: The detonation of a hydrogen bomb at the right place is enough to change the orbit of entire planets. In fairness the first full scale test of a hydrogen bomb took place the same year this film serial came out, so all the public knew what that it was some kind of super A-bomb.
• Disney Villain Death: Instead of dodging around the slow-moving and clumsy Tin-Can Robot after Larry turns it against them, Roth and Shane lets it back them up against a cliff which they both fall off with an identical-sounding scream.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Plenty of Cold War paranoia in this script: H-bombs threatening The End of the World as We Know It, treacherous scientists selling atomic secrets to hostile foreign powers, and an An Aesop just before The End reminding the audience of the need for constant vigilance against the "power-mad zombies" who threaten us all (even though none of the so-called zombies were interested in power—they were trying to save their own planet).
• Harmless Electrocution: The inevitable result of the hero getting knocked into an electrical board for an episode cliffhanger.
  Larry: The metal in my rocketsuit must have grounded part of the charge.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The robot tries to kill Larry with an axe, but he wrests it off the robot and uses the axe to smash open the robot's chest panel, disabling it.
• Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Our hero's Ray Gun has been replaced with a .38 revolver, and even Marex uses one to shoot Harding. The Martian ray guns are said to fire shells instead of energy beams.
• The Quisling: Dr. Harding is blackmailed into helping Marex, who knows he's been selling atomic secrets to an "unfriendly foreign power". Marex says that exposure would be worse than going along with his Evil Plan, but seeing as the latter involves exile for life on Mars while everyone Harding knows on Earth dies, that's hard to believe. What motivates Roth and Shane is unknown; they're being paid a lot of money, but it's going to be Worthless Currency after the world is destroyed.
• Martians
  "I am Marex, a native of the planet Mars. Perhaps not quite a human being by Earthly standards, however I can assure you that my people are much further advanced in intelligence and scientific achievements than you Earthmen.
• Nothing Can Stop Us Now!: Marex says this in Chapter 11, unaware there's still one more chapter to go.
• Non-Indicative Name:
  • This movie is not a zombie film. And for a Rocketman-type serial, it's noticeable that most of the action takes place on the ground rather than high up in the stratosphere.
  • The "ray guns" fire shells, not energy beams.
  • The final chapter is called "Tomb of the Traitors" even though only one traitor dies in that chapter. One assumes that Marex is acting under the orders of the Martian government.
• Minecart Madness: Used for the Cliffhanger of Chapter 4, when Larry is knocked into a runaway cart in the uranium mine.
• No OSHA Compliance:
  • Uranium is stored in a warehouse and shipped in wooden crates like you normally do with radioactive materials.
  • Forget No Seatbelts—the chairs on the Martian rocketship aren't even attached to the floor, sending the crew tumbling across the cabin when Larry's rocketship opens fire on them.
• Oddly Small Organisation: An infamous version even by film serial standards.
  • A mere three Martians are used for a crucial mission to save their planet. They enlist the help of a blackmailed Earth scientist and some hired thugs, and their only resources are a rocketship, a ray gun, a truck, and whatever they can construct or steal on Earth. On one hand they're trying to act covertly, but their criminal acts also attract attention. It could be that the Martians are a small group of fanatics, operating on limited resources without the support of their own government, but if so we never hear this.
  • Larry, Bob and Sue (and their boss Mr. Steele) are the heroes trying to stop them. Supposedly Larry Martin works for the Inter-Planetary Patrol, so what are they doing about these Martians? No-one calls in the US Air Force to help intercept the Martian rocketship, or the police to set up roadblocks whenever the villains steal something. When a foreign submarine is detected offshore, our heroes go out in a motorboat to sink it instead of calling in the Navy. And what about a team of Navy UDT's to properly search the flooded mine shaft? (Larry does think of that, but only in the final chapter when it's almost too late).
• Pet the Dog: After his rocket gets shot down, Narab warns Larry about the bomb that's about to destroy the world (something Larry didn't even know about) and lets him know how to enter the hidden lair to defuse it. Maybe Narab just did it to save his own life, but he saved everyone else on the planet in the process.
• Planetary Relocation: The Martians plan to detonate hydrogen bombs on Earth and Mars to make them swap positions so Mars will be closer to the sun. Why they don't just put Mars in Earth's orbit on the other side of the sun is not mentioned, but then there would be no reason for our heroes to oppose them.
• Plot Armor: Larry has a Booby Trap go off right underneath him while he's exploring the flooded mine shaft. There's not even the usual Cliffhanger Copout—he just shrugs off the explosion without even suffering ear damage.
• Race Against the Clock: The Martians set a timer on the H-bomb so they have time to flee in their rocketship. Larry and Bob shoot it down with their own rocketship, and an injured Narab warns Larry about the planet-destroying bomb about to go off, causing Larry to Jet Pack over to the mine and pull the plug Just in Time before it explodes.
• Recap Episode: "Chapter 10: Flying Gas Chamber" recaps events before the final two episodes, as Larry hashes over recent events with Mr. Steele to try and work out what the villains are up to. They can't.
• Retro Rocket: The Martians finned rocketship. It has no landing gear, and backfires and spouts steam whenever it takes off. Maybe they bought it from a used-rocket dealer on Mars?
• Same Face, Different Name: Judd Holdren once more plays the jetpacking-hero, here called Larry Martin instead of Commando Cody. Likewise Joan Gilbert is renamed as Sue Davis despite still being played by Aline Towne.
• Secret Underground Passage: There's one hidden in the flooded mine shaft, causing our heroes to miss the fact that the secret lair where the Martians are assembling their H-Bomb is Right Under Their Noses. It's not until Narab reveals how to release the trapdoor ladder that Larry is able to get in.
• Science Hero's Babe Assistant: Aline Towne's character is a lot less active than in Sky Marshal of the Universe where she was at least allowed to pilot the rocketship and did a lot more investigative work—here she's little more than a glorified radio operator. However she's not a Neutral Female. When the villains take Larry prisoner and break into his office the gun is quickly shot from Sue's hand when she confronts them, but she disarms the man holding Larry at gunpoint and tries to wrestle with a mook until knocked unconscious.
• Space Clothes: The Martians are dressed in (purple in the colorized version) leotards with belts that look like they came from a Renaissance Faire. Marex has a Chest Insignia of a couple of lightning bolts striking a globe.
• Stock Footage:
  • Heavily padded with footage from the first Rocket Man serial King Of The Rocket Men, leading to continuity errors like Larry not wearing his belt-mounted radio set.
  • Footage from a Roy Rogers film is used when the villains smuggle their stolen uranium across the desert on packhorses.
  • Rather than film the robot robbing the bank, they just reuse footage from Mysterious Doctor Satan. At least Republic Pictures got their money's worth from the walking water heater.
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: Narab says he can spend half an hour or more underwater. "The atmosphere on Mars is so thin we've adapted ourselves to survive on very little oxygen." The Martians use this to enter their lair via an underwater tunnel. Larry twice barely survives a confrontation with a knife-wielding Martian who attacks him there.
• Tin-Can Robot: The Republic Robot strides again (albeit very slowly) when the Martians build a remotely-controlled "mechanical man" to rob a bank. When they use it to try and kill Larry for the requisite cliffhanger, he's easily able to disable the clumsy clunker.
• Those Two Guys: Dr. Harding's henchmen, Roth and Shane.
• Weaksauce Weakness: The Killer Robot is Immune to Bullets but not to Larry taking an axe to its controls.
• You Have Failed Me: Marex shoots Harding when he tries to shut off the H-bomb—not because Harding has had qualms about killing everyone on the planet, but because he doesn't think they'll get away in time.