Movies on Mars

 Here's a little curiosity that I've mentioned before, but now with added evidence:

In the 1980 TV miniseries of The Martian Chronicles, there is a brief scene of people coming out of (what I assume to be) a cinema. Either side of the door is a rather amateurish poster with the title The Silver Locusts. The artwork on the poster is taken from... the UK paperback of The Silver Locusts, which was the original UK title for... The Martian Chronicles.

How meta is that? People in MC going to watch a film about themselves!

I noticed this in 1980, when the show was first aired on British TV. But this was before VCRs, and the appearance of the artwork was so fleeting as to be unprovable. The commercial DVD release allowed the image to be paused, but it was rather muddy.

But thanks to Bluray, we can now get a closer look. So here is the proof:

Silver Locusts posters as the crowd emerges from the cinema.

UK paperback, 1970s. Artwork by Peter Goodfellow.

When the miniseries was released, UK publisher Granada decided to cash in by re-issuing The Silver Locusts as The Martian Chronicles.

In the same sequence, there are some other posters on display, but I haven't been able to figure out what they are. They're probably completely fictional, but who knows? What are we looking at here? mtext? Invasion?

Charles Binger - and a Colonial update

A California gallery is currently exhibiting work by the late Charles Binger, the first time in 45 years that his works have been on display. Binger was a British-born painter, and did some of his best work as cover art for paperback books in the 1950s and 1960s, including covers for books by Bradbury and Aldous Huxley.

On the left is his cover design for the first paperback edition of The Illustrated Man (Bantam, 1954).

For a selection of his science-fictional paperback covers, see this listing on the ISFDB website.

There is a biography of Binger here, and an online gallery of his works - with details of the physical exhibition - at the website of La Luz de Jesus, here.




According to Jerry Robbins' Facebook page, recordings are underway for Colonial Radio Theatre's production of The Martian Chronicles. This is the latest in a string of Bradbury productions from Colonial; previous dramatisations have been very good and picked up a few awards. I have my fingers crossed for this one, due for release later this year.

On the left is the poster/CD artwork - click on it to see full-size. You can follow developments at Colonial on Jerry's Colonial blog.