Zombies of the Stratosphere (1960)

Zombies of the Stratosphere is a 1952 black-and-white Republic Studios serial that was intended to be their second featuring "new hero" Commando Cody and the third 12-chapter serial featuring the rocket-powered flying jacket and helmet introduced in King of the Rocket Men (1949). Instead, for reasons unknown, the hero was renamed "Larry Martin," who must prevent Martian invaders from using a hydrogen bomb to blow Earth out of its orbit, away from the Sun, so that Mars can take its position. As in Radar Men from the Moon (also released in 1952), most of the screen time for each of the dozen chapters is spent on fistfights and car chases between the heroes and a gang of crooks hired by Narab and his extraterrestrial colleague Marex to steal and stockpile the Atomic supplies needed for construction of the H-bomb.

The serial was directed by Fred C. Brannon, with a screenplay by Ronald Davidson, and the special effects by Republic's Lydecker brothers. The serial is remembered today as one of the first screen appearances of a young Leonard Nimoy, who plays one of the three Martian invaders, Narab. In 1958, a feature film version of this serial, retitled Satan's Satellites, was made by editing down the serial's footage to feature film length.

Synopsis

Larry Martin (Judd Holdren), a leader in the Inter-Planetary Patrol, detects a rocket coming to Earth. He takes to the air in his rocket suit and helmet to investigate and discovers two Martian invaders, Marex (Lane Bradford) and Narab (Leonard Nimoy). Since Mars is now orbiting too far from the Sun and its ecology has been dying, the Martian invaders want to swap Earth's and Mars' orbits, so Mars will then be closer to the Sun. They plan on achieving this by using hydrogen bomb plans stolen from Earth scientists to cause the two planets' orbits to swap, using specifically placed atomic explosions on both worlds.

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