Production
Radar Men from the Moon was budgeted at $172,840 although the final negative cost was $185,702 (a $12,862, or 7.4%, overspend). It was the most expensive Republic serial of 1952. It was filmed between 17 October and 6 November 1951 under the working title Planet Men from Mars. The serial's production number was 1932.
However the numbers may look, in practice the budget was so tight that there was no stunt double for lead actor George Wallace. His nose was broken while filming a fight with Clayton Moore. The actor was also suspended (by lying on a board with the rocket suit's jacket closed around it) in front of a rear projection screen for some flying shots. Wallace performed his own take-offs by jumping onto a springboard that would send him over the camera.
The serial is heavily padded with footage from King of the Rocket Men, to which this was a pseudo-sequel. A repainted Juggernaut from Undersea Kingdom is also used. Radar Men from the Moon shows space to be brightly lit and the characters walking on the moon in normal gravity without a suit. The exterior of Commando Cody's office is really the Republic Pictures office.
Two helmets were used for the Commando Cody costume, with a lighter version for use in the stunt scenes. The visors of the helmets would always get stuck.
Read more about this topic: Radar Men From The Moon
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“The heart of man ever finds a constant succession of passions, so that the destroying and pulling down of one proves generally to be nothing else but the production and the setting up of another.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)
“It is part of the educator’s responsibility to see equally to two things: First, that the problem grows out of the conditions of the experience being had in the present, and that it is within the range of the capacity of students; and, secondly, that it is such that it arouses in the learner an active quest for information and for production of new ideas. The new facts and new ideas thus obtained become the ground for further experiences in which new problems are presented.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)