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The Richland Theater's float entry in the Atomic Frontier Days Parade, mid 1950s, advertizes a production of "Rocketship X-M".
The Wikipedia entry on the movie "Rocketship X-M", released in 1950, notes that that it is not a feel good film.
Four men and a woman blast into space on mankind's first expedition to the Moon. Halfway to the moon, the engines shut down because of a problem in the fuel. Newton's laws are instantly violated as the ship comes to a dead stop. There are some tense moments (more or less) while the crew work on the problem. They solve it beyond their expectation and the ship tears off across the solar system on a new course. Incredibly, this takes them directly to Mars (about the same odds as hitting the left eye of a mosquito at a range of several miles), which causes Dr. Karl Eckstrom to "pause and observe respectfully while something infinitely greater assumes control".
On Mars, they find evidence of a once-powerful civilization, as evidenced by an art-deco wall-hanging of a face, and a backdrop of a building shaped rather like a dynamo. There has been a planetary nuclear war. They meet a descendant of the builders of the civilization: a blind and mute woman, who is pursued by other descendants: cave-men, whom they fight off and escape (with 2 dead and 1 wounded). The return voyage is only a partial success: the ship makes it back to Earth but hasn't enough fuel for a landing. They crash. There is an epilogue in which the anti-nuke moral of the film is restated. The last members of the expedition are stated to have crashed into the Earth and died. |
This picture was undated and most of the images I'd seen so far of the Atomic Frontier Days celebrations were from the mid 50's. I was familiar with the movie theater in Richland being the Uptown Theater. When I saw this picture I wondered if the Richland Theater was a theater troupe and if--perhaps?--a production of Rocketship X-M and this parade float entry could be an anti-nuke statement that slipped past the censors? Would it be out of the realm of possibility? Yes, there were theater promo posters for the film on the float but I reasoned that, hmmm, maybe those were there for good familiarity measure. Remember the movie? Now see the play!
A review of the film by Alan Smithee reveals that the movie's script was ghost-written by Dalton Trumbo, a "Hollywood Ten" blacklist victim, and so has little jingoism but is given as having quite a bit of sexsim. The female scientist gets a hard time of it from her male peers, her opinions discounted. And yet the descendant of the ruined civilization they meet on Mars is a woman who is both blind and mute, pursued by "cave-men" descendants. This made me wonder if the deaf-mute woman pursued by cavemen wasn't originally intended to be commentary on the sexism experienced by the female scientist. All of which made the float even more confusing, as it carried bathing beauties.
Undaunted, I continued my attempt to rationalize what was going on with this Rocketship X-M float being in an Atomic Frontier Days parade. I decided, hey, yeah, maybe it was, for real, an anti-nuke statement with an anti-sexism statement tossed in as well. As the movie's primary roles were four male scientists and a woman scientist, and there were five women riding on the float, I wondered if perhaps the starring roles in the possibly-produced play featured women? That four were in bathing suits remained problematic, but not enough of a mountain that I couldn't scrape my way to the top and hope to view trundling about the Richland countryside a few early anti-nuke and anti-sexism sci fi freaks.
I figured that had to be the case. Because how could the Richland Theater not grasp the irony of a Rocketship-XM float appearing in an Atomic Frontier Days parade? Seemed incomprehensible.
Ok. Sometimes (often enough) I'm not so bright.
I was not so sold on my scenario that I could accept it. I made inquiries and discovered, first, that I had jumped to the wrong conclusion when thinking Rocketship X-M may have been performed by a Richland theater company. The float was instead for a movie theater and was shown in the 1950 Atomic Frontier Days parade. It was constructed after hours with paper mache and poster paints. The choice of Rocketship X-M was purely for exploitation value. The studio provided the rocket. The woman in the gown was the queen of that year's Atomic Frontier Days and the others were the runners-up.
Well, that burst my bubble.
I still am bewildered that Richland apparently did not grasp the irony of a Rocketship-XM float carrying the prized Atomic Frontier Days Queen and her court.
Black and white photo from the “Hanford Historical Photo Declassification Project”
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