Shot in 10 days with a budget of $200,000, The Angry Red Planet (1960) utilized the short-lived CineMagic technique, which was designed to make hand-drawn animations seem as real as the live action footage on the red-tinted surface of Mars. Even though it didn't work too well, the producers tried it again in the 1962 sci fi epic, The Three Stooges in Orbit, after which it was permanently retired.

    The Angry Red Planet is a tale told in flashback by pretty Dr. Iris Ryan (Naura Hayden), who spent most of her time on Mars screaming. She's one of two survivors of the first manned mission to our angry red neighbor, the other being her not-so-dashing commander/love interest, Colonel Tom O'Bannion (Gerald Mohr), who has returned to Earth with a strange alien growth on his arm

    The two were located in their rocketship, the MR-1, which had been out of radio contact for two months before being located in Earth's orbit. Still unable to contact the crew, the spacecraft is landed by remote control -- looking suspiciously like a blast-off run in reverse.

    Iris releates their tale of interplanetary adventure and tragic demise of the other crewmembers. After landing on Mars, the crew -- armed with a nifty freeze-ray gun and other weapons -- set out to explore the planet. Along with palm trees, they find man-eating plants and other alien monstrosities, including an overgrown amoeba, a giant bat-rat-spider-crab and the ill-tempered Martians themselves, who drive away the survivors with a warning to never return again.