You'll Like It On Mars!
By Tom W. Harris
Nobody could figure out how Kettering had shot
his realistic scenes on Mars. His movie was
just too good to be true—and much too gruesome!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
August 1958
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I remember it all so clearly. "Get the information and you can haveanything you want," Myron Ferdinand told me. He stuffed his heavypipe with five-dollar-an-ounce tobacco and blew a heavy cloud aroundhis heavy face. "Fail to get it, and I'll wash you out of the wholeindustry."
Myron meant what he said. "I'll get it," I said with beautifully fakedconfidence.
"Renn Kettering will be glad to see you at his party tonight," Myrongrinned. "I planted a rumor that you want to leave me and go to workfor him. Maneuver a private talk, get him on the subject of how he madethat damned movie. Maybe he'll let something slip."
"Great idea," I said. Movie magnates always have great ideas.
"Talk to his cast. And slip off alone if you can and look hishouse over. I don't care what you do, but come back here with theinformation. And don't get big ideas on selling out to Kettering. He'dhire you to get you away from Stupendous and then dust-bin you becausehe couldn't trust you. You understand that, of course."
"Of course," I said. Movie magnates are always right.
"One thing more, Manny. I want you to see those steals again."
"I've seen those scenes of his about seven thousand times, Myron."
"So have I—so has the whole country—and between you and me I don'tthink they're as hot as they're cracked up to be. I'd have done itdifferent. But I want you to see them just before you go to Kettering'sparty, to have 'em fresh in your mind. Get it?"
"Terrif idea!" I bellowed. "I didn't think of that!"
"That's why I'm president of Stupendous," said Myron.
Modest guy, Myron Ferdinand. "Right," I said, sliding toward the door.
"Remember," said Myron. "Anything you want—or on the other hand, theend of you in Hollywood."
On the way to the preview room I mulled it over. Nice simpleassignment. Find out how Renn Kettering of PGP Studios had shot thosestartling sequences Mars Hazard, an international hit. It was superrealism—the critics were calling it "Art's answer to the newsreel" andstuff like that. The scenes had been shot on Mars. Renn had fabulousinfluence. In this case he must have paid off the government itself,because the crew of the third ship to touch the new planet had beenmostly his own actors and technicians and Renn himself was along. Thesefactors were known to every hipster. But how had he managed to shootthose....
I was at the view room. I signaled the joker in the projection boothand sat down as the first famous sequences came on the screen.
The space crew had left the ship and were in a little ravine when abunch of tawnies came down on them. There were liver-freezing shots ofthe tawnies—close-ups—those could have been done with a telephotolens. The space crew got behind some rocks, and Vance Hubbard, thefilm's heavy, stood up and cut loose with a blaster. The blue sparksburst and showered around the big tawny that was coming for Vance,and it howled but didn't stop. Vance hurled the gun at its big stickymouth, and then the thing grabbed him with its front mandibles, orwhatever you call them.
There was a closeup of Vanc