This is a mildly entertaining bit of fluff cobbled together from three episodes of an early 1950's US television show. It concerns the adventures of Rocky Jones, his somewhat goofy sidekick Winky, the lovely Vena Ray, a precocious kid named Bobby and Professor Newton. They're all under the authority of the Secretary of Space. Secretary of Space, now there's a job title; I'd like to be Chairman of Gravity myself. As far as the film goes, it's pretty tame as regards the special effects and the action; however, it shares that charm that many of the science fiction films of that specific decade display and, consequently, manages to engage the viewer. It's particularly interesting, if only in a historical sense, to see a sci-fi show from television's early years. If you get a copy of this film in one of those public domain collections - I received mine in the Mill Creek 100 Sci-Fi Classics set - then I'd certainly recommend watching it but, otherwise, I wouldn't expend any energy trying to track it down.

"Menace From Space" begins with strange missiles made of crystal being hurled at the Earth. The brainiac professor determines they are from one of Jupiter's moons, so Rocky Jones takes a small crew to this strange world to try to determine why this is occurring. Once there, an evil Earth scientist is already there and he's manipulating the locals to his own wicked and greedy ends. So, it's up to the Earth heroes to save the day.I love 1950s sci-fi movies--even though the special effects are often pretty silly and the plots a bit campy. I particularly love the films taking humans on their first trips to the Moon or Mars. However, despite my strong predisposition to like such material, this movie made up of three episodes of TV's "Rocky Jones Space Ranger" is pretty bad. Of course, being made for television the special effects were worse than you'd find in a real movie--this I could accept. What I couldn't accept were the awful characters! Rocky is wooden, but he's not the problem. The biggest problems are Winky and the little brat they took along for no reason whatsoever. Winky is the second in command but you wonder why they'd put a complete moron in such an important role! He's clearly the 'comic relief', though since he isn't funny, he's more the 'annoying relief'! And the 'precocious kid'?! Well, apparently although they barely have enough fuel to make it to Fornax and back, they decide to bring this whiny kid along--even though he can't possibly contribute anything to the mission (unless, of course, they want to use him as a shield). The writing of this show and the ensuing movie is pretty poor and clearly is being marketed to kids, not anyone wanting sci-fi that is realistic or well-written. As a result, it's only good for a laugh and not much more.

Menace From Outer Space is based on the Rocky Jones TV series from the 1950's and this is actually episodes put together as a feature film.There special effects are not too bad considering the low budget.The cast includes Richard Crane as Rocky Jones with Sally Mansfield and Roberty Lydon.It was good to see this movie and I also have Crash of the Moons in my collection.There were several episodes of the Rocky Jones TV series that were made into feature films.Great fun.Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

Not a film for those seeking gripping, Hollywood style entertainment, in fact, not a film at all. Menace from Outer Space is an agglomeration of the first three episodes of the Rocky Jones, Space Ranger series starring "B" movie veteran Richard Crane. "Menace" appears to have been created for re-packaging and re-licensing of film length features and is quite similar to its companion feature, "Crash of Moons." "Rocky Jones," and the feature length films assembled from the serial shows, is a wonderful example of early television coming to grips with its role as an entertainer of children. Unfortunately, many of these early efforts come across as childish, and "Menace" is no exception.While it's fascinating to see movie serial themes and dramatic situations reformatted for the small screen, the dialogue and acting is excruciating. Perhaps most difficult to bear is the director's obvious fascination with posing all of the actors for good TV images. Rather than a film, this piece comes across as a series of poses, interspersed with contrived dialogue. True believers only!