suggestion of Ley. Universal said they had a similar project, Space Island. In June 1952 it was reported that Barre Lyndon, who wrote War of the Worlds for Pal, was working on a script. In January 1953 Phil Yordan was working on the script. The following month Byron Haskin was named as director and Wernher von Braun would be a technical adviser. James Hanlon did the final script. Bonestell, noted for his photorealistic paintings showing views from outer space, worked on the film's space matte paintings. The production design of Conquest of Space was closely modeled on the technical concepts of Wernher von Braun and Bonestell's space paintings, which originally appeared in Collier's magazine and were reprinted in the 1952 Viking Press book Across the Space Frontier, edited by Cornelius Ryan. The film also incorporated concepts from von Braun's 1952 book The Mars Project, as well as material appearing in the April 30, 1954, issue of Collier's magazine, "Can we get to Mars?" by von Braun, with Cornelius Ryan. This would later be incorporated into the 1956 Viking Press book The Exploration of Mars by Willy Ley, Wernher von Braun, and Chesley Bonestell. All of these books mainly feature text that is straight popular science, with no fictional characters or story line. In addition, according to director Byron Haskin, "We had Wernher von Braun on the set all the time...as a technical advisor". Had George Pal followed any or all of these nonfiction books as written, he would have produced a speculative futuristic documentary, much like of the trio of Tomorrowland-set (Walt Disney's) Disneyland television episodes: Man in Space (March 1955), Man and the Moon (December 1955), and Mars and Beyond (December 1957). The final screenplay by James O'Hanlon, from an adaptation by Philip Yordan, Barré Lyndon, and George Worthing Yates, instead creates a fictional story from whole cloth. Although the budget was $1.5 million, George Pal and Paramount decided not to use stars. Walter Brooke turned down a five year contract to appear in a soap opera to make the movie. Eric Fleming was pulled out of the cast of My Three Angels on Broadway to appear in the film. Filming started 16 November 1954. Reception Critical response upon release Judgments on the quality of the film's special effects have varied. Upon the film's release, reviewer Oscar A. Godbout in his review for The New York Times praised the