Review of Battle Beyond the Sun

Saw this long ago late one night on an old UHF (read second-rate) TV channel. Its was another attempt by a cheapo studio to make a quick buck by grafting cheap American footage onto a cheaply purchased Russian sci-fi film , and foisting it onto an unsuspecting American public, probably as the second of a double feature. The plot , which was probably drastically altered from the original Russian film, concerns a space race between two antagonistic regions on Earth, which I believe they referred to as North Hemis and South Hemis. I think the goal was mars , but (SPOILER ALERT) I don't think they make it. One side, probably the Americans in the original, attempt to make it there first in a risky effort and crash on one of Mars' moons (dont ask me which one). The other side rescues them and they all become friends, the message being one of peaceful coexistence in exploration of the stars....Most of the film is a reediting of the original Russian film, and much of that footage is interesting. The lift off and mission control scenes are well handled , and some of the space flight scenes have a 2001-like quality. There definitely was some money spent. The big American contribution is a laughable fight between monsters on the martian moon. One monster looked like a banana, and the other like a tomato. Who knows what they were thinking. Maybe it was to liven up the original film, which apparently was a straight-forward, realistic depiction of a trip to Mars, minus boogy men. All I can think is that Coppola, under the name Thomas Colchart, accepted this assignment to get his foot in the door......