George Pal and The Moon

DESTINATION MOON-1950-In the near future a rocket is set to the moon but doesn't make it. Dr. Cargraves (Warner Anderson) suspects sab-otage. Two years later he and the designer of the rocket's engine General Thayer (Tom Pow-ers) convince aircraft honcho Jim Barnes (John Archer) to help gather private investors to back their new design (called “Luna”). However, public outcry over radioactivity leakage seems to doom the project. Barnes decides to circum-⁹vent all the red tape and take off in 17 hours! He, Cargraves and Thayer enlisted skeptical Joe Sweeney (Dick Wesson) as the radio operator (“It'll never budge”). After some quick goodbyes and just beating a court order not allowing them to go, they take off and head to the moon. All goes well despite trouble with g-force and weightlessness until it's learned Sweeney put too much grease on an antenna and it has to be fixed. So three of them take a space walk on the side of the ship. Thayer is almost sent adrift in space but Barnes saves him with a pretty clever use of an oxygen tank. The group make a precarious moon landing and two of them go out and do some exploring. After everyone treks around Barnes is informed that they wasted too much fuel on their botched up landing and may not have enough to take off. They have to get rid of all non-essential equipment but it's not enough. One of them must stay behind! While the three scientists argue which one of them should be sacrificed. Joe takes it upon himself to be the one but Barnes' quick thinking saves Joe and they all return to Earth heroes. Woody Woodpecker is seen in a film explaining how going to the moon is possible.

Produced by George Pal, DESTINATION MOON is a serious early look into how space travel would be. Its level headed script doesn't go over the top in speculation and employs more science than fiction. This is probably due to the fact that it's based on a novel by the legendary Robert Heinlein who also co-wrote the screenplay! It should be boring but director (and former actor) Irving Pichel puts a lot of good SFX to use and doesn't let all the scientific talk bog down the story line.  

Thanks for reading!

There's No Reason...For This Movie

APOLLO 18-2011-The premise of this stupid film is that the Apollo space missions didn't end with number 17. There was one more secret moon landing. What follows is suppose to be footage "found" on the internet that purports to tell the real tale. 2 US astronauts land on the moon. While walking around they discover a Russian spacecraft. Later they find the corpse of a cosmonaut.

At first I thought this disaster might hold some promise but in turned into an ALIEN/BLAIR WITCH influenced conspiracy film. Moon rocks it seems are actual living entities. The tag line on the poster read "There's a reason we never went back to the moon" but in fact "we" did go back to the moon several times before the fictional number 18 did, so what the hell does that line mean?

I didn't know anything about the director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego (from Madrid) and after this I don't care.
T
hanks for reading!

Women In The Moon

MISSLE TO THE MOON-1958-This crazy nonsense is actually a remake of the earlier CATWOMEN ON THE MOON!

A grouchy looking scientist named Dirk Green (Michael Whalen) builds a rocket ship and plans to take it to the moon. The government won’t let him work independently and plan to take over his project in the morning. He decides to go up that night. He recruits two escaped convicts to aid him. Gene (Tommy Cook from TEENAGE CRIME WAVE) is the troublemaker and Lon (Gary Clarke, the teenage werewolf in HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER) is the nice one. Somehow Green’s partner Dayton (Richard Travis, also in MESA OF LOST WOMEN)) and Dayton’s fiancée June (Cathy Downs, also in THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN around this time) get trapped in the rocket with them. Everything goes ok in outer space until Gene decides to put the moves on June (unsuccessfully).

After they hit a meteor shower, Green has a heart attack and dies after spouting some mysterious mumbo jumbo about “my lido”. Eventually they do land on the moon, put on cumbersome spacesuits and meet the local welcoming committee: a bunch of slow moving rock men. The group easily out runs them and hides in a cave. Fortunately for them the caves contain oxygen!

Soon after they meet The Lido (the conveniently blind leader who wears what looks like a candelabra on her head) and her colony of moon maidens (who wear roman type outfits). Lon takes time to fall in love with one of them (Marjorie Helen) but Gene is only interested in their diamonds. To add to their predicament, The Lido plans to marry Dayton off to Alpha (Nina Bara who laughably overacts), the kind of second in command. 

Ya see, Green was actually from the moon and was returning to help the ladies escape before the planet self-destructs. Of course Dayton won’t comply so Alpha kills The Lido and takes over, hypnotizing Dayton to her will in the process. It’s pretty funny when he talks in the trance. June almost gets sacrificed to a dilapidated spider but the crew escapes after all the pretty maidens (and the ugly ones too) die in an earthquake. Gene gets caught between the rock men and the sun’s deadly rays. He won’t drop the bags of diamonds he horded and the sun burns him up. The others return to the ship.





Are you still with me?

MTTM is bad but entertaining. A lot happens in a short time. Bad SFX and acting rule the day. The opening scene sets it all up as the local sheriff stops in the desert to talk on his radio. It’s clear to see he’s standing in front of a painting! You can even see creases in it at the top!

MOON was directed by Richard E. Cunha, a TV cinematographer and director who decided to form his own company and produce horror films. His other efforts like GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN, SHE DEMONS and FRANKENSTEIN’S DAUGHTER are in the same vein but MISSLE is the most laughable. Still Cunha always manages to add a little sleaze or gore to his story.

Whalen and Downs were both in THE PHANTOM FROM 10,000 LEAGUES. KT Stevens who portrays The Lido was once a child actress named Baby Gloria. “International Beauty Contest Winners” played many of the moon maids or so it says in the credits….



Thanks for reading!