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!
