Destination: Moon (1950)

Director: Irving Pichel
Starring: John Archer, Warner Anderson, Tom Powers, Dick Wesson, Erin O'Brien-Moore

Based on the novel by Robert A. Heinlein

SYNOPSIS

Following a failed rocket test, an engineer turns away from the government he suspects of sabotage to a private company for his follow-up project – a flight to the moon.

REVIEW

Nearly 20 years before we actually made it there, this major movie shot over 2 years comes across as a pretty impressive achievement. While in production, it was hyped as being the most scientifically accurate science fiction movie in history and while some aspect of the movie differ from later realities (such as the use of a nuclear engine for the rocket and lack of a detachable lunar lander), it come across as an impressive achievement.

Looking back now, it's astonishing how much of the movie was gotten entirely correct, from the way the astronauts board the rocket, to the g-forces and weightlessness experienced by the crew. There are a few cheesy missteps (such as the magnetic boots worn by the crew, presumably to avoid costly weightlessness effects more than anything practical), but it's very close to reality in many respects.

Narratively, it's also a mixture of reality and Hollywood standards. We spend much of the opening third going into the way the rocket has to be funded, from a rejection of pure government financing to convincing private investors with a specially shot Woody Woodpecker cartoon(!), and hints of the inevitable failures along the way. However, when it's time to finally take off, it's a race against time and paranoid authorities.

There are also a few instances of pandering to Hollywood tropes of the time, such as the Brooklynite comedy relief radio operator, but thankfully these are kept to a minimum. Certainly, it's telling how seriously the overall project was considered when compared to its black and white rip-off Rocketship X-M. The latter was produced to cash in on this movie's hype (though actually released first!) and runs like a check list of the clichés of the time, from sexual tension with an otherwise superfluous female scientist to actually finding life on their unintended destination of Mars. Here, we get no such clichés, possibly to the movie's detriment (the latter movie is clearly much more fun) but nevertheless it's an interesting relic of the time before we made one of mankind's greatest achievements.

7 / 10