Destination Moon (1950)

Nice effects though.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The rocket engineer Dr. Charles Cargraves (Warner Anderson) blows-up a rocket during the tests and loses the government funding. Together with his friends General Thayer (Tom Powers) and Jim Barnes (John Archer), they raise funds from American industrialists to build a rocket using atomic engine in the desert to reach the moon. However the public opinion is against the project afraid of radiation leakage in the spot and they decide to anticipate the launch of the spaceship without tests. The radar and radio operator Joe Sweeney (Dick Wesson) is invited and teams-up with them and the rocket is called Luna. During the descent on the moon, they use too much fuel to safely land. After the exploration of the lunar soil, Charles realizes that they need to reduce the weight of the rocket to launch back to Earth based on the remaining fuel. They remove all the essential equipment but Charles concludes that someone must be left behind. Will they return to Earth?"Destination Moon" is a surprising good sci-fi from 1950. The story uses technological concepts to explain the situations and is very well developed. The use of the Woody Woodpecker is very funny and the special effects are impressive for a 1950 film. The conclusion "This Is the End of the Beginning" is visionary. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): Not available on Blu-Ray or DVD.

The story centers on efforts to get to the moon. The film's intent seems to be to explain space travel in a realistic, scientifically accurate way that can be understood by ordinary people. That's commendable. But the approach is dreadful. In the first few minutes a group of potential financiers get treated, along with us viewers, to a five minute cartoon ... literally ... with Woody Woodpecker learning how a rocket ship could lift off of Earth, get to the moon, and return safely. Do the film's producers really regard viewers as having no more than a kindergarten mentality?The rationale for the rocket project is just as curious. Deadly serious, a scientist explains to these same financiers the project's necessity. "(Among nations), the race is on and we'd better win it ... The first country that can use the moon for the launching of missiles (cue dramatic pause) will control the earth! That, gentlemen, is the most important military fact of this century!" Okay, whatever.The rocket's crew consists of some scientists, and one idiot, brought in to replace an ailing pro. This idiot, named Joe, is the ultimate simpleton, reluctant to go along on the mission 'cause, like, he's got a hot date with a good-looking chick. And he has doubts about the rocket's success: "The thing won't work; it can't; it's crazy". Still, the captain coaxes him into going along, and Joe replies: "Okay, I'll set up there with you and twiddle the knobs ... hey, you guys are really serious, ain't cha."Most of the film consists of indoor sets and tons of dialogue. There's precious little in the way of interesting visuals until we get into the second half. Here, a desolate moonscape propels the imagination, finally, with a dark background peppered with stars.Background music is dreary. Costumes are consistent with the era's perception of space travel. Space helmets resemble old-fashioned ladies' hair dryers.The film's educational intent is noble. But the script talks down to its audience. There's too much dialogue, most of which is stodgy and lacks subtext. Special effects look cheap. Casting is perfunctory; acting is below average. I find "Destination Moon" boring, time-bound, and less sci-fi than cultural melodrama.

I wonder if America of 1950 had any greater worries than the possibility that Russia could get to the Moon before them? I bet they did, but that didn't stop Destination Moon from handling the subject with the most earnest of touches. Its serious science fiction, researched fact mixed with sober speculation and served up with a dollop of right wing attitude. I can't say as I think this one has aged terribly well in many aspects other than its effects sequences actually, though I found it broadly watchable enough. For starters I wasn't sold on the political attitude. The anti Commie slant is fair enough and not something I would expect to be given serious treatment, but I thought rather less of the idea of free enterprise bypassing the law and then being applauded when they succeeded, indeed I found it rather too simplistic. The film brings up the notion of public opinion being agitated against the idea of an atomic rocket, which is interesting, but never dwelt upon, there is mention of the possibility of a saboteur when an early rocket explodes, this is also never dwelt upon, most importantly in terms of characters little discussion goes into the possibilities of danger for the land around the site should the mission go wrong, other than that it has been evacuated. Now, I don't generally like to get into politics in cinema but here it stands out, as the writing isn't up to much, the acting is mediocre and the events too sparsely exciting. Everything seems more concerned with asserting grandeur and importance of the mission and then putting some scientific accuracy on screen, rather than drawing interesting characters to invest the audience in events or stirring up excitement. Having said this, the emphasis on accuracy is pretty interesting in itself, especially when contrasted with the lunacies of so many fellow science fiction films of the time. Destination Moon is really the result of smart minds doing their best to come up with an absolutely plausible account of man landing on the Moon and its remarkably prescient stuff, from plans of the later Apollo missions to even the first words spoken on the eventual landing in 1969. Everything comes across accurate and the special effects are excellent (they bagged an Oscar) with fun depictions of weightlessness and low gravity, some ace matte painting work and shuttle take off excitement. Cast-wise no one impresses too much and Dick Wesson irritates in a lamely written everyman role, but things just about hold together until the lightly suspenseful end. Altogether I wasn't a big fan of this one, its respectable and probably a worthy watch for the serious science fiction fan but it isn't all that much fun. A fair 5/10 from me then.

The problem I have with a lot of the early science fiction stories is that they were more often than not heavy on the fiction and light on the science. I have to give credit, therefore, to "Destination Moon." It completely reverses that. It's actually quite heavy on science and the fiction element is pretty light - at least in the sense that it treats the story very seriously. The title sums it up perfectly. A group of scientists and industrialists team up to build a rocket to travel to the moon. As it turned out those who made this movie weren't accurate prognosticators - the method of space travel portrayed (atomic powered engines) turned out not to be what eventually propelled humans to the moon - but the thoughtfulness was there, and I appreciated it. I liked the fact that the effort didn't involve the U.S. Government - in fact, the government wasn't completely supportive. It was all American (and in the context of the very early years of the Cold War the point was made that "we have to get there first or else we're in trouble") but still, it was private citizens doing this. I appreciated that. For 1950, I thought most of the effects were pretty good; the movie rarely seemed dated at all. It had a fresh look and feel pretty much the whole way through, with perhaps only the animated scenes (which were long distance views of the "astronauts" outside the rocket while in flight) looking a bit primitive. Even the Woody Woodpecker cartoon seemed appropriately placed.This isn't especially dramatic. There are a few attempts to introduce drama and excitement, but for the most part I didn't feel any real tension until the very end, when it did seem as though someone was going to have to be left behind on the moon's surface. Aside from that, it was the technical quality and the serious nature of the movie that really appealed to me. The cast (largely unknown, at least to me) was decent enough. Until seeing this, I would probably have dated "Forbidden Planet" as perhaps the earliest truly "serious" sci-fi movie made that I had seen. This was made 6 years earlier, though, and so now takes that prize. Well done, indeed! (7/10)