The Lost Missile (1958)

i must have seen a different film!!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

I was expecting a truly hokey kind of 50s mess. I had discovered it on a list of great undiscovered 50s science fiction movies. What luck! I was pleasantly surprised with the effort. One can say that some of the direction of the acting could have been better. But I take movies from the 50s with a grain of salt. So many great ideas were relegated to the B-Studios. But I will remove from my summary opinion these minor and understandable chinks in the armor.LOST MISSILE is a near-great film if not right UP THERE with the best of the genre. We were informed at the outset that the armed forces were very cooperative with this effort, which would explain the wonderful "stock" footage of military operations and maneuvers. This did NOT bother me one bit, in fact, it added to the authentic feel of the story. I also thoroughly enjoyed the city, town footage of Ottawa and New York City in the 50s. I have come to expect these in movies from those days. Of course, stock footage has been forbidden in recent times because of its apparent lack of integrity to film-making. I see it as a wonderful way to see things as they really are or were.I did enjoy the way the alien missile reminded me of Kubrick's superb black comedy sci-fi, "DR. STRANGELOVE", which came six years after this. So it appears that it might have had some future influence in the genre.This film should be seen by all sci-fi buffs - it is fun and it contains some thrilling moments in the best 50s style they could conjure up in those days. There was a fascinating story, with one very fine actor: ROBERT LOGGIA. The ending was a mix of upbeat, downbeat and it did not wrap things up as neatly as Hollywood would have wanted in its heyday.What's not to like? Well, if you're expecting CGI and slick, you've come to the wrong place for that watermark. That sort of film filled with technical wizardry did not enter into the canon until a Kubrick's masterpiece "2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY"...Sit back, enjoy it, it's free on this website. You won't soon forget it.

***Spoilers*** With the report of an unknown missile strafing the earth at 4,200 MPH it becomes vital for the nations on earth to stop it before it destroys all life on the planet! But How!Top US nuclear scientist atomic physicists and aeronautical engineer Dr. David Loring, Robert Loggia, has to postpone his wedding plans with his fiancée and fellow scientist Joan Woods, Ellen Parker, at the prestigious Heavenbrook Atomic Labs outside New York City in order to stop the runaway missile from setting the world on fire! This has the disappointed future bride drop David like a hot potato not realizing, which as a nuclear scientist Joan should have, that the preventing of the earth from being destroyed is far greater then her wedding plans. In fact if these's no earth there sure as hell won't be a wedding!As the renegade missile sweeps across Canada jets planes, from both the US and Canada, are scrambled to either force or shoot it down. With it's fantastic speed of 4,200 MPH the missile generates heat of over one million degrees which knocks out and burns to a crisps any plane that comes within five miles of it! When Dr. Loring finally comes up with a fool-proof plan to knock the unknown missile out of the sky his fellow scientist at the Havenbrook Labs Dr. Joe Freed, Philip Pine, suddenly has seconds thought about downing the damn thing! Having found out, were never shown how, that the missile is being operated by aliens from space Dr. Freed wants to have it and its alien crew saved for future studies, in the knowledge that the aliens can provide the human race, in scientific advancements!As if things aren't going bad enough for Dr. Loring in his attempt to stop the lost missile, with a baby nuke that he devised, from obliterating the earth he together with Joan are carjacked by these 1950's greasers, or leather jacketed teenagers, on their way to the nearest USAF missile site. The unaware teens not knowing what their dealing with by being exposed to the plutonium, from he baby nuke, in Dr. Lorings' jeep soon end up being fatality radiated by it!***SPOILERS*** With time and the films' meager budget quickly running out Dr. Loring makes it to the missile launch site with the baby nuke and knowing, by being exposed to it, that his life is kaput willfully sacrifices himself by putting the radiation emitting baby nuke into the missile's, known as Jobe, nose-comb. It's then that Jobe does its job, by knocking out the runaway missile, in saving the earth until another day or another movie like "The Lost Missile" comes around.Skillfully spliced and integrated stock footage makes "The Lost Missile" hit its mark in keeping its audience glued to the screen without the special effects, of the 1950's, that the film so obviously lacks. There's also the film debut in the movie of African/American actor Hari Rhodes, who's extensive film credits include Samuels Fullers' "Shock Corridor" and the made for TV movie mega mini-series "Roots", as-according to the movie credits-the Black Man at the piano.

I remember watching "Lost Missile" (actually throwing a fit until my brother and several cousins at whose home I was an overnight guest agreed to watch it with me - I was, from time to time, the Eric Cartman of the 1960s - sorry, guys) and being somewhat embarrassed when the sustained wave of million-degree heat emerged as a plot device - even as a second-grader I knew that a mere missile just couldn't carry the energy around for that much heat or devastation over more than the duration and limited radius of a nuclear detonation. My inflicting that turkey on loving relatives was a self-punishing crime.The film's production values were very good. The acting isn't bad (apart from the Shatnerism of the actor who played a governor's aide that someone else here mentioned).But the idea of a missile Easy-Baking the surface of the Earth by means of the heat of its exhaust... no.How'd the people at "Mystery Science Theater 3000" miss "The Lost Missile," anyway? It's a great classic of unintentional comedy - watch it if you want something to drink beer to some weekend.

I had never heard of this one before it turned up on Cable TV. It's very typical of late 50s sci-fi: sober, depressing and not a little paranoid! Despite the equally typical inclusion of a romantic couple, the film is pretty much put across in a documentary style - which is perhaps a cheap way of leaving a lot of the exposition to narration and an excuse to insert as much stock footage as is humanly possibly for what is unmistakably an extremely low-budget venture! While not uninteresting in itself (the-apocalypse-via-renegade-missile angle later utilized, with far greater aplomb, for both DR. STRANGELOVE [1964] and FAIL-SAFE [1964]) and mercifully short, the film's single-minded approach to its subject matter results in a good deal of unintentional laughter - particularly in the scenes involving an imminent childbirth and a gang of clueless juvenile delinquents!