Project Moon Base (1953)

Boring

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I got to see this in a double bill with "Destination Moon" which at least had the benefit of gorgeous color and a Woody Woodpecker cartoon to make it rise above its dullness. All this has is a bunch of people running around in silly caps trying to get to the moon and suspecting somebody of being a saboteur. It is a silly compilation of a TV series that never made it on the air that looks as cheap on my TV screen as many of the early TV series that had amateurish photography, plain sets and uninteresting characters. In fact, it made "Plan 9 From Outer Space" look like an epic in comparison. Of the cast, the only name I recognized was Hayden Rourke ("I Dream of Jeanie" which was ironically about astronauts), and the rest of the cast is basically forgettable. There's not much action considering the supposed shell of a plotline, and at just over an hour, it ends up being a huge waste of time.

A saboteur posing as a scientist strives to destroy the world's first space station.The film is based on a story by Robert A. Heinlein, who shares screenwriting credit with producer Jack Seaman. Apparently the film was made without Heinlein's consent and he disowned it as his work. The film was directed by the mysterious Richard Talmadge.The film is unusual for its time in both attempting to portray space travel in a "realistic" manner (which it does quite well considering it was pre-Apollo), and for depicting a future in which women hold positions of authority and responsibility equal to men; in the film the President of the United States is a woman. Being set in 1970, they were not far off on the space travel, but a bit too optimistic on the presidency.This movie and "Cat-Women of the Moon" (1953) were made using some of the same sets and costumes. The two films were then released within one day of each other. While both are a bit cheesy, they both have their merits.

The 1950's was the invention of 3-D, which caused a lot of people to rush to make sci-fi movies. A lot of the more memorable cheesy ones featured giant monsters or aliens, but this didn't even have that. If you want to watch something about going to the Moon before we actually did that in real life, watch the classic "A Trip To The Moon". This plot is very basic with people going to the Moon, but one of them is going to sabotage the mission. The movie is so dull there is really nothing else to say about the plot. A lot of the time, a bad movie with a short running time would be good. Here, it's more distracting because you just know they didn't have enough ideas to show more off a movie.This movie was apparently supposed to depict women in a positive light, at least for the decade it was released. Instead, the women come off as annoying and contribute little to the story. Then again, you could say the same thing of the male characters. The costumes and sets are quite goofy. This doesn't even the distinct of being cheesy in an entertaining way like a lot of B-movies. *.

In the early '50s when real space travel was yet another 8 years in the future, this was average view of space travel for most people. In that paradigm, movie like this was a pretty standard format as a space rocket based stories. Story's premise sound's ridiculous now that a rocket goes off course and can land on moon as an alternate plan and become the first people to land on the moon, but movie like this was never intended to be a serious science fiction. Some things were predicted accurately such as giant screen TV monitor, and forward thinking concept such as woman president of the country.But let's get to the bottom line here. The only thing that's worth watching in this movie in my opinion is the beautiful Donna Martel. She looks great as the female astronaut. This movie would not be worth a watch without her.Movie is a bit of cheese, but I find decent entertainment, and not a terrible movie to watch. I like this movie better than many of the rocket movies from this era such as Cat Woman of the Moon.So, I wouldn't give a high rating, but it's an okay movie for this category.