From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie Missile to the Moon released in 1958.
Starring:
Richard Travis, Cathy Downs, K.T. Stevens
Directed by:
Richard E. Cunha
Genre:
Drama, Sci-Fi
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Rating:
Approved
Budget:
$65,000 (estimated)
Current IMDb Rating When Reviewed:
3.9
The Synopsis is:
Two escaped convicts Gary and Lon are caught hiding in a rocket by scientist Dirk Green, who forces them to pilot the ship to the moon. Dirk, who's secretly a moon being, wants to return to his home satellite. Dirk's partner Steve Dayton and his fiancé June stowaway on the ship by accident. Will they all make it back safely?
Writers: H.E. Barrie (screenplay), Vincent Fotre (screenplay)
This film is black and white, but the version I’m watching has been colorized.The film was distributed by Astor Pictures and is a remake of an earlier Astor Pictures-distributed film, Cat-Women of the Moon (1953).
Start the video.
20 minutes in
The film starts out with very television style music, but very expressive full of a variance of emotions before anything even happens.
Extremely low budget, but they had access to sets.
The story starts off with Dirk and his partner Steve being told that their rocket ship has to be confiscated by the government. The film did really good a job of setting up that Dirk really wants to take his rocket ship to the moon. When two escaped convicts Gary and Lon stow away in the rocket ship Dirk gets the idea to use them as man power to pilot the ship to the moon before the government takes it away.
I enjoyed the details of having a control panel monitoring the ship's activity on the ground and a window view of a model of the ship. Inside the ship was a plethora of switches, knobs, leavers, and lights and this is all of the things that I look for in these old sci-fi films. I just love that old technology that at one time they thought was advanced. It also lent a practicality to it. They are pressing levers, so they must be doing something.
The film also does a good job of establishing that the convicts are at odds with each other. Gary is thief that is proud to be one and a bit of a bully. Lon is a gentler and more reasonable in his thinking with honest regrets having done his crime. A crescendo of ridiculous events reasonably puts Steve and his girlfriend Jane on the rocket ship just as it blasts off toward the moon.
As rudimentary as the visuals are they still do a great job of conveying the actions and so far I'm enjoying this.
50 Minutes in.
The pacing is very fast, until it gets into a heap of exposition. Instantly Gary is looking at Jane like a ham sandwich. So then immediately all the guys clear out and leave the convict with Jane. It’s so gross.
Then the ship gets attacked by meteors and in the mix Dirk is killed, but before he dies he gives Steve a medallion. So much happens in such a short period of time.
On land they face rock creatures then go through a cave. They are gassed and kidnapped by blue amazons on the moon led by their blind queen called the Lido. This world is a male fantasy, a paradise as you will, filled with exotic visually stimulating women who are curious about the men visiting their world.
They single out Steve because he is wearing the medallion that Dirk gave him. They think he is Dirk. And this is the perfect time for him to say that he is not Dirk, but he doesn't.
It seems as if Dirk was sent to earth to learn about the planet and then return to marry a woman by the name of Alpha.
To the end.
Wow, the last part of this plays out like a fever dream, full of action and the pacing revs up to 100%.
There's a cat fight between Jane and Alpha. There's a fight against wills. There's some mind control. There’s a tribal dance sequence.
And then we have the glorious giant spider puppet. If memory serves me correctly, this spider was used in at least 3 films. Which brings me to the fact that this film is supposed to be the actual remake of another film I reviewed, Cat women of the moon released in 1953, 5 years prior.
I feel as if this is more like a sequel if you are of the mindset that in the Cat Women of the moon the astronauts left a few pregnant moon women. As well, there are so many similarities, but they removed the strong and smart scientist leading lady.
This version is more exciting and shlocky. Of the many fun features of the film, the costumes of the moon women were really elaborate and heavily ornate. I love those, but the wigs were a little jarring and at some angles, very helmet like. Still cool though. I love the concept.
The scenes showing the ship landing and taking off looks like real stock footage on a projection, behind a photo.
They make no mistake that many of the backgrounds are just flat drawings. It’s a sad product of the lack of budget.
One thing I hate to have to comment about, is the acting is so funny at times, really hard not to laugh at, but I think that is one of the reasons why I love these films. The filmmakers were going to make this film no matter what. And to be totally fair, much of the acting seems to be directly correlated to unrealistic dialogue and strange editing choices.
Speaking of acting, a stand out in the film, giving a rather over the top entertaining performance was Nina Bara, who played, Alpha. She was also a regular on the sci-fi television series Space Patrol (1950-1955). And you know this is the kind of stuff I just love.
This is a good old fashion guilty pleasure of mine with all of the wonderful b movie splendor of the 1950’s.
My Rating:
6.5
That sums up my review. This is Retro Nerd Girl signing off!
Take care movie lovers! I'm off to the next review!
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