Bestie des Grauens

In MISSILE TO THE MOON, the title rocket -complete with pegboard interior, bunk-beds, and paper-upholstered chairs- is used as a hideout (!!) by a pair of escaped convicts. Sealed inside by the ship's designer, the two crooks are launched into space with him, along with two other unwary passengers! Man, is it ever a simple process! To think that astronauts waste so much time training for this!

WOOSH!

Next stop, the moon.

After a tragedy, the missile reaches its destination. Thankfully, the lunar surface is very earth-like, with about the same gravity.

EEK!

Rock monsters attack! Luckily, their lumbering renders them ineffective killers. Soon enough, the explorers are in the company of The Lido (K.T. Stevens with a candelabra on her head) and her minions (a gaggle of beauty pageant winners). Will convict Lon (Gary Clarke) find true love among the moon maidens? Jealousy breaks out when misunderstanding ensues.

AAAGH!

A gigantic tarantula puppet is unleashed!

Utterly ludicrous in every way imaginable, this movie is still a ton of fun to watch! Yes, my friends, the moon truly is made of cheeeze.

P.S.- Do not miss the moon-woman disco dance routine, complete with bongo drums!...

This B-movie double feature classic is definitely the original inspiration for the title parody in the film "Amazon Women on the Moon". That film, however, featured the gorgous Sybil Danning, while in this 50's classic, we have to settle for teenage beauty contestants.

Not to say that the girls aren't cute. But, with all the elements involved here, it wouldn't have hurt the proceedings to show some skin. Alas, this is the 50's and certain production codes prohibited nudity in this sort of film, so we are stuck with clothed beauties.

The plot? Oh, yes, for some reason I got distracted. The infantile storyline concerns a scientist who is hijacked by escaped convicts. The ragtag crew blastoff in a rocketship towards the moon, where they meet up with rock creatures, giant spiders(who guard diamonds) and femme fatales. The number one cheesy high-point is the landing on the moon, and the dialogue is a close second.

This film, along with QUEEN FROM OUTER SPACE, makes for preliminary viewing for anyone interested in 50's sci-fi, ultra-low-budget style. Maybe someday it will show up on DVD, and I'll get a copy. Just so I can look at those Moon Beauties, and think of what a classic the film would've been had it been made in the swingin' seventies.

A spaceship blasts off from Earth with five aboard, but one of them is secretly a Moon man returning home. He dies by accident during the trip to Luna.

While this is incredibly cheesy, and not very scientifically accurate (at one point the rocket looks like cardboard), it is fun. The rock creatures are especially interesting. The spider is okay, although it does look a bit silly and this is the second or third time that same prop has appeared in a film.

I am curious what color the moon people are supposed to be. In the version I watched, they were sort of greenish blue. But in other versions, they are more naturally human-colored. And, of course, originally the film had no color at all. I suspect the true color is closer to human-tone, because otherwise how did Dirk (the moon man) pass as human?

Richard Cunha did not direct many movies but the few he did give us are fantastic. You know right away you are in an alternate universe when you watch this one. Hero Richard Travis pulls back a curtain to give us a look at what is supposed to be a giant rocket way out in the background; but you can tell immediately that it is a wooden model just a few inches away! Oh it just gets better from there! Scientist Michael Whalen blasts off for the Moon with a makeshift crew of 2 escaped JD's (Gary Clarke of HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER fame and Tommy Cook of no particular fame at all). Mr. Travis and girlfriend Cathy Downs (former fiancée of THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN) go aboard just before blastoff and are unable to get off in time . . . does that mean they were shanghaied? Amazingly the extra weight does not affect fuel or oxygen consumption and apart from the obligatory meteor shower they reach the Moon with no problem. Remember to keep repeating "It's only a movie, only a movie, only a movie . . ."

This is not the Moon of DESTINATION MOON, oh no! This Moon is inhabited by walking rocks that look like Gumby on steroids, a giant spider that looks like a puppet (well okay it IS a puppet but it's a darn mean looking puppet!) and a civilisation of beautiful women. They have a distinct problem though, they are running out of oxygen and must take off for another planet soon or else! They want the Earth people to show them how to build a rocket to carry them to safety. Meanwhile moon girl Alpha (Nina Bara) takes one look at Travis and decides she must have him for a mate and her unrequited love is more important than the survival of her own race. Talk about self absorbed!

Is it art? No. Is it fun? You bet! The puppet spider had already been seen in the 3-D film CAT WOMEN OF THE MOON but Mr. Cunha's film is much more fun. The rock men are surprisingly good and the Moon girls are fabulous. Look closely for Leslie Parrish (Daisy Mae of L'IL ABNER fame) and Lisa Simone who would go on to meet THE GIANT GILA MONSTER among the lunar beauties.

Amazing some TV prints cut the scenes of the spider claiming a victim and the climactic shot that shows why you should not go out in the sun while visiting the moon. Some DVD prints of this now Public Domain title offer the film uncut. Notice I said some, not all!

Did I forget to mention low intelligence Script? No matter. This enjoyable drive-in special was designed for the underdeveloped brain and over-active hormones of a particularly crude specimen of ape, the 1950's teenage male (that's me and my pals in the two-tone green '53 Plymoth sedan third row up from the popcorn stand). This bunch of knuckle-draggers wouldn't know or care that there were no clouds on the Moon or that pegboard and Army surplus bunk beds were not exactly the latest technology of space craft equipment even for the 1950's. What they would care about was whether this flick was going to show them some sexy, skimpy-dressed Moon Babes. In this department Missle to the Moon would have not disappointed! Who cares about the cheesy sets and ludicrous special effects! The producers of this awful but fun si-fi epic rounded up a covey of seriously gorgeous hotties to play the wonderfully lascivious Lunar lasses. They even combed beauty contests all over the states and the world to lure the winners to Hollywood or wherever this trifle was made, no doubt at low salaries but extravagant claims of chances for fame and fortune. One of the fun games you can play while watching is trying to figure out which of the Moon chicks is Miss Yugoslavia -- was it the tall blonde with the angular face or the short, dark, exotica who danced the hootchy-kootchy?

The sexiest and most exotic of all is in fact Nina Bara, as the beautiful bad Moon girl Alpha. Though only 5th billed, Nina was the real star of the show. Her chewing the cardboard scenery, deliciously wicked villainy is the only thing, other than curiosity, that makes this space soaper worth watching to the end. Her acting skill, I hasten to add, was far above that of the higher billed members of the no-name cast. It's worth the price of the DVD to see her gleefully wicked expressions and movements as she pulls a dagger from the confines of her bulging bosom. Though 38 years old at the time, Nina was still very pretty (in a sinister way), and wow! what a figure! In that all-important department (to this picture) she stacked up quite well (pun intended) against the young beauty contest bimbos. I don't understand why this badly underused actress didn't do better. In her prime a few years before this, she would have been a terrific femme fa-tale in those noir thrillers -- well, the low, low budget ones anyway.

Missle To The Moon is not nearly as bad a movie as others have carried on. Not one of those you watch just to laugh at such as Mesa of Lost Women (see my review). True, they did use the same giant, rubber spider from that looser, but they used it better in Missle. Though leading man Richard Travis and leading lady Kathy Downs were as bland as skim milk most of the time, Ms. Downs at least came alive during the cat fight with Alpha -- Hot Dawg! Though veteran stage actress K. T. Stevens seemed to sleep-walk though her part as the Moon Babe ruler Lido, the general quality of the acting wasn't so bad. Compare to past space operas up to the time -- every member of the cast, including the blankest of the beauty queens, could act better than Buster Crabbe of Flash Gordon fame! So the shots of the rocket in space were stock footage of V-2 rockets. What would you expect of a space travel flick of any budget from 1958. This was only the year after Sputnik. The United States had not yet managed to launch a ping-pong ball into space. Actually, Missle to the Moon is quite an enjoyable watch if you just think of it as a fun romp.

I do have a couple of gripes though. 1) They spent too much time traveling to the Moon before they found the Moon Babes and the wonderful Alpha. 2) A major plot hole is the Moon Babes claiming they were keeping the earthlings captive so they could learn to fly their space ship to another planet before their oxygen supply ran out. Why did they need the rocket? With all the spandex the Moon bunnies had, they could have built a giant sling shot which could have launched space vehicles with velocity enough to escape the moon's low gravity. And you thought I wasn't the scientifical type!

If you want to see space travel portrayed as accurately as 1950's technology could, watch Destination Moon, and be bored. If you want to have fun, watch Missle To The Moon!