12 to the Moon

Looking decidedly limp next to its colorful cofeature, Toho's "Battle in Outer Space," Columbia's 1959 "12 to the Moon" was shot independently in just 8 days on a budget of $150,000, from producer Fred Gebhardt, responsible for "The Phantom Planet" two years later (using two actors from this film, Francis X. Bushman and Anthony Dexter). Scientists from a dozen different nations form an international expedition to the moon aboard the Lunar Eagle 1, taking off at 9 minutes, reaching their destination at 24 minutes (mostly concerned with meteor showers along the way). The lunar surface provides the film's most elaborate set, dodging small fissures, finding gold, two people going missing after a tender moment in a cave, another falling victim to quicksand. The nine survivors receive cryptic messages in hieroglyphics from the citizens of the Moon, lifting off for home at 51 minutes, only to dodge more meteors before finding North America encased in an icy prison, all the inhabitants in a state of suspended animation. For all its tediously sober moments early on, the picture descends into juvenile fantasy by its conclusion, the Moon men enjoying a change of heart to welcome all future expeditions. The main screenwriter is DeWitt Bodeen, virtually at the end of his career, quite a surprise considering his pedigree (Val Lewton's "Cat People" and "The Seventh Victim" both featuring Tom Conway), while director David Bradley sadly earned raspberries for his mishandling of 1963's "The Madmen of Mandoras," later reworked into the even worse "They Saved Hitler's Brain," undoubtedly a head of its time! Tom Conway's casting as the Russian seemed rather appropriate as he and younger brother George Sanders were actually born in St. Petersburg, and stalwart Ken Clark ("Attack of the Giant Leeches") is the American captain (the only other recognizable veteran is John Wengraf). A movie not well thought out and certainly not well remembered.

Those man's-first-flight-into-space movies from the 1950s often have a certain charm despite (or perhaps because of) their cheap sets, black-and-white photography, no-name casts, and scientific ignorance. This movie, however, has all the Grade-B tackiness without much of the compensating fun that marks, say, "Cat-Women of the Moon."

The plot has an international crew of ten men and two women rocketing to the moon and encountering the usual meteor showers along the way as they discuss how small and insignificant the Earth now looks. Upon reaching the moon, they discover gold, a glowing substance dubbed the "Medusa stone," traces of air, and evidence of a mysterious, never-seen civilization living below the surface in a "sealed city." This civilization wants them to leave before they inflict more damage.

The crew of the "Lunar Eagle 1" promptly heads for home but discovers that North America has been frozen by the civilization on the moon. To thaw it out, two members of the crew undertake a suicide mission to steer an atomic bomb into a Mexican volcano. (Don't ask.) The resulting explosion thaws out the continent and this act of self-sacrifice helps convince the moon-people that we Earthlings aren't so bad after all.

Mixed into this plot are a conflict between two crewmen, (a German and an Israeli), as well as a scene with a crewman who proves to be a saboteur with Communist tendencies.

Perhaps the movie's "high" point occurs when, mid-way to the moon, the rocket's American captain -- naked except for a small white towel modestly looped around his waist -- opens the shower-room door only to discover that it's currently occupied by the two female members of the crew. The human race has the expertise to build a rocket to the moon but they can't figure out how to put a lock on the shower-room door?

Incidentally, the captain is played by Ken Clark and his hairy chest is by far the best special-effect in the entire movie!

This movie has been misunderstood and slammed by some of the reviewers. At the time of the production in 1959, we still didn't even know exactly what the Earth looked like from space! All we had were a pitiful few almost useless "trophy" satellites careening around the Earth... Martians and intelligent life on Venus were still open topics for scientific discussion! It was a great time for speculation and open-minded thought. And on the other hand, the Cold War era movies always had to have a political morality issue thrown in... they actually still tried to put values into their work. Todays audiences should be proud to stand on the shoulders of the people who built the world they have the luxury of spitting on. It's actually pretty cool to watch the maker's conception of future space exploration. It's a shame we are too prejudiced to share their dream for an hour or so. The rocket may resemble a butane lighter and the meteors may not be real, but hey... it's an old movie!!! Get a grip on yourself and a bowl of popcorn and enjoy this piece of pre-spaceflight speculation for what it is.

This film remains rather stilted and slow-moving and that's not a good thing in what is essentially a 1950s style Rocketship B-Movie...it has many of the trademarks common to those...hurtling meteor storm attacks!, silly and impossible solutions to every problem usually involving shooting a rocket at something else and an intergender crew(although this one also has the daring for its time interracial crew!)...the problem with this film isn't its story really which could have been fun but the fact we see so little of what we hear about after the fact..more on screen adventure would have been a tremendous help..the gay undertones present in this film are also disturbing and sometimes laughable(although how else could the subject have been brought up in the time?). Still deserves points for being so daring.

Let me just say first, that it was a very noble idea for the moon to be explored as a global effort. They had representatives of many nations and even a black man and two women! (Actually pretty bold ideas at the time.) And even in the midst of the Red scare, they had a Russian, who, despite being a jerk, stops another European from sabotaging a mission to save the U.S. Yes, the movie seems to have been made with noble intentions towards world peace. That said, this is one big turkey. First, no one involved with the movie had any idea about what the moon and space were really like. (They have steam coming out of craters, and several clusters of meteors just between earth and the moon.) Second, the SFX are pitiful. (The ship at times has visible strings, and at one point a stick. The moon also appears to have Stage lights at one point.) These ingredients makes it a fairly awful movie. My recommendation? Watch the MST3K version and applaud the good intent but laugh at how awful everything else is.