Destino à Lua

Destination Moon was our conception in the middle of the last century as to what our first hesitant steps would be towards getting to the Moon. What I was amazed to see was just how accurate they got it in terms of reality.

Four men, John Archer, Warner Anderson, Tom Powers and Dick Wesson are the chosen astronauts though that term had not come into usage at the time. When you think of the selection process for astronauts that was to come with the formation of NASA this part of the film seems almost a bit silly. Dick Wesson who provides the comic relief is a communications specialist who gets to go at the last minute because the chosen traveler gets appendicitis.

The best part of the film was the space walk, when they have to do some needed repairs to the ship. Robert Heinlein who wrote Destination Moon was very accurate with that and with the dangers of performing that task when needed.

As for the very harrowing trip home, the plot was eerily accurate in terms of what happened to some astronauts for real in the early Seventies. I really do marvel at how Robert Heinlein got so much of it right.

Without any weird alien monsters, Destination Moon still manages to be thoroughly entertaining and incredibly perceptive. The film won an Oscar for Special Effects no mean achievement since it's only competition was Cecil B. DeMille's big budget Samson and Delilah. It also was nominated for Best Art&Set Direction, but in this case it lost to Samson and Delilah.

When you beat out a DeMille film from Paramount with all the money that studio could throw behind a campaign, you know it has to be good. Even now the Special Effects aren't bad by today's standards.

I almost did not bother to see this movie that was on AMC yesterday as I expected another 1950's black and white "B" movie that would just take up another 90 min. of my time. Boy, was I wrong! This movie was terriffic. Not only was it in color but it was not a silly movie. It was very factual and some scenes were actually very thrilling. It was not an Appollo 13 but for it's time it could have been. Too bad there weren't more movies of this caliber in the fifties. If you havn't see it already, you deserve yourself a treat.

This is one of the few sci-fi movies from the 1950's that doesn't have aliens or monsters in it. It's a straightforward, fairly serious story about some scientists and businessmen who want to get to the moon. The special effects and accuracy of space life are above average. Joe Wesson (Sweeney) is included to give the picture some light-hearted humor. Anne Archer's father, John, is the star of the movie and does a good job portraying the boss of the moon project.

Science fiction gets the deluxe treatment for the first time in history (except for `Things to Come' and `Metropolis'). This is a big-budget, technicolor production from producer George Pal and director Irving Pichel, with Leith Stevens music (`When Worlds Collide', `War of the Worlds' , others), Chesley Bonestell matt paintings, and Oscar-winning special effects supervised by Lee Zavitz. Stop motion animation scenes of the astronauts walking on the hull of the ship were directed by John S. Abbott. The fine script was penned by Rip Van Ronkel, James O'Hanlon, and veteran sci-fi author Robert Heinlein.

The cast includes John Archer as the millionaire industrialist, Warner Anderson as the designer of the rocket, Dick Wessson as the wise-cracking radio operator, and Tom Powers as the visionary general. (Note: this is not the same Tom Powers who stars in `Unidentified Flying Objects' in 1956).

Although many reviewers connect `Destination Moon' with Heinlein's novel `Rocketship Galileo', the film's story has much more in common with Heinlein's novelette `The Man Who Sold the Moon', also published in 1950. The novelette, like the film, spotlights private industry as the sponsor of the Moon trip. John Archer's industrialist is an eerie parallel to Howard Hughes, whose company actually did build the Apollo space crafts!

Heinlein actually published a THIRD Moon-trip story in 1950, a novelette featured in the September issue of `Short Stories Magazine' under the title `Destination Moon'. This version is so similar to the film, it was probably intended as a promotional piece, but it does include one fascinating story element not in the film. The explorers find evidence of previous lunar visitors -- either Russians or aliens, they aren't sure which!

While planning the famous E.V.A . rescue scene (in which an oxygen bottle is used as a makeshift propulsion unit) the film makers considered using a shotgun as the means by which John Archer retrieves Warner Anderson when he drifts away from the rocket in space. Thankfully they changed their minds; a shotgun seems like an inappropriate piece of equipment to take to a lifeless, airless satellite. However, the shotgun concept was used in the final film during Woody Woodpecker's cartoon demonstration of rocket propulsion, which is shown to the millionaire industrialists who finance the Moon trip.

Chesley Bonestell, famed artist of the celestial realm, provided matt paintings and designed the lunar surface (which had not been photographed up close at that time, so the film makers had to make some guesses).

Art director Ernst Fegte added the fractured lava bed feature which resembled a cracked lake bottom. The cracks diminish in scale as they recede from the camera, creating a forced perspective which enhanced the depth of the set.

This blend of technical accuracy and artistic excellence is the key to the success of `Destination Moon'. No wonder it almost single-handedly started the 1950s sci-fi craze of the 1950s. The film has a strong flavor of `The Right Stuff' (brave men doing a tough job). If you appreciated stories which portray heroism and the nobility of the human spirit, `Destination Moon' is your kind of movie.

Destination Moon stands out as one of the better sci-fi movies from the fifties, mostly because they approach the idea of travelling to the moon in a very specific and realistic way. Unlike other films such as When Worlds Collide (another George Pal film) which sends the rocket down a giant ramp, Destination Moon relies on many of the same procedures that NASA later used in its actual launches. Of course, it still shares some of the fantasy qualities of others in the sci-fi genre as well as some great special effects (for which it earned an Academy Award). The characters are usual sci-fi fare, and that includes the usual "comedic element", in this case Dick Wesson playing a street-wise technician from Brooklyn who talks of "dames and baseball". By the way, this character was humorously parodied in the classic spoof Amazon Women On The Moon. So if you enjoy cigar shaped rockets, great fifties special effects, and cool retro images, you should check out Destination Moon.