La femme sur la lune

This was Fritz Lang's last silent film. It is a science fiction adventure in which a scientist, Professor Georg Manfeldt, had theorized that there were large supplies of gold on the moon. He was ridiculed by his peers and disgraced because of this. However, a wealthy industrialist believes Manfeldt's theory and has been building a rocket to travel to the moon. when a group of wealthy men who control the world's gold supply feel threatened by the possibility the theory may be correct, they threaten to destroy the rocket unless one of their agents, Turner, is allowed to go on the expedition too. Apparently Lang's film got so much right about space travel that the Germans seized the models used in the film as state secrets when they started their own rocket-building program. This film runs 169 minutes and is quite slow in places. It has some very interesting and thrilling scenes, but it is probably one of the weaker of Lang's films that I have seen.

As Martin Sheen said in the fine documentary "Space," this movie deals seriously with almost every aspect of a flight to the moon. It makes some dreadful errors that, even in 1929, could and should have been avoided (an atmosphere on the moon, for example). But, it nevertheless treats the subject and the viewer with respect. When I saw this movie at a New York revival house, a live pianist provided the silent film's accompaniment. I encourage you to see it this way, as that somehow made it even easier to put myself in the place of an early 20'th century filmgoer, and see this fine movie for what it was. The story is light, but the beckoning mystery of outer space is captured in a way that will make you feel you know something more than you used to about the people who made, and first saw, these images. And, when you do, remember that real space flight was 30 _years_ away. (Later, you might ponder that the first lunar landing is now _more_ than 30 years ago, but do that after you enjoy this sweet look at, as Fred Pohl put it in another, related, context, "the way the future was.")

One extra bit of advice: Keep your ears open at the moment of launch. All of the effects in this movie are, naturally, simple and gray-haired. Nevertheless, when the rocket actually took off, my audience gave an audible reaction because, I think, Lang decided to emphasize an aspect of what a rocket is, and what it can do, that virtually all later film-makers have decided to ignore. They should see this movie, and learn a little something.

One of the coolest things for any silent film buff is to discover a film that they hadn't heard of or known too much about. That's the case with Fritz Lang's restored "Woman in the Moon", in the 2004 KINO DVD release, in which the print quality is excellent and a new piano/synthesizer score has been added. As has been cited by many others here, the pacing of much of the picture is slow and the acting is occasionally melodramatic, but as was occurring with most movies in the latter days of the silents, the acting techniques were moving form the broad stage performances of early film to more controlled and realistic portrayals and most of the actors were of the latter group. In addition to the surprisingly realistic portrayal of many aspects of what would become space flight, it is interesting that the space (science fiction) aspect is not the focus of the movie. The movie deals primarily with six characters and the tensions caused by greed, love, scientific curiosity and boyish hero worship. The fact that they are making a trip to the moon to verify a theory that gold might be mined there is just the vehicle of the story. And the story itself is pretty decent, especially if you have the patience to let the movie tell it. And even though I am a fairly jaded film buff, I found myself genuinely startled and surprised at least twice by plot turns.

I love it when that happens.

Be patient. Its 169 minutes, but I think it is worth it.

Frau im Mond may appear scientifically outlandish to the modern viewer, and the high-style expressionistic acting of its actors overdone, but nevertheless the film should be recognized as a landmark which impacted world history. The UFA studio commissioned a then small and marginal band of German amateur rocket aficionados centered around Hermann Oberth to work as technical consultants to the film's designers, and UFA even commissioned them to build a rocket to be fired at the film's premier in Berlin. The rocket wasn't completed in time, but the laboratory furnished by UFA, not to mention the heady excitement of a brush with the highest level of cinema, and the salutory infusion of unexpected cash, together set some of these young rocketeers on their life paths. These included Willy Ley, and a young Prussian aristocrat engineer named Wehrner von Braun.

When the Nazis came to power, Fritz Lang parted with his wife and partner Thea von Harbou and came to Hollywood. The production models of the liquid-fired rockets from Frau im Mond were so advanced that in 1936 the Gestapo seized them as state secrets. Werhner von Braun went on to develop the brilliant Nazi terror weapon known as the V-2. Post-war, the V-2 and its German designers begat both the American and Soviet space programs. All subsequent space history was profoundly influenced by these developments. Frau im Mond maintains its impact to the present day. For just one example-- purely as a dramatic device to build tension before the rocket's lift-off to the Moon, Fritz Lang introduced title cards counting down from ten to one. The "countdown",as it became known, was so successful that NASA and everybody else has been doing it ever since.

The first half of this film; the set-up of the flight, the introduction to the main characters, a love triangle, and an international conspiracy; is frankly boring. But once the flight begins, action tenses up and things get interesting.

For 1929, the science is sometimes prescient-- a three stage rocket, a vertical assembly building, and a monstrous rolling gantry crawler-- are suggestive of the Apollo program. Other times the science is more romantic, using dowsing rods and an egg-shaped moon. The eggy moon allows a far-side with a breathable atmosphere. But an eggy moon really isn't less scientific than faster than light travel, which is a staple of modern space flight science fiction. FTL travel is simply a mechanism whereby a cast of characters can visit multiple star systems; the eggy moon allows the visit to a breathable world in the context of a 1930s Europe.

This movie understandably has fairly primitive special effects. One major effect, a rotating barrel decorated as the moon, is charming.

The ending is definitely touching. In the sub-genre of science fiction/space flight, this is an important and interesting film and well worth suffering through the first half.