Destination... Lune!

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.

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.

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.

Most science-fiction films are actually raw fantasy, with a disregard for reality that commonly borders on pure contempt. This isn't always a bad thing, since I really like fantasy. But techno-babble and flashy gadgets are too often only gimmicks favored by dumb producers, ignorant directors, and lazy writers who get themselves into of a jam. "Destination Moon" is rare and different. An enormous amount of time and effort were expended to make it as technically accurate as was possible in 1950. Even Kubrick wasn't this consistent in "2001"; he often let gravity appear where it shouldn't be. They never made that mistake in "Destination Moon". So it's unfortunate they didn't spend as much effort on the story and the acting, but both cast and crew were so wrapped up in creating a real moon trip they skimped on these aspects of story telling. The result was surprisingly impressive visuals for the time, but characters who are shallow, trite, and dull, and crises that arise and are solved while leaving us indifferent.

But there is real drama here, the drama of people trying to imagine what was virtually unimaginable back then -- how to actually get people to the Moon and back -- using real physics and engineering. And if it doesn't measure up to the story of "Apollo 13", another technically accurate film about a REAL trip to the Moon, it still stands out as unique among 1950s films and remains almost as unique among all science-FICTION movies ever made.