Destination Moon (1950)

Directed by:
Irving Pichel

When producer George Pal announced his upcoming Technicolor extravaganza Destination Moon to the general public in 1948, little did he or anyone else realize what would follow. The extensive print and radio publicity campaign for Pal's half-a-million-budgeted film was in effect from before the film even actually began filming. The announcement and media coverage not only brought out a vulture or two - see: Robert L. Lippert's Rocketship X-M (1950) - but also awakened a huge interest in all things science fiction; something that would also dominate the horror genre for the rest of the decade (hence why the film also has a home here on The Bloody Pit of Horror). At the time this was made, space travel was nothing more than a farfetched fantasy. A hope, a dream, a possibility. 1950 was, after all, still seven long years away from Sputnik I and the official beginning of the Space Age, and nearly two whole decades away from man's first step on the moon. Pal hired screen veteran (and blacklisting victim) Irving Pichel, who, as a character actor had a memorable role in Dracula's Daughter (1936) and as a filmmaker had co-directed the classic The Most Dangerous Game (1932), to helm the project. He commissioned writers Rip (Alford) Van Rankel and James O'Hanlon to pen the script, but pioneering sci-fi writer Robert A. Heinlein perhaps had the most substantial role of all; also having a big hand in the finished script, allowing for use of ideas carried over from his novels "Rocket Ship Galileo" (1947) and "The Man Who Sold the Moon" (1949) and signing on as the film's technical adviser.

The plot is a very simple: a small group of men decide to build a rocket ship and go to the moon. And yes, that's pretty much it. They do not discover aliens or monsters or a lost civilization or man-eating plants or even love-starved cat women while they're there because, in 1950, just going to the moon was fantastic enough all by itself. Scientist / rocket designer Dr. Charles Cargraves (Warner Anderson) and veteran military man General Thayer (Tom Powers) are both involved in a government sanctioned project that backfires when the rocket explodes and becomes "the most expensive pile of junk in history." Four years pass and the plucky General wants to get the team together again and take another crack at it. The only problem is that the government now wants no part in backing another project. But that's OK: millionaire industrialists have a lot of money to throw around, right? Thayer decides to go the private financing route and enlists the aid of wealthy aircraft manufacturer Jim Barnes (John Archer) - who also had a hand in constructing the first rocket - to help secure the money.

To butter potential investors up, they show them an amusing cartoon starring "one of Hollywood's best-known actors;" Woody Woodpecker (yes, Woody Woodpecker), who gives them an easy-to-digest lesson in Space Shuttle 101. To seal the deal, they utilize the same tried-and-true tactic governments and religious institutions have used effectively for years in order to get their way: fear-mongering. As the General explains, if we don't get to the moon first, "they" will and then we may be in trouble. There's a lot of mention of "they" or "them" in the first half, which is thinly-disguised code for "the Russians." "They" may have sent undercover agents to the U.S. to sabotage the original rocket program and "they" may also want to beat us to the moon so "they" can set up missiles and aim them in our direction. It's enough of a scare to get all of the money-bags to fork over the dough out of sheer obligation to this great country of ours and humankind in general. Now with the project financed and back on track, another rocket called the "Luna' is constructed and multi-colored spacesuits and magnet boots are designed. The government shows up to try to shut them down so our heroes - somewhat ill-prepared - decide to hastily load up their supplies and blast off.

Accompanying the General, Dr. Cargraves and Jim on the trip is a fourth man, Joe Sweeney (Dick Wesson); a last minute replacement for the original radio operator after he's rushed to the hospital to have his appendix removed. Joe is there to represent us: the "common man" aka "the unscientific man." He's also a stereotypical Brooklynite who pronounces "Earth" like "Oith" and is used both to break up the tension with his annoying comic relief and work as an inquisitive plot device to ensure that things are explained to us. The four men manage to break through our atmosphere in their rocket and begin heading toward the moon. While out of the ship to check for potential damage caused by the takeoff, one floats off into space and must be rescued using an oxygen tank for propulsion and direction. After landing, they explore the moon's surface and finally come to the conclusion they've burnt up so much fuel that they'll never be able to get back unless they're able to lose a lot of excess weight. With time running out, the ship stripped down and still more weight left to go, will one of the men have to make the ultimate sacrifice to ensure the others can make a safe return trip home?

A critically and financially successful venture in its day, Destination Moon has been widely criticized here in recent years. As a firm believer that films should be evaluated in context to when they were made, I can't really get down with a lot of that. Sure, there's some bad science in here (just like any other older sci-fi film), but there's also a surprising amount of accurate science. In fact, I'd venture to say that this is about as grounded and scientifically accurate as it could possibly be for its day using a mixture of known scientific principles and educated speculation. Not only that, but it has proven to be downright prophetic in many regards to how later space missions would play out. 

Another point of frequent criticism is the ending, which has been criticized because we never get to see the ship or our heroes return to Earth. Seeing how the whole point of the film was for these men to overcome various obstacles and uncertainties to get to the moon, I can't say that an absence of postscript bothered me. There is indeed a lack of action in the film, leading some to describe it as "dull" or noting that "nothing happens" but there's enough dramatic tension to compensate. There's also something quite nice about experiencing the fantasies, wonders and aspirations of another era with characters who possess a quiet determination, optimism and nobility on a solemn and mysterious landscape. I found the "dated" aspects only enhanced my enjoyment of this as a document of man's hopes and dreams before those hopes and dreams actually came to fruition.

Destination Moon ended up snagging two Oscar nominations; one for its Lee Zavitz-supervised Special Effects (which it won) and another for Ernst Fegté and George Sawley's color art direction / set decoration (which it did not win). Notable painter, astronomical artist and science fiction book and magazine illustrator Chesley Bonestell provided wonderful matte artwork used for the moon landscape and cracked surface, Leith Stevens composed the thunderous score (and would also score other later 50s sci-fi films like WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE [1951], also for Pal, and THE WAR OF THE WORLDS [1953]) and there's even brief use of stop motion animation. To further promote the film, Heinlein contributed a story treatment of the script - also titled "Destination Moon" - to Short Stories Magazine in 1950. There was also a 10-page movie comic published by Fawcett (which went for a dime back then but now goes for several thousand dimes on ebay), a soundtrack album and special issues of Astounding Science Fiction, Popular Mechanics and Strange Adventures magazines devoted specifically to the film.

★★★

War of the Worlds, The (1953)

... aka: H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds

Directed by:
Byron Haskin

H.G. Wells' landmark sci-fi novel "The War of the Worlds" is one of those juggernauts that will never die. It's constantly being revived, remade and homaged, and has gone on to influence all manner of popular entertainment over the years. The book became even more legendary after a now-infamous radio broadcast aired right before Halloween on October 30, 1938. Put on by CBS as part of their anthology series "The Mercury Theatre on the Air," the novel was adapted for the airwaves by Anne Froelick and Howard Koch and directed and narrated by Orson Welles. The first two-thirds of the broadcast (listened to by about 6 million people) was fashioned like a mock news report detailing an invasion of our planet by deadly alien spacecraft, which gave many listeners a real fright when they believed this was all actually occurring in real time. A mild panic ensued in some areas, concerned listeners flooded the phone lines and the rest is history. Public statements were later issued and some listeners scared by the program even unsuccessfully attempted to file lawsuits against CBS. Welles gladly took the publicity and ran with it; he'd make Citizen Kane (1941) just a few year later, and the broadcast's headline-making notoriety was enough to secure the tale a place in pop culture history. And not just in American pop culture history. In 1946, a radio station in Ecuador produced a Spanish-language version of the play, which led to panic, mass rioting and seven reported deaths! It made perfect sense that a film version be made once the available technologies were available.

War (loosely adapted from the novel by Barré Lyndon) opens with narrated footage briefly describing weaponry in both World Wars as well as space-set narration by Sir Cedric Hardwicke detailing our neighboring planet of Mars. The denizens of Mars, far more technologically advanced than we here on Earth, are tired of their severe weather and want a new place to call home. Instead of asking if they can move in, they decide to stage a full scale takeover of Earth instead. The denizens of Linda Rosa, California will be the first to encounter the beings when a red hot meteor the size of a house crash lands in the woods near the small town. A handful of scientists from Pacific Tech happen to be on a camping and fishing trip nearby and one of them, Dr. Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry), a famous inventor who was on the cover of Time Magazine for creating a new atomic engine, decides to stay behind and wait for the meteor to cool down. Late that night while the rest of the town is busy at a square dance, three men watching over the meteor notice it moving. Something begins to screw off the top and a cobra-like appendage pops out. Deciding it best to announce themselves as friends, the men approach the being only to get blasted into smithereens with a laser.

The lights go out, the phones stop working and watches and other battery-operated devices become magnetized and cease to function. After Dr. Forrester and the Sheriff go back to the meteor crash site and see what they're up against, the U.S. Marine Corp - led by General Mann (Les Tremayne) - are immediately called in.  Meanwhile, hundreds of other similar meteors, each housing a separate manta ray-shaped spacecraft, are falling in pairs of three all across the planet. In Linda Rosa, after the aliens blast local pastor Matthew (Lewis Martin), the marines open fire. Since the ships have the ability to shield themselves from blasts from guns and tanks using an electromagnetic force field, they make short work of the military. Dr. Forrester and Sylvia Van Buren (Ann Robinson), a USC professor and Forrester's obligatory love interest, commandeer a small plane, crash it and then retreat for cover to a farmhouse. There, they get sight of a squatty, silly looking alien with three pupils and long suction cup fingers and manage to get their hands on some of the alien's blood as well as a periscope-like camera the crafts use to sniff out prey. The items are brought to some scientists in hope they can find a weakness.

Nations attempt to band together to fight the alien invasion but despite our collected scientific knowledge and military power, nothing seems to stop these things. As a last ditch effort, the military drops an atomic bomb directly onto one of the crafts, but it emerges without even a scratch or dent. Exhausted of options and hope nearly non-existent, people begin to panic, loot, riot and steal any vehicle available to them. Others peacefully congregate in churches; hoping their prayer will be enough to extinguish the menace. The ending both maintains the source novel's ending (the aliens being unable to adapt our atmosphere and dying from microbial infection), but also shoehorns in the religious angle to cater to the audience of the day.

Upon release in 1953, WOTW  became both a critical and financial success for Paramount, and it deservedly retains its status as an influential genre classic nowadays. Produced on a healthy 2 million dollar budget (Cecil B. DeMille was the uncredited executive producer), it was nicely shot in Technicolor and boasted state-of-the-art special effects for its time. While some of the fx are now, of course, dated and sometimes hokey, others (particularly the spacecrafts laying waste to a big city) continue to impress. The film also still manages to excite modern audiences with a speedy pace, lots of action and scenes of wide scale destruction, which create a wonderfully frantic, apocalyptic feel toward the end. The cast is sufficient, and small roles are also played by Robert Cornthwaite as a doctor, Paul Frees as a radio reporter (he also narrated the war footage), Henry Brandon and Jack Kruschen, with small uncredited parts played by Russ Bender, Paul Birch, Ann Codee, Russ Conway, Carolyn Jones, Alvy Moore, Walter Sande and James Seay. Producer George Pal has a cameo as a bum listening to a radio news report. It netted three Oscar nomination; winning for its special effects.

The legacy of Wells' novel has only been strengthened in recent years; managing to bleed over into film, TV, radio, comic books, video games and other forms of popular entertainment since its publication. Numerous radio stations around the globe continue to air the original 1938 broadcast as a Halloween tradition, while others go all out and put on their own new broadcasts of it (there was even a musical version). In 1988, the same year a War of the Worlds TV series aired here in America, NPR put on a new radio production, which ended up being nominated for a Grammy Award. The 46-page script for the radio broadcast later broke records for entertainment memorabilia when it sold for 143,000 dollars at Sotheby's Auction in New York City. A second radio script (which had belonged to Wells) turned up and was purchased by Steven Spielberg for 32,200 dollars. 

In 2003, the broadcast was added to the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress. In 2005, two new versions of the novel were made; one a big-budget blockbuster by Spielberg (which was heavily weighed down by the inclusion of two extremely annoying child characters) and another cheaper cash-in by The Asylum. In 2011, this 1953 film version was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. A documentary about the radio broadcast played on PBS right before Halloween earlier this year as part of their "American Experience" series.

★★★1/2