George Pal was probably the best known and most financially successful sci-fi/ fantasy producer of his time; while best remembered for the 1953 'War of the Worlds' and 1960 'The Time Machine' his most significant film was probably 'Destination Moon'. Financally it made $5 million world wide off a budget of just under $600,000, but that impressive return is not why it's important, it's important because it was probably the first science fiction film to take the science seriously.
Pal wanted to make a film about the first moon landing that was as releastic and scientifically accurate as he could make it. On a technical level what is shown is not that different from the Apollo program and the real moon landing of 19 years later. The differences however are fun, Pal's moon mission, while also rooted in fears of the Russians getting there first, is privately financed and launched from the desert. A full rocket makes the whole trip there and back and the crew of four use magnetic boots to get around inside. Once on the moon the mission leader claims it for the United States of America, largest land grab in history.
The characters are hardly characters, save the one with the Brooklyn accent, this is a story of human achivment not of human characters. The crew encounter technical problems necessitating a space walk in route, they also have some difficulty getting back and have to dump most of their stuff on the lunar surfice in order to achieve lift off. Included in that refuse are their multicolored space suites.
The film looks fairly neat, bright colors, effects that have dated and Woody Woodpecker makes an appearance in a film within the film intended to explain the science to would be investors. The story, acting, most of the action, dead dull. Like its crew however the film still goes where no one had gone before, at 91 minutes it remains just watchable. **
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