Starring John Archer, Warner Anderson, Tom Powers, Dick Wesson, Erin O'Brien-Moore
Directed by Irving Pichel
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
Unable to launch a successful space rocket through a military program, a determined general gets private industry to fund a manned rocket to the moon, although the project becomes beset by a number of problems.
Producer George Pal's first science fiction film is notable for its prescient script and art direction which foresees pretty accurately what a voyage to the moon and the lunar conditions would be like. Noted sci-fi author Robert A. Heinlein contributed to the script, and veteran art director Ernst Fegte created the rocky lunar surface, enhanced by matte paintings by Chesley Bonestell. Leith Steven's majestic score is just about perfect for the film, and the cast is all fine, with Wesson standing out as the first of many cinematic Brooklynites who make it into space. The film also showcases a Woody Woodpecker animated sequence, presented to investors to explain the science behind the rocket, which may have influenced a similar sequence in 1993's Jurassic Park. The friendship between Pal and Woody's creator Walter Lantz would lead to future cameos by the cartoon character in a number of Pal's films.
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