This is above average sci-fi movie from the '50s. There're few good characters in this movie that makes it a good science fiction movie.
While not the grand production of the "Forbidden Planet", this movie definitely sticks out above similar moon themed movies such as "Cat Women of Moon" or "Operation Moon Base". The two ingredients that makes this movie higher quality is the choice of actors playing in this movie, and better props like the rock men of moon that can survive in the intense heat of moon's sun. Premise that moon's sun is intense enough to burn humans to the bones also was an interesting visual effect that left an indelible memory as a child.
Interestingly enough this movie has similar elements to the "Cat Women of Moon" and the "Operation Moon Base" in that moon is inhabited by all women race vying for main character's love which doesn't settle well with his fiancé, and that there is non-legitimate crew aboard the spaceship.
First part of the movie is somewhat slow and boring, but once the crew reaches the moon, the story starts to pick up, and becomes interesting.
This is one destination moon type movie from the '50s that's worth watching.
Missile to the Moon
1958
Action / Drama / Sci-Fi
Missile to the Moon
1958
Action / Drama / Sci-Fi
Plot summary
Two escaped convicts are found hiding in a rocketship built by a renegade inventor, who forces them to become the crew for a trip to the Moon. Also on board, as inadvertent stowaways, are his assistant and his secretary; and none of them are aware that the inventor is actually a Lunarian explorer sent to Earth by the dying Lunar civilization and the only remaining male member of that civilization.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
May 26, 2022 at 07:14 PM
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.BLU 1080p.BLUMovie Reviews
Perhaps the best destination Moon themed movie from the '50s
Much better colorized
This rating is for the 2007 colorized version, which improves greatly on the original black and white. The first half hour has more plot holes than I could count. But some of that first part is so dumb, it becomes the prototype bad good film. But once they arrive on the moon the movie is actually pretty entertaining. The women's outfits are really well done and sexy.
Whether or not this is a copy of an earlier film is irrelevant to me, as I try to judge movies, or music etc., as if I were watching in a vacuum.
The giant spider and the rock monster were funny and pretty cool. The alien girl vs. Earth girl jealousy fight was an added bonus.
Women, spiders and rock men, the moon is full of life!
This is a movie that may have fit in better if it had released in the 30's or maybe the 40's. By the 50's though there were more than a couple of good science fiction films that looked better than this thing. If it had been made in the 70's, it probably would have made a really good adult film, but as it is it looks bad and the plot laughable. The surface of the moon is obviously a desert, the monsters so slow you would be ashamed of yourself if they caught you (looking at you Gary) and a bevy of girls in need of men and a dude with his fiance ruins everything!
So the story has a man who has seemingly created a rocket on his own wishing to blast off because the government wishes to confiscate it. Stupid government, try to tell me it is the land of the free yet I cannot have my own personal rocket made out of pegboard, dagnabit! Well two convicts make up this guy's crew, but the scientist's assistant and his fiance get on board too. Well, they make it to the moon, but thanks to the fiance being there things go awry and the poor scientist is killed by a toolkit. Well, they reach the moon and there are women and they mistake the assistant for the scientist and apparently the scientist was from the moon and now Steve who is engaged comes close to marrying another. Long story short, thanks to Steve and his jealous fiance an entire race is wiped out...
The acting is typical of the time, the story outlandish. I kind of knew where it was going when the scientist gave the assistant the medallion, it is just too bad Steve was such a catch that the one moon girl could not back off, as that doomed everyone on the moon! Meanwhile, there were stone men that one could easily briskly walk away from, but a character instead walked right to his death. There is also a spider that looked strangely familiar, I am thinking it was used in another film.
So, the film was not good and while Steve and his crew blew it and just laughed off the death of a civilization any normal person would have felt sadness over, one has to wonder how they might react in the situation. I would love to be instantly liked by the moon girls, but then I am someone who is so introverted I am incapable of getting anyone these days and they just kill them all! Also, Gary would have been disappointed coming back to Earth when the 'diamonds' turned out to be like those salt crystals kids made in class...