By all appearances this serial could have been made any time since the mid forties. The cardboard sets, the moon kings with lightning bolts sewn onto their aprons, you know the drill. This one is a Rocky Jones adventure, featuring the space cop's dealings with the insufferable Bitch Queen of planet Offeecious, a commie planet that won't join the United Planets. When the noble messengers of intergalactic reason announce that Offeecious is on a collision course with this other, vaguely Slavic planet, Bitch Queen decides to blow the other guys up rather than evacuate her land. This introduces a moral to the effect of "The greatness of a nation is not in its land, but its people," which is hammered home five or six times in the climactic talkfest. The BQ's constant nasal ranting about "OffEEEEcious" provides relief from some seriously wanting space effects, is this a TV show?

I bought this movie for a couple of dollars at a "Clearance warehouse sale" one day when just looking around. The cover looked pretty good, (in colour), but the movie is B&W, (I wish they wouldn't try to trap us with coloured covers on B&W movies, but it's a common thing to look out for!).When I watched it I was pleasantly surprised. It turned out to be better than I expected. I was disappointed that it was a B&W, but the effects are pretty good, certainly better than, say, "Invaders from Mars" which has crappy effects, and it is great to see John Banner in something else apart from Hogan's Heroes.Overall, this movie isn't too bad for a B grade, and certainly worth the two dollars from a nostalgia point of view. It isn't my favourite sci-fi, but it's not my worst either. It's o.k.

Take your best shot at "Crash of Moons", but I found the film to be fairly entertaining, with some unique story elements and special effects that come off as pretty original for the mid 1950's. I've been overdosing on sci-fi films of the era recently, and must say that it's a lot better than some of the space turkeys that came out a decade later, like "Voyage To The Prehistoric Planet" and "Zontar The Thing From Venus". Part of it's appeal for me included the well done orbiting space station OW-9, and the use of creative space jargon to describe futuristic technology like the 'viseograph', the 'astrophone' and 'tortanic' missiles.The hero of the piece is Space Ranger Rocky Jones (Richard Crane), the movie spliced together from episodes of the mid '50's television program. It's not hard to see where some of the imagination for Star Trek's Captain Kirk came from. Confident and take charge, Rocky seemed to be wherever the ladies were present, though without Kirk's overworked libido. His team includes the leggy Vena Ray, adequately portrayed by Sally Mansfield.The story line is also fairly imaginative, with two gypsy moons linked together by an atmosphere chain that initially threatens the space station, and then takes up an orbit that may destroy another planet. Ophecious is ruled by a hawkish space queen named Cleolanta (Patsy Parsons), who views the threat of rogue moon Placida as a United Worlds plot to destroy her planet and her rule.If you're a fan of 'B' Westerns, you'll have no trouble recognizing a couple of faces that made dozens of cowboy flicks each. Harry Lauter is Cleolanta's right hand man Atlasan, while her lieutenant is veteran Lane Bradford. Nan Leslie, who also made her mark in a fair number of Western films, is Atlasan's wife Trinka, the voice of reason on Ophecious who is anxious to accept Rocky Jones' help to save her planet's people. Meeting her prompts Rocky's sidekick Winky (Scotty Beckett) to remark - "Hey Rocky, who is that luscious trail of star dust anyway?" Perhaps the surprise member of the cast for trivia fans is the character Bavarro, who a dozen years later would become the perfect foil for Colonel Hogan on the popular series "Hogan's Heroes". I didn't make the connection at first, but will have to go back to review John Banner's scenes to measure the resemblance.OK, it's dated, black and white, and has moments when the non action simply plods along, but overall I found "Crash of Moons" to be likable enough. It helps that the players themselves didn't seem to take the whole thing too seriously, as they looked to be in the spirit of things, all with a straight face. I wonder how much practice that took, as some of those space uniforms looked downright out of this world in a genuinely 'out there' sort of way.

This feature was re-edited from a two-part episode of the popular 1954 syndicated "Rocky Jones, Space Ranger" series, which lasted only one season because its sophisticated (for the time) special effects, sets and wardrobe requirements made it too expensive to show a profit. Fortunately the films survived (unlike the "Captain Video" kinescopes) to be available to students of the genre. Richard Crane was the perfect space captain, and Sally Mansfield as Vena Ray, Rocky's miniskirted assistant, makes sure the adult male interest level stays measurably acceptible. Alexander Laszlo's title theme is in 3/4 time, very unusual for a space opera, and it uses plenty of theremin.