A tedious exercise in cinematic boredom featuring Joseph Cotten and George Sanders. Unusual in that it had no protagonist - Cotten is an insanely greedy arms merchant and Sanders is a self-righteous, bible-thumping madman. The film plods along interminably with brief patches of action separating the endless preachy talk, talk, talk. Ultimately I found myself hoping for both of them to die along with the sappy couple of Debra Paget and Don Dubbins, just to bring this train wreck of a film to an end. There is no earthly (or lunar) reason to watch this dreadful film.

Forgetting that this film version of From The Earth To The Moon is nowhere near the spirit of the original tale Jules Verne was trying to tell, usually his work requires a big budget and a ton of good special effects. This film got neither.Looking at the credits tonight I noted it was an RKO production released by Warner Brothers. My guess is that the film was finished and in the can when RKO went under and was sold to Warner Brothers to distribute. Also the fact that it was produced by Benedict Bogeaus who was a producer of B films of varying quality tells me why it did not get the budget for decent special effects.Bogeaus was not the guy for this kind of film. Take a look at his list of credits. He did several westerns with John Payne, noir films with George Raft and some of them pretty good. He was out of his element doing science fiction.Verne's original novel had a bit of humor in it. But someone at RKO drained every bit of it. They even added a stowaway love interest in Debra Paget who does not make the trip in the book. She's paired opposite Don Dubbins who is scientist Joseph Cotten's assistant in creating the rocket.So instead of humor we get a lot of high falutin' claptrap coming from the mouths of Joseph Cotten and George Sanders the armaments manufacturer who is jealous of Cotten. Sanders especially looked ill at some of the dialog he was required to speak. He came across as a pouty kid and George knew it.I do wonder if Jack Warner looked at this thing before he bought it for Warner Brothers.

Yes, you can hear those words of wisdom, along with Virginia asking a dozen times "What does it mean?" if you watch "From the Earth to the Moon". I was ready to rip this flick a new one until I just read the trivia on IMDb and it kind of stole all my thunder (so read this first before you go there, lol). Anyway, it starts out like a serious sci fi flick and since I'm a 30's-60's sci fi fan, I was getting into it. But then like the trivia part says it runs out of steam (powered by power X) BIG TIME! The point where this movie "jumps the shark" is right around the moon launch time, I loved the wood paneling and shag carpet in the vessel though. The moon shot time is also when you hear the Forbidden Planet sound effects, and as distinctive as they sound, you immediately notice them, along with the sound of someone turning a cooking timer to the point that's its really annoying. The damn trivia also stole my thunder about the boom holding the spacecraft in full view (I paused and rewound that because I couldn't believe it was so blatant). This would have been a good MST3K movie to lampoon. The blonde who stows aboard, Virginia, is in full hormone bloom and she delivers some classic lines and moments that are just calling for an ad lib. She is in this one scene and starts saying "Well, if we're all going to die...." you can put your own ad lib in there, mine was "lets all go out with a real bang, gang!" She also says while they are lost in space to her heart-throb referring to when they will die, "Will you come to me?" If you replace the word to with in, I think was what she was really thinking, lol. Anyway, the trivia explained why this movie while never really was all that great in the beginning went totally downhill after that, RKO announced they were closing down! I'm just wondering what the target audience would have been for this movie anyway, it starts out to mature for kids (they'd be either running all over the place or asleep), and I don't see any women appeal, or for that matter many guys. I guess there was a "geek" element in the 50's because that's the only target audience I see. Well I admit I have geeky ways to myself so they got me to watch, the ad libbing I did with Virginia made the last part tolerable, otherwise your not missing much. A Japanese guy in a rubber monster suit is much more fun to watch.

This 1959 movie adaptation of Jules Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon" is the graveyard of declining actors. Joseph Cotton and George Sanders were at the end of fairly successful film careers and about to be relegated to guest appearances on a variety of television shows; the most notable being Sander's Mr. Freeze on "Batman". Debra Paget was in her late twenties; she had lost her glow and was used up by Hollywood standards. The change to an unflattering "strawberry" blonde look exacerbated the problem as few actresses have ever been less suited to a light hair color. On the plus side, the movie itself is a fairly accurate adaptation of Verne's story; at least the book's illustrations appear to have been used as models for the rocket and the cannon. Verne's 19th century take on space travel turned out to be more accurate than most of the speculation during the first half of the 20th century. The adaptation's biggest problem was altering Verne's story by inserting a topical theme about the post WWII arms race. In Verne's 1865 novel, the Baltimore Gun Club itself set about building a rocket to go to the Moon. In the adaptation a munitions manufacturer (think "Destination Moon") concocts the scheme to demonstrate his powerful new explosive. With a lot of discussion about science, weapons, and peace the movie dances around the subject extensively yet never makes a coherent point about its position (regarding the nuclear arms race), as if simply inserting the theme is somehow sufficient. The movie is a cross between "Destination Moon" and "Rocketship X-M", combining the former's good science and bad political message with the latter's dismal sets and comical special effects. The acting in all three films is equally sad. The premise has munitions manufacturer Victor Barbicane (Cotton) discovering an explosive (Power X) capable of firing a shell-like projectile to the moon. His plan is opposed for philosophical/religious reasons by Stuyvesant Nicholl (Sanders), another manufacturer. Although these philosophical differences play an important part in the story, they are never convincingly elaborated on, which undermines the basic storyline. President Grant orders Barbicane to abandon the project because it is considered an act of war by other nations. While this is unconvincing it does serve as Barbicane's inspiration to change the project to a manned space flight. Nicholl then agrees to manufacture the ceramic coating needed for re-entry and to accompany Barbicane on a flight to the moon. Paget plays Nicholl's daughter who hides inside the rocket just prior to take-off. "From the Earth to the Moon" is often confused with "First Men in the Moon" which was made five years later. Probably because both are set in the 19th century and both feature a female stowaway (played by Martha Hyer in the later film). "First Men in the Moon" (while not a great film) is superior in virtually every detail to "From the Earth to the Moon". Rather ironically it was adapted from a story by "H.G. Wells", an early science fiction writer often compared to Verne. Movie adaptations of Verne's books were a big thing in the 1950's and early 1960's. Among the good ones were "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1954), "Around the World in 80 Days" (1956), "Journey to the Center of the Earth"(1959), "Mysterious Island" (1961), and "Master of the World" (1961). Unfortunately "From the Earth to the Moon" is simply not in the same league as these examples. Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.