It is curious how entertaining bad 1950s science-fiction movies can be. The cheesy production values, the absurd story lines, the ridiculous scientific details and the bad acting somehow all combine to make them a lot of fun to watch. "Missile to the Moon" is a prime example. A couple of punks break out of prison and manage to take refuge in a space ship, despite the fact that the ship is surrounded by an electrified fence. Rather than turn the two creeps in to the cops, the designer of the ship impresses the two escaped convicts to serve as his crew. After teaching them everything they need to know about how to fly a rocket ship in about five minutes, the three take off for the moon. However, not before two stowaways manage to join them aboard the ship, namely the designer's assistant and his girlfriend.Once on the moon, the intrepid astronauts find that it is a great deal different from what terrestrial scientists now know to be the case. The moon is inhabited by "rock monsters" with an instinct to pursue humans (albeit very slowly), giant marionette spiders and a community of sex-starved, green-skinned women ruled by a blind queen referred to as "The Ledo". Most of the moon-bimbos are played by an assortment of winners of minor beauty contests who were probably told that being in this movie would be a great way to break into the movies (it wasn't). There were conspiracy theorists who believed at the time, and some who still believe, that Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong never really landed on the moon in 1969, and that the whole moon landing was nothing but an elaborate government hoax. Perhaps the fact that Aldrin and Armstrong never mentioned anything about encountering "rock monsters", giant marionette spiders or green space-broads on the moon is proof that those conspiracy theorists were right after all.

MISSILE TO THE MOON is an endearingly cheesy science fiction B-movie of the 1950s. The plot concerns a group of woodenly-acted astronauts who travel to the Moon only to discover that it has a number of inhabitants. Chief of these is a race of blue-skinned warrior women dressed in the most fetching of bikini-clad ensembles (outer space women were a running theme of the decade). Also around to menace the astronauts are a giant spider borrowed from TARANTULA and a cool rock monster. Oh, and the Sun is powerful enough to burn people down to a skeleton. There's a lot of fun involved here if you don't mind poor production values, laughable acting and effects, and so-bad-it's-good entertainment.

Fans of serious science fiction need not bother. In fact, to call Missile to the Moon a "science fiction" movie is something of a misstatement. "Fiction" – sure. "Science" – not on your life. Any resemblance Missile to the Moon may have with actual science is purely coincidental and, most likely, unintentional. But that doesn't mean it's not entertaining. Taken for what it is (a 1958 low-budget drive-in b-movie), it's not half bad. Sure, the rock creatures look fake and the giant spider is obviously a puppet and the inhabitants of the moon are straight off an Atlantic City beauty show runway, but all these things only add to the fun of the movie. It's kooky stuff like this that always seems to appeal to me. Don't take it too seriously and you just might enjoy it. There are a couple of other positives. One, the film is nicely paced so that at only 78 minutes it doesn't overstay its welcome. And two, the movie looks far better than it should given its meager budget. I'd say that the cinematographer, Meredith M. Nicholson, got it right. In the end, Missile to the Moon may not be the greatest movie ever made, but as a piece of entertainment, it's certainly better than its 2.4 IMDb rating. For what it's worth, I'll give it a 6/10.

Whew! This film is something to see, that is for sure. It tells the story of five people aboard a missile going to the moon. None of the leads have any acting range at all, but look like master thespians once we are introduced to the people living on the moon in the kingdom of Olanda(?). There we find the Ledo...the leader of a bunch of buxom, half-clad women living off of oxygen waiting for news from an emmisary sent to Earth. The Ledo bears no small resemblence to Rosiland Russell in appearence, lacking any of that actress's ability. The rest of the plot is incredibly inane and we see giant rock men with strips cut out where you can see human faces, a giant spider called the "dark ones" that looks like a leftover from a Syd and Marty Kroft seventies show, and other equally inept script and special effects problems. The budget for the film starts at low and goes swiftly to almost no budget! The film is funny in all the wrong places, and willbe a hoot to sit through. The guy playing Steve Drayton is just God awful! Fun to watch though!