A saboteur posing as a scientist strives to destroy the world's first space station.The film is based on a story by Robert A. Heinlein, who shares screenwriting credit with producer Jack Seaman. Apparently the film was made without Heinlein's consent and he disowned it as his work. The film was directed by the mysterious Richard Talmadge.The film is unusual for its time in both attempting to portray space travel in a "realistic" manner (which it does quite well considering it was pre-Apollo), and for depicting a future in which women hold positions of authority and responsibility equal to men; in the film the President of the United States is a woman. Being set in 1970, they were not far off on the space travel, but a bit too optimistic on the presidency.This movie and "Cat-Women of the Moon" (1953) were made using some of the same sets and costumes. The two films were then released within one day of each other. While both are a bit cheesy, they both have their merits.

Originally intended as a pilot film for a TV series to be called "Ring Around the Moon". This pilot project shot in just ten days, was suddenly turn into a feature length movie by producer Jack Seaman, when films like Sci-Fi films became uber popular. In the end, all this was done without the knowledge of fame writer Robert A. Heinlein whom wrote the classic short story 'Destination Moon', in which this movie is based on. To avoid a lawsuit, the studio gave Heinlein credit, in which, Heinlein quickly disowned, because how much he loathed the final project. The result of his choice, would affect his work for years to come. The plot set in a futuristic version of the 1970, has a group of astronauts, leaded by the beautiful, Colonel Briteis (Donna Martell) and her dashing co-pilot, Major Bill Moore (Ross Ford), being infiltrated by an enemy spy, posing as Dr. Wernher (Larry Johns), who inadvertently causes the team to become stranded on the Moon during a photographing space mission. Can the astronauts find their way back to their main base or will the three men crew, perish in the great beyond? Watch the movie to find out, if you want to! Without spoiling the movie, too much; this movie is full of visual flaws. The uniforms for the astronauts is hilarious bad with their short shorts, tight-fitting tee-shirt, and swimming caps. Seeing how cold, it is, in space and it's the conservative 1950s. It's weird to see, how much skin, is shown in this film. The toy models effects like the Frisbee space station are laughable to look at. Then there is the fact, that this movie and 1953's Cat-Women of the Moon use mostly the same sets and costumes, and then released within one day of each other. It's a glorious mess, but since the movie started out as a failed television pilot with a lower budget, it does somewhat explain, why the sets, special effects, and costumes look so cheap and disjointed. Regardless, director Richard Talmadge does his best to pull off this futuristic survivor thriller movie, with nifty interior shot of the space station and splices the film to make it seem as if crew members are walking on the ceiling with magnetic boots. However, these sequence are also hard to watch, due to severe 90 degree Dutch angles. Another alright effect was the somewhat realistic looking, launch that shows the crews gritting their teeth and screaming as G-force crush in on them. Like the other shot, it can come across, as the astronauts looking like they're about to crap, their pants. Then, there is the concept of the odd mix of scientific authenticity and Cold War paranoia, but like the others, it's can be a bit jarring. A good example is how the movie talks about having to weight, less than 90 pounds to be, in the space mission, yet most of the actors, looks like it weight more than that. Also, how exactly, were they going to photograph the dark side of the moon? Another thing, the villain's true identity is uncovered, because he didn't know what the Brooklyn Dodgers are. I guess, if you're not a sport fan; you have to be a communism spy! Well, regardless of all, those flaws, it was still, an entertaining mess. It's when the 3rd act comes, where the most of this movie's fun moments, comes undone. It's here, when the sub-plot idea of marriage comes into view, and overtakes the survivor plot. It's there, this movie really lost, its direction. It really comes out of nowhere and add nothing to the plot. I really don't understand why, Moore's commander, Jovial "Pappy" Green (Hayden Rorke) would virtually order, these two to fall in love and get marry, when the two astronauts rarely show any interest with each other. I guess, it's because the public won't accept to rescue them, if the two, were unmarried, but that's really a stretch. It's really stupid. If anything, its ruin the movie's feminist tone. Despite all, the threats, she got from her fellow officers like getting spankings because her bratty attitude, until this point, the Colonel mostly kept mostly cool and collective. It's here, that she turn into a young naive schoolgirl whom gladly gets married, despite the fact, that this plot was hatched without her knowledge, and she barely know, anything about Moore. I really don't get, what this movie is going for, with its tone. Is this movie was trying to be, misogyny against women or a film for feminists? It's confusing. One minute, the film is talking about how females are equal to men in the military. Then the next minute, the Colonel requests Moore be promoted to general so he'll be superior to her, because Moore felt inferior. To make it, even more baffling, she does this in front of the female president of the United States, and her new husband, says, he didn't give her, anything, but a kiss. Before we can watch the couple finish their kiss, a hasty "The End" card was spastically hacked into the print. How does that make a well-solid film!? This 63 minutes movie is full of stupid snappy editing like that. Not only that, but despite being cast in the part of a strong woman, Donna Martell fails to project any confident or assured presence. Ross Ford's performance felt like wasted, and Hayden Rorke can't act, worth beans. At one point, you can clearly make out that he was reading his lines from cue cards, complete with awkward pauses as he has to pick up where he left off. It's boondoggle. Despite that, the b/w picture looking fine, with little scratches, and has decent sound for its age. Overall: I have to say, it's so bad, it's good. Project Moon Base is a gem of ridiculousness, and deserves to be cherished for its moments of unintentional hysterics. A must-watch.

Robert A. Heinlein certainly wrote some great science fiction tales in his life, but I wasn't surprised to find out that he didn't like this science fiction movie that he helped script. In fairness, most of the blame doesn't fall on his shoulders. For starters, the movie simply didn't have an adequate budget for the most part. While there are a few neat low budget effects here and there, a real feeling of cheapness can be felt from start to end. And under the direction of Richard Talmadge, the movie suffers from not only a really slow pace (despite the running time being only a little over an hour), but from missing feelings of awe, wonder, and plain old excitement that you'd expect from a movie concerning explorers of the moon. The movie is slightly more scientifically accurate about space exploration and travel than a number of other science fiction films from this same time period, but the movie is so dull I would have welcomed a tribe of moon women appearing just to have some unintended humor to liven things up.

An enemy agent sneaks himself on board the first circum-Luna space flight and, when he is discovered, forces the rest of the crew (all two of them) to make the first landing on the moon. Shortly thereafter he gets himself conveniently killed and the other two members have to get married because apart from anything else they are 250,000 miles from earth - without a chaperon! (Did I mention they were a man and a woman with a history who hated each other on sight? Well they were and they did.) For a movie with almost no plot and even less in the way of characters it is remarkably well thought-out in the technical department. Phones in the near future of 1953 were still huge clunking great black Bakelite things with dials on the front, but they had dinky little aerials on hand set and receiver which meant characters could walk about the room talking without a string getting in the way. Like yeah! I mean how likely is that?? There's all sorts of stuff that technically is far above most of the other SF dross of the period: the ship that takes our crew from Earth up to the space station is streamlined but the one that makes the trip to the moon looks like a pile of tin cans taped together. This was 1953, sixteen years before 2001 introduced the concept that spaceships didn't have to look like a torpedo with wings to a wider audience. And in the space station, where everyone was weightless and walked about using magnetic boots,I loved the notice that said: 'Please, Do Not Walk On The Walls' (it was painted upside-down on the other side of the corridor for the benefit of people walking on the ceiling).This movie also contained the best non special effect I have seen for ages. Towards the end, our hero (on the Moon) is in conference with his boss, The General, (on Earth) via the huge wall to wall Enterprise-like TV screen. Our hero paces back and forth his control room. The General on Earth sits behind his desk and talks to him man to man. Every time our hero walks past the screen, his shadow falls across the General's desk revealing the fact that the actor playing the General is merely sat the other side of a big hole in the set's wall, delivering his half of the conversation to an imaginary camera somewhere in the middle distance, while doing a heroic job of ignoring the other actor in the room with him.A very long 63 minutes; most of which was spent waiting for the heroine's rather peachy, hot-pant clad bum to appear again.