This is a really great film whether or not you are a sci fi fan. Unlike many poorer films of this era this one does not concentrate on 'girls in tight sweaters from outer space' or green bug eyed silly monsters; instead we are treated to a very rational and thought provoking dialogue in which people have to examine themselves and are examined for their suitability for the mission.CGI was non-existent then so there are no silly explosions with people running out of burning buildings that aren't there – also a refreshing absence of major stars so it is possible to really get into the characters.Watch it if you can get it.

It's rather an interesting story about sending up three manned rocket ships to capture meteors for scientific purposes. The first half I found a little turgid. Out of a dozen men, three are found qualified to pilot the ships and, as in "The Right Stuff", are put through some grueling tests. The astronauts are Robert Karnes, William Lundigan, and Richard Carlson. The ground crew aristos include Herbert Marshall and Martha Hyer.The plot isn't entirely unpredictable. We hardly get to know anything about Robert Karnes. (Someone calls him a human robot.) So we know pretty much right away that he's going to be dead meat in this enterprise. Then there is Richard Carlson. There's more doubt about him. He was a leading man in many of these science fiction films and was never killed off. On the other hand, during training he receives a "dear John" letter from his flighty girl friend, Dawn Addams, a stunning commercial model. Often, such a letter portends a dramatic end, a one-way ticket to Elysian Fields. William Lundigan, though, we know will pull through. He's not only the son of Director Herbert Marshall but he falls for Martha Hyer and vice versa. He's also cheerful, kind, brave, thrifty, and obedient and probably helps old ladies across the street.That's all in the first half of the movie. The pace picks up in the last half, when the three men finally find themselves way, way upstairs in pursuit of suitable meteors. The model work is rudimentary, reminiscent of the Buck Rogers serials of the 1930s, so it's avoided as much as possible. The tension of the flights doesn't last very long but it's effectively conveyed.None of the performances are remarkable in any way. Most of the actors, those whom we recognize, are their usual reliable selves. That includes Martha Hyer. It wouldn't matter that she looked like the Texas Beauty Queen that she was -- her features arranged in a conventionally beautiful and thoroughly uninteresting manner. It's that she can't act either.Not that the dialog helps her, or anyone else for that matter. People stand a few feet from one another and speak in what linguists call a telegraphic register or style. Hyer turns to a radio man and says crisply, "Increase gravity to ten G's," or, "Shut rockets down," or, "Slow descent!" Pronouns and articles and modifiers and imprecations are dropped for no particular reason, as if the messages were being billed by the word.Up to a point, it all works okay. It's never boring, and it's never challenging. It even has a 1950s theme song with lyrics. And what lyrics! "Riders to the stars. That's what we are, every time we kiss." A routine entry in the genre.

I looked for this hard-to-find movie for years in vain until last week when I found it on eBay. I really wanted it to add to my collection of '50's sci-fi films, although the joy was in the memory and not the actual re-viewing after so many years. Beginning with a rather odd female vocal of the title song, unique in itself, the story is basically about one space mission and the training and personal drama that leads up to three manned rockets being launched to try to capture a meteor in a scoop built into the nose of the rocket. If this mission sounds kind of suicidal, it actually is, in one explosive incident. The usual sci-fi characters are in this one, and although the electronic equipment is hopelessly dated and stock footage is used throughout, this rather rare movie is good enough to add to the sci-fi collectibles list. I gave it an "8" rating largely out of sentiment. It is closer to a seven because of its slow beginning, despite the talents of a pretty fair cast. ~~

Inspired by "Amazon Women on the Moon", we TIVO'ed this classic on 1/1/2007. This film is a very typical 50's science fiction movie. Despite ignoring such basic facts as the differences between a Meteor, Meteorite and a Meteoroid (see Wikipedia) the film claims to have had scientific advice from Maxwell Smith, the Associate Producer in Charge of Scientific Research. It is obvious that they either ignored his advice or he was not very good at research.The film draws you in right away with a hilarious random jaunt through the desert on jeeps, with the cargo in the cart bouncing around nearly falling out a few times. The "scientific" facts make no sense, even for the 50's. The basic premise is that our steel is somehow changed on a "molecular" scale (they mean atomic) and becomes brittle when bombarded by cosmic radiation - it even shatters with slight force when returned to earth. Why would anyone build a rocket out of thick steel anyway? The goal is to capture one of these meteoroids to discover how they can withstand the cosmic radiation without turning brittle. When the meteoroids are flying through space, they hurl in a random, almost sinusoidal, path and seem to change speed (around 18000 mph), yet somehow they manage to capture one. I won't tell you what it was protected with, but it may have been inspired by DeBeers.Every one of the 12 astronaut candidates is an unmarried educated white male. The only main female character in the film is there for the weak romantic sub-plot.Smoking seems to be a central important theme to the movie. We thought that perhaps big tobacco paid big money to promote their products (a la "I Love Lucy") as the actors are trying their best to look suave while lighting up (seemed like every scene). This theory came into question when one of the astronaut candidates was rejected because he was a chain smoker who paced too much. This would be an advantage in the eyes of Phillip Morris - everyone should do this.One of the others reviewers has inspired us to record "Destination Moon", perhaps the original fodder for "Amazon...".