At the suggestion of my lady fair, I am
tackling some 1950s Moon Movies. Yeah I know it is out of my element
without mass levels of jiggly girls, nudity and plot holes the size
of Kansas but it should be fun. With the space race in full swing
11 years after this film, building the necessary foundation of space
exploration, a small group of scientists have to convince US
companies to foot the bill when the government says it's too much.
This is Destination Moon.
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| Smoooth Criminal!!! Ow! |
With Dr. Charles Cargraves (Warner
Anderson of The Lineup, The Caine Mutiny, Peyton Place and The
Rockford Files) and retired General Thayer (Tom Powers
of Double Indemnity, Angel and the Badman, Julius Caesar, Double
Jeopardy and The Go-Getter) desperate to be the first men to
make it to the moon, their prototype satellite rocket fails on the
ground. The government isn't likely to keep backing financially
for more failures in their eyes so the fellas must make their way to
the private sector. Aviation constructor and CEO Jim Barnes (John
Archer of White Heat, Destination Moon, The Big Trees, Blue Hawaii
and The Little Sister) might just be what the guys were
looking for.
Establishing the heat from McCarthy
spotting reds in every direction to the threat of the USSR gaining an
orbital death platform, the general is convinced they simply must
gather nothing but the best engineers, scientists and aviators and
try again. It is imperative. Jim pushes the fellow captains of
industry have to be sold on a Woody Woodpecker cartoon explaining the fundamentals of space travel. Poppycock! The stuff of fantasy! Is
it really so impossible that it could not be done?
Dr. Cargraves is home with the wife
Emily (Erin O' Brien-Moore of Little Men, Two in the Dark, Ring
Around the Moon, The Plough and the Stars, Black Legion, Green Light
and The Family Secret) has been given the call that private
enterprise is on board, creating airlocks that are pressurized, blue
prints created for the original rocket basis for the Apollo, using
the Air Force poopie suits (An Air Force survival suit allowing
body heat to be contained in the even of an emergency bailout over
waters) or immersion suits.
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| Swingin' mad pad you got here, Daddy-O |
Just want to take this time to tell you
what impressed me with this movie. The accurate portrayal of
weightlessness before the Apollo missions. The usage of jet packs
with oxygen tanks maneuvering the astronauts in space and them
surviving with bananas and coffee prior to the tang and baby food.
All these concepts were based on simple theoretical physics of the
time and it was frickin' awesome how true to life they were.
A gross miscalculation means not enough
fuel to turn it and burn it back to Earth. Stripping non-essential
parts and lighting the load still leaves them a hundred pounds too
heavy. One of the four will have to stay behind. Who will it be?
Remember that none of this was factual
as this is a decade before anyone made it into space. Admittedly
the light-bulbs via starfield were a bit bright but dammit it worked
for Roddenberry 14 years later so quit grumping. Also the fact of
having a four man flight crew, meaning 4 times the possibility of
getting home is no joke. Accidents could happen and no we did not
watch a few minutes of them peeing into a hose. That is all Tom
Hanks.
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| Stop farting up there! God, it's like a stinky jungle. |
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