Missile to the Moon

source: Missile to the Moon

I've seen Missile to the Moon a couple of times now and found it quite enjoyable and also unintentionally funny in parts. A couple of crooks who have escaped from prison are being pursued by coppers when they decide to hide in a rocket they have come across. They are then caught by its inventor who forces them to go to the moon with him. What they are unaware of is that the inventor's friend and his lover have also come aboard. They arrive on the Moon and come across several strange things including diamonds, a cheap looking giant spider, some rather strange looking rock men and, best of all, a group of beautiful young ladies who are living on the moon. After one of the group is hypnotised by the leader of the group so she can marry him, he manages to escape and they head back to the ship but not before one of the prisoners is roasted to death by the intense heat of the sun. Missile to the Moon is more or less a remake to Cat Women of the Moon, which was made in 1953. The cast includes Richard Travis (Mesa of Lost Women), Cathy Downs (The Amazing Colossal Man, The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues) and Gary Clarke (How to Make A Monster). This is a must for all B-movie fanatics. Great fun. Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

Missile To The Moon has to be one of the wilder science fiction films the Fifties came out with. It has cheesy special effects, lousy plot, scantily clad females, and a dying civilization. All the ingredients to make a cult classic. Michael Whalen and Richard Travis have constructed themselves a moon rocket that they have in Whalen's backyard. Government funds have shut down the project. But Whalen is going back to the moon, yes I said back because he came here years ago from there on a secret mission. The lack of a crew is remedied by Whalen drafting a pair of escaped convicts Gary Clarke and Tommy Cook who've busted out of jail and took refuge in Whalen's space ship. Amazing how fast one can get astronaut training in a pinch. Travis and his girlfriend Cathy Downs also come on board and the five get to the moon. Whereupon they find a shrinking civilization living in caves led by Queen K.T. Stevens. I can't go into the rest but in the short time this film runs we meet rock monsters, giant spiders, and a doomed moon with only women running things. That's what Whalen was sent to earth for, to get a spaceship so they can all escape. In a word this film is bizarre. In fact all the players look like they're in terrible need of ExLax. I would to if I had to summon up enough abilities to make this story any kind of credible. It gets two stars from me, the second star for the sheer audacity of bringing this one to the big screen. It must have been drive-in hoot in 1958.

How can you improve upon perfection? At least you don't need 3-D glasses to enjoy this classical 50's bad Sci-Fi. Actually both movies are great, enjoyable "epics" of B-Movie sci-fi at its worst (best?).

Dirk Green(Michael Whalen)wants to keep the spaceship he built to himself without any interference from the government. When he finds a couple of escaped convicts hiding in the craft, he forces Lon(Gary Clarke)and Gene(Tommy Cook)to become his crew and it is all systems go. The missile is launched and found aboard are Dirk's science technician and partner Steve(Richard Travis)and his fiancée June(Cathy Down). Before the ship even lands on the moon, Dirk is accidentally killed and nobody else knows that he is actually a previous inhabitant of the moon trying to get back. The adventurers land on the moon and find a dying civilization of beautiful women under the rule of The Lido(K.T. Stevens). There are also some "rock monsters" that look like man-size stone Gumbies. Thus this low budget affair has very primitive special effects and is no showcase for recognizable acting abilities.

Thank goodness that this was not in smell-o-vision. I would have to have had a close pin on my nose. This ranks as one of the lamest movies of all time let alone probably the worst remakes of all time. The original version, Catwoman on the moon, is one of the worst films ever made, and to find out that there was a remake made just five years later,I rolled my eyes even before the film started. Well not entirely a duplicate of the original, this has elements that make it believe it or not even worse. Giant rocks that walk, a hideous looking spider the size of an elephant and an aging queen fighting to keep her throne are among the ridiculous elements of this wretched piece of science fiction. The women who live on the moon look as if they are living inside a Mardi Gras Festival, with K.T. Stevens as the Lido aka queen of the moon women. She has a rival to the throne in her assistant Alpha who defies her at every turn in her efforts to take over. The visitors from Earth includes two escaped convicts and several scientists who kick off accidentally from earth and end up on the moon which remarkably looks like a desert. All of a sudden, rocks break out of the formation, walking so slowly that there is no way they could ever catch up to those they are after. This monster as well as the spider ended up in that delicious 1982 spoof of bad science fiction/horror films, "It came from Hollywood", and in a way it was fun to find the film that I remembered the silly clips from. This just gets sillier and silly are as the movie goes on and I can't imagine driving audiences actually watching this without laughing or throwing things at the big screen. It is just so absurd. Yes the spider is gruesome looking and may give you the heebie jeebies, but the rock people are so stupid looking, like Teletubbies filmed in black and white. The acting is hideous, particularly by the space women and ranks up there with the worst performances of all time, although I did have sympathy for K.T. Stevens. In fact I would give this collectively the award for worst acting of the year, because everybody is so bad that I couldn't single just one person out. Veteran actress Stevens tries her best but you can see behind her character's apparent blindness in her own eyes that she was just thinking am I this desperate for a paycheck? Phony looking sets includes the earthlings looking out the cave palace window at supposed land which is really s bad drawing. So grab some popcorn, sit back and laugh. Because you are entering into what remains worse than even the stupidest of the early Star Trek episodes.

Richard E. Cunha's low budget remake of `Cat Women of the Moon' contains some hysterical flaws. When the spacemen land on the Moon, the full-sized rocket prop they stand beneath is obviously just a flat cardboard mockup of the lower ten feet. The lunar `rockmen' who attack the astronauts look like stone Gumbies -- and the noses of the people in the suits stick out plainly from the flat stone `face'. The noises aren't even colored like the stone! The plot and acting are equally uproarious. After learning that the government is going to take over his private Moon rocket project, a scientist discovers two young fugitives hiding inside his spacecraft. He pulls out a gun and threatens to shot them if they don't agree to serve as crewmen on his lunar voyage. During the trip, the scientist reveals that he is actually an alien from the Moon -- and he built the rocket to get back home! The lunar civilization is comprised entirely of former beauty contest winners, all dressed up in high heels and showgirl costumes. Gary Clark (`How to Make a Monster') plays one of the young escapees.

And a remake of THE QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE.....let alone CATWOMEN OF THE MOON...all of which of course I loved. This one has some funny wobbly foam rock-men and the most hilarious big spider I have ever seen. The spaceship has army disposal double bunks and the two escapee crims are lewd and bumpkin level drowsy in that order. Even the 3 year old I was babysittng had to see it several times to believe it all. Tracy Turnblad level of showgirl Hairdoos and a dance number musical number using only a tambourine and bongos for music gives accurate indication to the fantastic cheapness of this demented extravaganza. Miss Hungary appears along with Miss Miami at one stage, I think. Awesome!

The dubbed female scream, commonly used in the 1950s, gets especially good notices in this intriguing science-fiction film. It's so good, 2 actresses, Cathy Downs and Nina Bara, get to use the exact same scream. The film is competently told, sincerely acted, particularly by K.T. Stevens as the Moon's Queen, and the always reliable Ms. Downs. The rock creatures are eerie; in fact "Galaxy Quest" (1999) honors this film with their giant rock monster. The spider is a bit puppet like, but the Moon women are compelling. Above-average chills.

Five people--including a youthful pair of criminal escapees--blast off for the moon. But one of the five--the spaceship's designer--goes through his four pages of script a little too quickly and expires mid- journey. Trading their less than authentic moon rocket jumpsuits for even less authentic zero-gravity apparel, the surviving four narrowly escape ridiculously sluggard rock creatures on their way to b-movie sci-fi cave #26a where, after finding a burning torch and removing their oxygen masks, they are overcome by sleeping gas (aka smoke). They fall awake on set "2" which, for this movie, has been transformed from a low-budget b-movie throne room into a... low budget b-movie throne room. Enter the Queen--excuse me the Lido. And after her the girls: Miss Nomer, Miss Treated, Miss Understood and Miss Shapen... you get the picture. And of course Alpha, played by Miss Congeniality. Right here this b&w non-classic goes colour: Green with envy and seeing red, the lady who played Barbara Billingsley on "Leave it to Beaver" (here the token earth woman) gives a black-hearted Alpha the wedding bell blues. But backstabbing (literally) Alpha isn't about to give up Barbara's man without a fight--or in this case sentence of death, which was probably easier to write into the screenplay. And so Barbara is sent to the cave to face execution by spider-puppet. They must have shot this thing on a Friday as the guy who played Jack Web is conveniently on set to cut the spider-puppet's strings in plenty of time to effect the leading lady's rescue. (How did I not see that coming?) Don't expect the guy who played Frankie Avalon in "Bikini Bleach" to be in the sequel for, while trying to escape with a pair of kfc buckets filled with rock candy diamonds, his last scene has him struggling with the problem of deciding whether to drop his diamonds and escape with his life or to perish in a most horrific manner. A hormone-raging dropout with a natural affinity for stealing cars, he does exactly what any good 1958 audience would expect him to do and unwisely elects to die for the benefit of intelligent movie go-ers everywhere. Sunlight roasts off his flesh and pomade both; though perhaps not to any degree of loss, as his bad-to-the-bone skeleton clearly shows the carefully inked markings mapped for cranial dissection at Hollywood med school, and I am confident he went on to further b-movie work once this thing was in the can. Perhaps even as the notorious sword-fighting skeleton of "Seventh Voyage of Sinbad" fame. Now THAT was a movie! I'm a sucker for b-grade sci-fi, and "Missile" earns three lollipops.