From the Earth to the Moon (1958)

With the Civil War over, war profiteer Victor Barbicane (Joseph Cotten) sees profits drop. He gathers together his war monger friends for a proposition. He has invented Power X, a powerful explosive unlike anything ever seen. Problem is, it’s too powerful to demonstrate it on Earth. His plan is to fire a rocket to the moon and detonate it there. To convince investors, he performs a demonstration on Earth. President Grant catches wind and makes him promise not to blow up the moon. So instead he decides to travel from the Earth to the Moon. Skeptic Nicholl (George Sanders) comes along for the ride.

This was a big budget production under RKO, who went bankrupt during production. The budget was slashed and the film was released by Warner Brothers, which may account for some of the plot holes. But it is riddled with them, and there is no excuse. Grant was not yet president at the year the movie is set.

Pretty Debra Pagent is Sanders’ daughter, smitten with Cotten’s assistant. She did a lot of genre pictures until one tragic day she turned thirty. She is apparently still with us, just celebrating her ninety third birthday. Henry Daniell appears in a small role as one of the war mongers. Script wiz Dalton Trumbo was hired to give the script a tune up.

From the Earth to the Moon is of that strange sub-genre of High Tech Victorian sci-fi. See The Time Machine (1960) for a better example. But this isn’t the problem. The story is quite messy in parts and, try as they might, lacks drama. Wasn’t painful to watch, but should have been better. AMRU 2.5.