{"id":5928,"date":"2012-12-30T17:13:27","date_gmt":"2012-12-30T22:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=5928"},"modified":"2012-12-30T18:46:32","modified_gmt":"2012-12-30T23:46:32","slug":"dvd-destination-moon-1950","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=5928","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Destination Moon (1950)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>D<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Very Good\/ DVD Transfer: Good\/ DVD Extras: Standard<\/p>\n

Label: Corinth \/ Image\/ Region: 1 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released: February 29, 2000<\/p>\n

Genre: Science-Fiction \/ George Pal<\/p>\n

Synopsis: Docu-drama styled account of the first spaceship to the moon.<\/p>\n

Special Features: Theatrical Trailer \/ Booklet liner notes by historian Tom Weaver<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

After directing, producing and photographing numerous Puppetoon shorts during the thirties and forties, George Pal moved onto features and collaborated in 1950 with director Irving Pichel on the family film The Great Rupert<\/strong>, and the space exploration epic Destination Moon<\/strong>, the latter widely regarded as the 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/strong> of its time.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s surprising (and most impressionable) about Destination<\/strong> isn\u2019t the story nor Oscar-winning special effects, but the politics that on one hand capture the relationship between private industry and the U.S. Government, and the philosophy that a little bit of recklessness is what sometimes makes great moments in Man\u2019s History.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s first reel is remarkably un-stilted because it dramatizes a postwar America with Big Industry and Big Science trying to lock into the next big project, now that the war machine has wound down and the nuclear family is setting roots in Levittown suburban developments. The space race is the next phase, and while Soviet Russia is never mentioned in the film, the U.S. Government\u2019s goal is to be the first in space and become the planet\u2019s peacetime protector against malicious powers who could attack the U.S. from space.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a timely hook because it presages the inevitable race that had Russia and America hurrying to get things in orbit and ultimately on the moon, but it also firms up private industry\u2019s permanent role in developing the technology the government needs for its political goals. To get to the finish line, there has to be a deadline, but to get there safely, there also has to be safety checks, and that\u2019s where the film\u2019s first act gets interesting, and goofy.<\/p>\n

The military ultimately unleashes a furious independence streak in contracted aeronautical industrialist Jim Barnes (John Archer), a man not only willing to launch the craft based on test models, but do it himself when a court order wants the project reigned in.<\/p>\n

Using a team of four men \u2013 including project egghead Dr. Cargraves (Warner Anderson), General Thayer (Tom Powers), and blue collar radioman Joe Sweeney (Dick Wesson) \u2013 the ship heads for the moon using an atomic reactor and big heavy water tanks, and upon landing, the crew engage in vague pseudo-science activities involve a Geiger counter, some tourist pictures, and a big ray gun that\u2019s never turned on.<\/p>\n

Barnes\u2019 fearless attitude is so wrong on every level, but it\u2019s amusing to watch when science is clearly the lesser justification for landing on the moon. It\u2019s all political, as evidenced by Barnes enticing Cargraves to claim the cheese orb with America as it\u2019s legally binding protector, but it\u2019s also kind laughable when it\u2019s obvious his words aren\u2019t being broadcast to Earth, nor preserved on film. Even more befuddling is the fact no one has a movie camera; they brought along a tourist Brownie, but no16mm combat camera (what, no captured Arris?) to visually and aurally capture proof of the landing as well as ensure legal precedent of America really being the first on the moon (something they fixed when a live audio feed and TV cameras were used by NASA in 1969<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Another potent example of Barnes\u2019 bullheadedness is the pitch meeting he gives to fellow industrialists using a Woody Woodpecker cartoon to explain the craft\u2019s method of propulsion as well as the basics of space travel. Prior to the screening, the room is filled with wary, if not sceptical industrialists, but post-film and post-speech, Barnes manages to convince the group that investing in the construction of a V2 spacecraft is the best proactive approach in ensuring the country\u2019s safety and global dominance, and we the audience know it\u2019s clinched when a southern man switches from doubter to ally; he\u2019s a heartland figure, and if he\u2019s in on the race, then it\u2019s got to be the right thing to do.<\/p>\n

The executive meeting is also the film\u2019s clincher in showing the free enterprise spirit in its most idyllic function \u2013 the betterment of humanity \u2013 as well as encapsulating the foresight and determination to win \u2013 an American trait and theme heavily larded in WWII propaganda films and wartime escapist fodder.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s extremely odd about the film\u2019s stance is how that independence streak is handled in the middle act. In prior cinematic celebrations \u2013 Young Thomas Edison<\/strong> (1940), for example \u2013 it was the indie mind fighting against narrow-mindedness that yielded great scientific boons for humanity, whereas in Destination<\/strong>, what begins as a push for greatness becomes a selfish act, except it isn\u2019t portrayed as such.<\/p>\n

Barnes and his trio (including General Thayer, an old guard man) give the finger to the government that hired them, and do their reckless launch, but the repercussions are tempered by the film\u2019s switch to the quartet successfully blasting into space and landing on the moon – by doing it successfully, the ends justify a bit of arrogance \u2013 but then they can\u2019t takeoff until 110 pounds are stripped from an already eviscerated ship.<\/p>\n

Their punishment is to choose who gets to stay on the moon so the others can leave, but the filmmakers\u2019 resolution is for the survivors to do some public service once they get back home: they\u2019ll not only tell of the wonders they\u2019ve seen (wonders actually given quite a bit of short-shrift by the spacemen and screenwriters) but how they kinda shouldn\u2019t have jumped the gun in the first place.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that wonky morality that really stands out in terms of character motivations and the filmmakers\u2019 attitudes, but one also wonders if Robert Heinlein\u2019s original novel, Rocketship Galileo<\/strong>, was more critical and punishing of the group. This is the same author of Starship Troopers<\/strong>, but certainly from the director and writer of the 1997 film, we know the novel was transformed into an allegory of Hitler Youth graduating to full-fledged warmongers under a CNN media canopy.<\/p>\n

The character template, though, is standard sci-fi: there\u2019s the bull-headed leader, the resident egghead, the military\/combat expect, and the comedy relief element, as dramatized in the \u2018average Joe\u2019 role of Joe Sweeney. He\u2019s a guy from the inner city, a straight talker who likes baseball and girls, and likes to make wise-cracks when the tone among the rest is too dour or dry. Joe also plays the harmonica, and provides local charm as the group enjoy their coffee and fresh produce on the ship\u2019s maiden voyage.<\/p>\n

Destination<\/strong> is dated, but it\u2019s equally fascinating to see what aspects the filmmakers and consultants got right, what speculations were way off the bat \u2013 like the proposed \u2018gliding\u2019 through Earth\u2019s atmosphere using parachutes for re-entry \u2013 and what hypothetical procedures were dramatized, of which space flight and space weightlessness are the most intriguing.<\/p>\n

The base of the ship\u2019s three-pronged wings are capped with convex rubber stumps to absorb a landing shock, and the propulsion system consist of rapid atomic explosions rather than rocket fuel. The use of an atomic reactor is dramatized in the Woody Woodpecker cartoon (custom-animated for the film by Walter Lantz\u2019 studio), and the propulsion system isn\u2019t that different from the nuclear payload the U.S. army was drafting on paper for their own space exploration scheme, Project Orion<\/a>, but it\u2019s incredible to think one could (can?) design a ship whose hull and bulkheads would protect a reactor from exterior pressure, heat and cold, and shield the crew from radiation.<\/p>\n

Those are some thoughts on the film\u2019s political and social aspects, but the reason Destination<\/strong> still functions as escapist fodder is its core theme of space exploration, and while the effects aren\u2019t jaw-dropping anymore, there\u2019s no denying the theme of adventure, and the visual and aural artistry are what grabs the viewer.<\/p>\n

Leith\u2019s Stevens\u2019 score was not only top-notch, but eschewed overt themes of heroism or treating space exploration like sea exploration with sea-themed and folk-styled material. The score is dreamy, exciting, and extremely innovative in the way it drapes the film like a smooth velvet cloth, and evokes weightless and a fear of space\u2019s dark unknown when we\u2019re stuck with dialogue scenes and minimal visual references, like seeing the Earth through the ship\u2019s porthole while the craft rests on the moon\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

Even the sound effect were treated with care, and besides the requisite engine thrusts, there are some subtle effects that lend a sense of weirdness \u2013 chiefly the metal clangs played forward-reverse, with sound sucked backwards as the men walk in the weightless ship using magnetic boots.<\/p>\n

The visual compositions and Technicolor photography is quite nice, although the source print for Image\u2019s DVD is mediocre. The details are sharp and the colour registration isn\u2019t as hazy as other period films on DVD (Belles on Their Toes<\/a><\/strong>, for example, or King Solomon\u2019s Mines<\/a><\/strong>), but there are splices, jumps, scratches, and low volume sound that mar the experience of seeing this cinema and sci-fi milestone.<\/p>\n

Efforts should really be made not only for a definitive restoration, but a decent special edition loaded with publicity ephemera, a dense commentary track, isolated music score (so little of Stevens\u2019 music exists on disc), and a featurette and gallery on the spectacular matte paintings by Cheseley Bonestall.<\/p>\n

Much like Pal\u2019s War of the Worlds<\/strong> (1953), the painted backgrounds are hypnotic in their evocation of a barren lonely moon, and a mystical star-speckled sky. The paintings are also in the moon backdrops that maintain the illusion of a vast moonscape when the spacesuit visors are reflecting the studio carbon lamps a few feet from the actors.<\/p>\n

Sci-fi fans will also get a kick out of seeing the ship and suit designs that became props in lesser films, as well as iconic gear necessary for space travel in fifties films. The inaugural launch is also notable for a lengthy sequence showing the effects of G-force on the astronauts\u2019 faces, which are exaggerated here with clever makeup, and were wanly imitated in two scenes in the B-grade Queen of Outer Space<\/a><\/strong> (1958).<\/p>\n

Following the success of Destination Moon<\/strong>, Pal followed up with several more space flicks, including When Worlds Collide<\/strong> (1951), The War of the Worlds<\/strong> (1953), and Conquest of Space<\/a><\/strong> (1955).<\/p>\n

Other tales by Robert Heinlein spun into films include Project Moon Base<\/strong> (1953),\u00a0 and Starship Troopers<\/strong> (1997).<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2012 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Soundtrack Review<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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