Project Moon Base

Despite my hopes for suspense when the foreign baddies get a double agent aboard the rocket ship, there's hardly a touch of white-knuckles anywhere in the 63-minutes. Looks like director Talmadge specialized in stunts rather than dramatizing scripts, and it shows in the stretched out results with no edges. Then too, the much amended script doesn't help (IMDB). And get a load of Col. Briteis (bright eyes !), played by malt shop cutie Martell. So what if she leads the moonbase expedition in revealing beach party shorts and top. What the heck, It's like sending Gidget to Mars. At the same time, her eye-candy cuteness distracted me from most every serious scene. Talk about commercially inspired casting: it doesn't come any more obvious.

Sure, it's a cheap drive-in indie, so how much could be expected from the outset. Nonetheless, the special effects aren't that bad given budget constraints and outer space backdrops. Then too, production avoids Cold War stereotyping of bad guys into evil commie plotters in dark shadow. Instead, master-mind Roundtree is more robotic and brightly lit than evil. And how about that ridiculous moon base wedding imposed, I suspect, by the puritanical Production Code. Can't let two unmarrieds co-habit, even in a rocket ship. No wonder distinguished writer Heinlein disowned the results (IMDB). All in all, my advice is to let this sleepy 10-day production lie.

(In passing- Can't help noticing current US plans for an outer-space armada are titled 'Space Force', same as in the movie. And that's along with justifying rhetoric similar to the movie's. All in all, looks like the loony flick cast a forward shadow, after all. )

If you want a good Sci Fi movie to watch, this probably isn't it. It's old and low budget. In particular the costumes look quite goofy. The players are also unknowns or near unknowns. However it's such an early space movie that it's historically fascinating.

The noted Sci Fi writer Richard Heinlein wrote the script. (He's more famous for Starship Troopers.) The movie attempts to portray space in a realistic way. Of course the technology looks thoroughly ridiculous to us now but this was done 60 years ago.

Socially it was of interest because of the relative equality between women and men. Equality between the sexes was a theme in Heinlein, and amazingly it made it into this very early movie.

In the "future" year of 1970, the Space Force is determined to establish a base of operations on and above the moon, but the first order of business is to survey the moon. So an orbital flight is planned, which will be commanded by striking, comely female officer Briteis (the sexy, buxom Donna Martell, "Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff"). Joining her are studly co-pilot Major Moore (Ross Ford, "Challenge to Lassie"), and a scientist (Larry Johns, "Dakota Lil") who turns out to be an enemy agent who wants to sabotage the project.

The first half is mostly about set up and dialogue, with things getting a little more interesting and exciting in the second half. While "Project Moon Base" is admittedly hampered by budgetary limitations, the involvement of noted sci-fi author Robert A. Heinlein ("Starship Troopers", "The Puppet Masters") gives it some value. Heinlein clearly wanted to make this thing at least reasonably realistic, but he would disown the film after it was lengthened and sent to theaters (it was originally planned as the pilot episode of a TV series). It's ahead of its time in some ways: the spacecraft that is forced to make a landing is similar to the real one that landed on the moon years later. Briteis (or "Bright Eyes", if you will) and Moore are on fairly even footing instead of her being subservient to him. There's even a female U. S. President (Ernestine Barrier, "The Bottom of the Bottle") who turns up at the end. For what this little film must have cost, visuals and special effects aren't exactly bad (for the most part).

Not bad entertainment for fans of 50s sci-fi, this co-stars Hayden Rorke ('I Dream of Jeannie') as the affable General Greene, and was directed by Richard Talmadge, a man who worked as a stuntman for many years and whose career dated back to the silent era. He only directed a handful of features; also among them are "I Killed Wild Bill Hickok" and "Border Outlaws".

Six out of 10.

After the United States builds a space station in outer space to protect itself against hostile missiles, America's enemies make it a high priority to get one of their agents on board the station in an attempt to destroy it. They soon come up with a plan to replace an esteemed scientist named "Dr. Wernher" (Larry Johns) with an exact duplicate and give him orders to hasten the station's destruction immediately. On a separate note, due to political considerations, an ambitious female pilot by the name of "Colonel Briteis" (Donna Martell) is given a high priority assignment of flying a rocket ship to the dark side of the moon which creates a great deal of animosity between her and the original pilot named "Major Bill Moore" (Ross Ford). To further add to the tension, Dr. Wernher's duplicate is also on board the same flight and seems to have developed an unusual interest in the rocket's navigation. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this campy sci-fi film probably won't rate too highly with modern viewers today based in large part to the lack of action and CGI. Additionally, the plot was predictable and the acting clearly second rate. Having said all of that, however, while it certainly won't measure up to today's standards, the special effects weren't all that bad considering the era in which this film was produced. Of course, the fact that this was one of the movies I used to enjoy as a kid also has some bearing on my feelings as well. Yet, as generous as I would like to be, I honestly cannot ignore the obvious flaws mentioned earlier and for that reason I have rated this film accordingly. Slightly below average.

In the early '50s when real space travel was yet another 8 years in the future, this was average view of space travel for most people. In that paradigm, movie like this was a pretty standard format as a space rocket based stories.

Story's premise sound's ridiculous now that a rocket goes off course and can land on moon as an alternate plan and become the first people to land on the moon, but movie like this was never intended to be a serious science fiction. Some things were predicted accurately such as giant screen TV monitor, and forward thinking concept such as woman president of the country.

But let's get to the bottom line here. The only thing that's worth watching in this movie in my opinion is the beautiful Donna Martel. She looks great as the female astronaut. This movie would not be worth a watch without her.

Movie is a bit of cheese, but I find decent entertainment, and not a terrible movie to watch. I like this movie better than many of the rocket movies from this era such as Cat Woman of the Moon.

So, I wouldn't give a high rating, but it's an okay movie for this category.