FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON

I've watched a lot horror, science fiction and fantasy films over the years.

A lot. 

But no matter how many films I've seen there still remain many films yet to be viewed by these eyes. Working my way through these films can sometimes yield unexpected pleasures, while some deliver bitter disappointment.

Sometimes you get the diamond.

Sometimes you get the rough.

Making the case for the rough is the previously unseen FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON (1958). What can I say about this truly awful film? The screenplay by Robert Blees and James Leicester is all talk, talk, talk. For a film about a trip to the moon, it's a good hour into the movie before said voyage is undertaken. Byron Haskin's direction is equally uninspired. The cast, headlined by the usually reliable Joseph Cotten and George Sanders aren't given much to work with and they both look like they wish they were in some other movie, anything other than this abomination. Co-star Debra Paget is attractive enough but, again, she's given very little to do other than serve as the token female/love interest. Even a guest appearance by genre icon Morris Ankrum as President Ulysses S. Grant can't save this turkey. 

The trip to the moon by Cotten, Sanders, Paget and Don Dubbins, is a total bore. As they approach the lunar surface, Sanders triggers a device that splits the rocket into four separate components. Cotten and Sanders land on the moon in one of the compartments (NOTE: no footage of this event is seen), while Paget and Dubbins are left in space in another component, presumably to make their way back to earth, although, again, what happens to them is never shown. 

For a film about a trip to the moon, FROM has only a modicum of special effects none of them effective. If the story requires launching a space capsule from a gigantic cannon, you damn well better show us said cannon. The film does not. Hell, even the musical score by Louis Forbes steals from the infinitely superior FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956).

Filmed in Mexico at the tail end of RKO's days as a major Hollywood studio, FROM is unbelievably cheap looking. The Technicolor cinematography by Edwin B. DuPar looks like it was shot on already exposed film with everything having a slightly hazy, out-of-focus look. It's hard to imagine a film based on a novel by one of the giants of science fiction (Jules Verne appears as a character in the film!) displaying such an utter lack of imagination. It is completely devoid of even the slightest whiff of a sense of wonder, an ingredient which is imperative for a film like this to have to have any hope of succeeding. 

Hollywood has done much better by Verne in a variety of films. There's Walt Disney's classic 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (1954), AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (1956) (which received 8 Oscar nominations, winning 5 including Best Picture of the Year), JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (1959), Ray Harryhausen's magnificent MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1961) and IN SEARCH OF THE CASTAWAYS (1962) (another Disney production).

Director Byron Haskin delivered far superior work in such genre classics as THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953), CONQUEST OF SPACE (1955), ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS (1964) and several episodes of THE OUTER LIMITS ABC-TV series. 

Move along kids. There's nothing to see here.