This weekend I attended our local Science-Fiction convention, Condor. After three days of panels and great conversations I was ready for a bit of classic SF cinema and pulled the DVD for Destination Moon  out of my library.

Released in 1950 Destination Moon  is an important but mostly forgotten element of science-fiction film history. Without this film the entire decade of the 1950s would look radically different and the changes only increasing in amplitude with the following cinematic eras.  Destination Moon  brought George Pal as a movie maker into the genre  leading him to later make the classics of When Worlds Collide, War of the Worlds, The Time Machine  and others. With assistance from one of the largest names in science-fiction, Robert A. Heinlein, this movie attempted to depict a realistic trip to the moon hewing to scientific accuracy as much as filmmaking and their knowledge at the time allowed. A highly anticipated feature Destination Moon  inspired the fast production of another film,Rocketship X-M thatwas shot in 18 days and rushed into the theaters just under a month ahead of Destination Moon.  Upon release Destination Moonproved to be a smash success, earning more than 5 million dollars, a box office takes that all the major studios noted and kicked off the swarms of both good and bad SF movies of the 50s.

With a history like that what kind of movie is Destination Moon?

The answer is a very dry one. More concern with technical details and realism, the movie only hints at a subplot of enemy agents and foreign powers working to sabotage and hamper American’s nascent space program. Following a failed attempt at launching a satellite, which costs him his federal funding Dr. Cargraves retreats, to work, entirely off screen, on an atomic rocket motor. Two years later his collaborator in the satellite project, General Thayer, now retired, recruits aeronautical genius and tycoon Jim Barnes, perhaps an analog for Howard Hughes, to lead a consortium of industry to fund, research, and build a crewed rocket capable of reaching the moon. Launching without authorization, and with a last minute replacement, the rocket with a crew of four leaves for the moon.

Winning an Oscar for best Special Effects, Destination Moon, created many of the tropes used and over used in following, technically less accurate space movies of the 1950s. (Though it should be noted that this movie did not create the horrible trope of ‘dodging meteors or asteroids during the voyage.) The special effects, though dated, hold up well and help sell the reality of the fantastic voyage. Looking back following the monumental challenges, achievements, and costs, both in money and lives, it is easy to dismiss this movie for its enthusiastic and overly optimistic tone, however Destination Moon  for all its flaws and shortcoming is SF cinema that deserves to be remembered.

Destination Moonairs on Turner Classic Movies March 2nd at 3:45 pm.