Classic sci-fi from producer George Pal and director Irving Pichel (always Sandor to me). It's a landmark film; one of the first serious space exploration films. It was beat to the theaters by a month by the less impressive but still enjoyable Rocketship X-M. This has a better budget and special effects, as well as being in color. The script, co-written by Robert Heinlein, is smart and fresh with good character work and drama with attention to scientific detail (for its time). The cast is full of mostly sober, adult performances. The exception is Dick Wesson's comic relief character. He's the clichéd "wiseguy from Brooklyn" that was in about a hundred WWII movies. This is Wesson's film debut. I promise he's not as annoying as he sounds. Love the sets, matte backdrops, and colorful astronaut suits. Oh and this has Woody Woodpecker in it, which automatically bumps up the cool points. Definitely worth a look for fans of Golden Age science fiction films. Not just for the historical value but for entertainment purposes as well.

Man lands on the moon.Since my 1970s childhood, science fiction has always been one of my very top interests and movies like this (and Irwin Allen TV) turned me into a sci-fi nut. Such films were replayed and replayed on TV during this period. In those days there was much less sci-fi around so a re-run of these movies was an event.Imaginative sets, special effects, Leith Stevens music is what made Destination moon so good to me.The film might not be as highly regarded by me these days, in fact I hardly ever watch the DVD, but as they say...thanks for the memories.

Destination Moon (1950): Dir: Irving Pichel / Cast: John Archer, Warner Anderson, Tom Powers, Dick Wesson, Erin O'Brien-Moore: Landmark science fiction film where three men decide to trek to the moon despite overbearing odds of them taking off. There is much media coverage as these men prepare for a journey that was deemed unimaginable. They awake from hyper-sleep and from there everything goes wrong. Directed by Irving Pichel who breaks new ground in special effects and production. It also features a few seconds of Woody Woodpecker giving voice during a seminar. This is not to render the film to children, although its content is clearly family oriented. This is adult storytelling with a cast that includes John Archer, Warner Anderson, Tom Powers, and Dick Wesson and they employ complete familiarity without a hint outside stereotypical realms. Despite the stereotypes, the cast are introduced to the opportunity to travel to the moon and despite complications they render a successful landing. It is getting home that becomes a problem. They are under threat of leaving someone behind until they decide to lighten the spacecraft. The cast survive wooden dialogue by aiding the suspense. The special effects and production fare okay for the time of release. The result is a thought-provoking theme of space travel and its impact on science fiction filmmaking. Score: 8 / 10

"That isn't public opinion - it's a job of propaganda!"This is the story of how the Americans got to the Moon. It is also the first science-fiction movie that approaches the reality of outer space from a scientific perspective, or so they say. All I can say is that it is flat, stiff and boring, but at least it has pretty colors. And it won an Oscar for special effects.The story is quite simple. The Americans build a space rocket and send it to the Moon. It is nuclear powered, huge and shiny. It is ambitions, it is gonna take the combined effort of the entire might of the United States Industry and it's gonna cost them every bit of blood, sweat and tears they've got, but they'll make it.The propaganda is spread thick all over this ship ... err ... movie. There are all kinds of enemies out there who want the United States to fail and who would stop at nothing to make that happen. Fortunately for them, they don't have to try too hard, because the bad script and the stiff acting kill this mission far more successfully than they ever could. If you feel you're going too fast, some day, just watch this movie. It will slow you down in a jiffy. For example, they have a guy trying on a pair of boots for 5 minutes. Talk about a slow dresser! Obviously they do that only as long as they want to make a point, because after that they walk about with a spring in their heel, just like Fred Astaire on the ceiling. Aside from that, everything is just dandy.This is the first in a series of science-fiction movies produced by George Pal, who is also responsible for classics like "When Worlds Collide", "The War of the Worlds" "The Time Machine" and "Conquest of Space", of which I've seen the first three and intend to watch the fourth. I understand that this movie has sparked the crazy decades of science-fiction movies in the '50s and the '60s and if you decide to watch it then you will also understand why they had to come up with a whole bunch of monsters, alien invaders and 50 foot half naked babes: because otherwise they would have been just as boring as this movie is, obviously.Destination Moon. A great piece of history but... not much else. 6.3/10 is just about right, but only for history's sake.