PROJECT MOON BASE (1953)

In 1970, a trip directly from the earth to the moon is considered too dangerous for humans, but a three-person crew is about to take off from an orbiting space station on an exploratory lunar trip, taking close up photographs of the lunar surface to study the feasibility of setting up a moon base. The space agency is on guard for sabotage that might be carried out by, as a title card puts it, "the enemies of Freedom" (i.e., Russians). As it turns out, such enemies are planning such sabotage by kidnapping one of the crew members, a Dr. Wernher, and replacing him with an exact lookalike whose mission is to take control of the lunar ship and ram the space station, destroying it. Meanwhile, there is tension brewing as Gen. 'Pappy' Greene is pressured to replace the chief pilot, Major Moore, with Col. Briteis, a female. This decision doesn't sit well with either Pappy or Moore, who is bumped down to co-pilot. They may be chauvinists, but as it happens, Briteis (pronounced "bright eyes" by everyone) acts a bit like Gidget, full of teenage spunk, constantly pouting and whining. At one point, Pappy scolds her, telling her she's too big for her britches, and that she's a spoiled brat who needs a spanking. The ship takes off and Wernher tries to wrest control from Briteis but is overpowered by Moore. But the saboteur's actions cause them to waste fuel and they have to make an emergency landing on the moon. When communications with the space station fail, Moore and the chastened Wernher leave the ship to set up a radio relay on the moon's surface. Wernher falls from a moon cliff and dies, and Pappy lets Briteis and Moore know that emergency supplies will be dropped off soon and they are now the first official lunar residents. Of course, for the sake of PR, they really should be married, so the President (also a woman) performs a ceremony from Earth, and Moore and Briteis become a happy couple, ready to anchor the coming moon base.

In a happy coincidence, the Artemis II was heading for lunar orbit as I watched this so this seems like a timely review. One makes allowances for early 50s sci-fi space movies as the genre was relatively new, but even so, this has not aged well. Apparently shot in ten days, it was originally intended as a pilot for a TV series (the teleplay was by sci-fi pro Robert Heinlein) but those plans were canceled and some new footage was shot to pad it out to a bit over an hour. The sets generally look cheap though some effects are nicely done; there are shots of people on the space station walking on the ceiling and sitting on chairs on the walls, which of course brings to mind Kubrick's 2001 (pictured at right). Scenes on the moon look fairly realistic. Even the space station, the first one shown in a movie, looks good. Aside from the blatant sexism in the portrayal of Briteis and the reactions of the men to her, the most bizarre thing here is the wardrobe. The crew wear snug t-shirts, little skullcaps, and the unsexiest shortie shorts you've ever seen—though interestingly, they do get the spacesuits right for the external action. The acting is strictly TV level; in fact, one of the better performances comes from Hayden Rorke, best known as Dr. Bellows in I Dream of Jeannie. Donna Martell (Briteis) is saddled with a terribly written character and she becomes the potential feminist icon you love to hate. Ross Ford (Moore) has little to do and, sadly, doesn't look all that appealing in his tight tees (though Martell does). The only humor here is used to poke fun at the female colonel, though one of the last lines, when Moore, seeing  that needed supplies have finally landed, says, "Briteis, it’s Christmas!" But the worst thing in the movie is the short appearance of a character named Polly Prattles, an obnoxious reporter who comes off more like a gossip columnist. Only recommended for sci-fi buffs interested in the genre's history. Posters for the film call it Project Moonbase, but the film itself uses Moon Base as two words. At top left are Ross and Martell. [YouTube]