From The Earth To The Moon
From The Earth To The Moon (1958) Rewatch: ✅
Taking a decidedly less silly approach to Verne’s book than the later “Rocket To The Moon”, From The Earth To The Moon is fairly alright, you know? It’s certainly cheap looking, especially compared to some of the other productions of Verne’s work, but here at Tatwatch Towers, this is hardly an issue.
It certainly has its ropey moments - the asteroid storm being one of the more wonky effects in the film - and it struggles with having any sense of awe or wonder when the view is cleared and the crew realise that yep, they are all in outer space now but I can’t really hold any of that against it. It’s only really noticeable precisely because I’m used to those other much more elaborate stagings of Verne’s stories, otherwise I doubt I’d even be thinking about it.
That’s not to suggest there isn’t some great stuff in there. The rocket is fantastic in all its bullet shaped glory, the barrel mechanism people are loaded into (do NOT try this at home) is a superb prop. I especially like it because it does look really quite dangerous — you wouldn’t get me in that, tells thee! It doesn’t even look too silly when the film is sped up to make it look like it’s going faster than Sonic after realising he’s dropped his ring again.
Genuinely great prop design, top marks.
In fact, I don’t really have much in the way of objections to anything in the film, it ticks all the adventure boxes the story needs and resolves itself in a pretty satisfying adventure movie way. All the acting is fine, it’s rather pacy and gets everything it needs to do done. It’s just one of those where it’s difficult for me to be too enthusiastic over it but none of that is really the fault of the film, it’s the same complaint I’d have over the book too. It’s all fine, you know? Good enough slice of science fiction, lovely way to spend an hour and a half, nothing breathtaking.
Which is way, way, more than okay in my books. Personally, I’m always going to pick something like First Men In The Moon over this when it comes to reaching for something to watch but this is a nice enough film to revisit every now and then and the absolute perfect kind of film for throwing on in the background whilst doing something else. Also, as I may have mentioned, the bullet rocket ship is brilliant.