Recently, I rented "Destination Moon" from Netflix. Today I finally had the opportunity to watch the movie in its entirety. I have to say, given that it was produced decades before we actually set foot on the moon, it's an amazing film. Most of the critical issues of early space travel, such as intense calculations, weight and safety considerations, weightlessness, spacewalks, gravity variations, and more are all considered. The movie gets many of the little details right, such as the fact that it takes seconds for a radio signal to reach Earth from the Moon. Even its prediction of the appearance of the lunar surface isn't far off from reality.

The basic story of the film is that a military general comes to the conclusion that the moon could be used as a base of operations from which to launch missiles (presumably nuclear) at the Earth. On this premise, he convinces several leaders of "American Industry" to band together to solve the problems of space travel in record time. In a somewhat realistic depiction of our government in action, the pioneers are told that they can't test their rocket, which is based on nuclear technology, because of the public's fear of radiation. Never mind that the rocket's location is in the middle of the desert. Never mind that those in charge of the project made sure no one was living within a distance that radiation could reach them. No, the government bows to pressure from protesters and denies permission to test the rocket. Faced with a crippling delay that could bankrupt them, the team decides to launch the rocket untested, before the government can outlaw the launch. Just as they're making final preparations, some bureaucrat shows up with a court order to stop the launch. However, warned that he's coming, the project team rushes to the launch pad and takes off in the rocket.

Without spoiling too much of the movie, I can tell you that they do make it to the moon. However, in getting there, they find themselves in trouble. They had to use too much fuel to land. Now they can't escape the moon's pull. They have to find a way to get rid of tons of weight.

Video quality on this DVD release is decent for a 1950s film. The sound is also quite reasonable for films of the time. Also, as we would expect from a 1950's sci-fi flick, the music is at times overpowering. For that matter, some of the acting is a bit over the top too. All in all, though it's a decent film and scientifically probably very accurate.

One amusing "treat" in the film is a short animated sequence featuring Woody Woodpecker. Woody's job is to explain to the stodgy industrialists how the flight to the moon and back would work. It's a cute cartoon and I expect it was created specifically for the film.

Perhaps the main reason the film does an excellent job of depicting the issues related to a moon trip is that Robert Heinlein (of Starship Troopers fame) helped to write the script, based on a story he had written previously. This makes the film far more intellectually interesting than much of today's "science-fiction" coming from Hollywood, where it's more important to pack in lots of celebrities, explosions, and love interests than to make a film that's even slightly realistic and believable.

I'd say this is probably the best 1950's era science-fiction film I've ever seen. It provides drama, emotion, and inspiration without taking the story line off track to tell love stories, show fantastic special effects (though there are special effects where needed), or blow things up.

Definitely worth renting or watching if you get the chance.