Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Woodyanders An international group of ten men and two women are chosen to embark on a trip to the moon. Things go awry when the group discover an alien civilization that's intent on destroying mankind. Seriously undermined by pedestrian direction by David Bradley, further marred by DeWitt Bodeen's blah, talky, and largely uneventful script, painfully obvious use of stock footage, hokey (not so) special effects, a draggy pace, bland characters, extremely silly forced and silly conflicts between several of said bland characters (naturally, the Russian guy is an arrogant and antagonistic jerk), merely okay acting from a decent cast (hunky Ken Clark makes for a decidedly dull slab of beefcake while only Tom Conway manages to distinguish himself as the obnoxious Russkie), flat cinematography by John Alton (there are way too many static medium master shots featured throughout), tacky costumes (the spacesuits look like jumpsuits with motorcycle helmets!), and a disappointing lack of any cool monsters, this clunker overall proves to be an insipid and instantly forgettable time-waster.

Michael_Elliott 12 to the Moon (1960)* 1/2 (out of 4)The title pretty much gives the plot details but to expand on it you'd have to say ten men, two women, two cats, two monkeys and a dog enter a spaceship and head off to the moon. After finally getting there they are confronted by a faceless alien and on their way back to Earth they learn the U.S. has been frozen by the alien so they must thaw it out before they can land. This Columbia sci-fi film has pretty much been forgotten, which is somewhat of a shame but the bigger shame is that such an ambitious film is wasted in the hands of screenwriters who obviously don't care too much for the genre. Just about every possible cliché is thrown into this film and it even comes up with a few new clichés. The movie is certainly bad due to the special effects, acting and directing but at the same time I have a lot of respect for the movie trying to be something special. Every five minutes a new plot device jumps up to make things difficult and had the film enjoyed a bigger budget some of these ideas probably would have worked a lot better. There's a sequence on the moon where the astronaut's enter a cave where a couple are sucked down into some quicksand like material. The lingering shots of the arm sticking out are quite effective but a great item like this is followed by a silly scene on the spaceship, which looks incredibly fake and takes away the atmosphere. All of the special effects are beyond bad and I'd probably rank them down there with PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE in terms of awfulness. Just take a look at the scenes with the rocket flying through space. For starters, they keep showing the same scene over and over but to make matters worse is that you can see through the spaceship!! Other really bad looking scenes include the stuff on board when we see meteors coming towards the ship. Once again, incredibly fake looking to the point of being laughable. The performances really aren't anything good either and that includes Ken Clark and Tom Conway. The one interesting thing is that a multi-raced cast was used, which certainly wasn't the norm for this period in Hollywood's history. It was quite refreshing seeing a movie with so many different characters but this too leads to some rather dumb stuff including obvious references to the Holocaust. In the end, this is a pretty bad movie but there's so many interesting things that one can't help but wish a better budget and real writers were used to make it work.

bobabaya OK, let's get the obvious out of the way. The writers had no clue about scientific principles, especially space science. Even in 1960, we already knew about the lifeless moon (it had been years since we abandoned the notion of little green men from Mars).But the social implications were fascinating to me. The international crew of the ship was quite impressive, especially in the midst of the cold war.The inclusion of women, Asians, and even an African American man that avoided stereotyping was admirable. Talking about racism, the issues of Israel as a country, and other issues that are just as relevant today was outstanding.So as a movie, lousy, but the message, outstanding!

boblipton I have given this movie a rating of 1 because I don't know how to describe the feelings of anger and confusion that washed over me as I watched it. Twelve scientists go to the moon -- taking a cocker spaniel on a leash with them, wouldn't want it to run away -- and the story, though well-intentioned, was tripe, the acting was horrible, the dialogue was stupid and even the science was idiotic gobbledygook -- in 1960 the screenwriters felt no need for anyone to express surprise when there was plenty of breathable air on the moon. Yes, it clearly had a budget, something in advance of the usual Roger Corman shot-in-three-days-with-what-we-found-in-the-payphone-slot amount of money. But I was getting angry because I couldn't stop watching, even as I wanted to turn the sound off, or at least jab an icepick into my ears. What was going on here...... and then it hit me: they had John Alton as the Director of Photography!Who, you ask, is John Alton? Well, I would suggest you go over to his IMDb page and see for yourself, but let's put it this way: when you're shooting pictures, the DP is important. A great one can make a mediocre movie great. A bad one can ruin the world's greatest script, director and cast. And in the subjective and opinionated world of commercial art that is film making, if I told you that X was the greatest cinematographer ever, you'd look at me like I was crazy. But if I went before a meeting of the American Society of Cinematographers and announced "John Alton was the greatest cinematographer ever!" The reaction would probably be "Well, I think so-and-so had a little more on the ball, but not a bad choice." Well, you say to yourself, everyone has his ups and downs, some great careers end badly, sometimes there are no comebacks. But that's not what happened here. Alton was assigned this movie, shot it in his usual impeccable fashion, then went on to his next assignment, Richard Brooks' ELMER GANTRY, then quit. Just went away and didn't keep in touch, and when he called up a third of a century later to ask for tickets to an exhibit for his work that he had heard about -- it's my stuff, at least you can comp me in -- they were surprised he wasn't dead. He explained that it just wasn't worth it. He had enough money, so he left and he lived happily for the next 35 years. And this is the movie -- or one of the movies -- that made him decide to leave. And not shoot, what, twenty, thirty, forty a hundred other movies that could have been great or greater because of his sure touch? Because while it must have been nice to work on great pictures like AN American IN Paris and ELMER GANTRY, he must have felt like a schmuck coming in to work on stuff like this. because the front office told him to. So he looked at his bank book and quit.Thanks, guys. Damn you all to Hell.