From the Earth to the Moon

1958 "The Amazing Story of the Boldest Adventure Dared by Man!"
5.1| 1h41m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 26 November 1958 Released
Producted By: RKO Radio Pictures
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Set just after the American civil war, businessman and inventor Victor Barbicane invents a new source of power called Power X. He plans to use it to power rockets, and to show its potential he plans to send a projectile to the moon. Joining him for the trip are his assistant Ben Sharpe, Barbicane's arch-rival Stuyvesant Nicholl, and Nicholl's daughter Virginia. Nicholl believes that Power X goes against the will of God and sabotages the projectile so that they cannot return to earth, setting up a suspenseful finale as they battle to repair the projectile.

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Director

Byron Haskin

Production Companies

RKO Radio Pictures

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From the Earth to the Moon Audience Reviews

Scanialara You won't be disappointed!
GazerRise Fantastic!
Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
classicsoncall If I were designing a space ship, some of the things I'd probably overlook are a couch, writing desk, dining room table complete with place settings, a wall clock and carpeting - but they're all here on the Columbiad!?!? That could be why one of the characters in the story stated "Something very odd's happening here". You would think they'd be talking about a flight to the moon.Even with that said, I was surprised at the amount and intensity of negative comments for the picture on this board. Granted, it does little to enhance the reputation of the original novel's author Jules Verne, but I didn't think it was as bad as some of the other sci-fi coming out of the era. There's plenty of dreck out there like "The First Spaceship on Venus" if you only care to look for it.What really did blow my mind here was the character of Stuyvesant Nicholl (George Sanders) in his total hatred of Victor Barbicane (Joseph Cotten). Nicholl wanted to destroy the man's reputation so bad he went aboard the first space flight so he could sabotage it and in effect, prove that 'Power X' was a complete fraud. All because Barbicane proved he could put a dent in Nicholl's impervious, world's strongest metal.The story takes place in 1868 and if you want to get technical, the real first landing on the moon didn't take place exactly a hundred years later, it was a hundred one. But you have to wonder how much of Man's significant accomplishments started out as words on the printed page from some author's futuristic vision, and given life in science fiction fantasy films like this one. Who knows, maybe one day we'll be watching movies on the moon. Beam me up, Scotty.
fwdixon A tedious exercise in cinematic boredom featuring Joseph Cotten and George Sanders. Unusual in that it had no protagonist - Cotten is an insanely greedy arms merchant and Sanders is a self-righteous, bible-thumping madman. The film plods along interminably with brief patches of action separating the endless preachy talk, talk, talk. Ultimately I found myself hoping for both of them to die along with the sappy couple of Debra Paget and Don Dubbins, just to bring this train wreck of a film to an end. There is no earthly (or lunar) reason to watch this dreadful film.
bkoganbing Forgetting that this film version of From The Earth To The Moon is nowhere near the spirit of the original tale Jules Verne was trying to tell, usually his work requires a big budget and a ton of good special effects. This film got neither.Looking at the credits tonight I noted it was an RKO production released by Warner Brothers. My guess is that the film was finished and in the can when RKO went under and was sold to Warner Brothers to distribute. Also the fact that it was produced by Benedict Bogeaus who was a producer of B films of varying quality tells me why it did not get the budget for decent special effects.Bogeaus was not the guy for this kind of film. Take a look at his list of credits. He did several westerns with John Payne, noir films with George Raft and some of them pretty good. He was out of his element doing science fiction.Verne's original novel had a bit of humor in it. But someone at RKO drained every bit of it. They even added a stowaway love interest in Debra Paget who does not make the trip in the book. She's paired opposite Don Dubbins who is scientist Joseph Cotten's assistant in creating the rocket.So instead of humor we get a lot of high falutin' claptrap coming from the mouths of Joseph Cotten and George Sanders the armaments manufacturer who is jealous of Cotten. Sanders especially looked ill at some of the dialog he was required to speak. He came across as a pouty kid and George knew it.I do wonder if Jack Warner looked at this thing before he bought it for Warner Brothers.
verbusen Yes, you can hear those words of wisdom, along with Virginia asking a dozen times "What does it mean?" if you watch "From the Earth to the Moon". I was ready to rip this flick a new one until I just read the trivia on IMDb and it kind of stole all my thunder (so read this first before you go there, lol). Anyway, it starts out like a serious sci fi flick and since I'm a 30's-60's sci fi fan, I was getting into it. But then like the trivia part says it runs out of steam (powered by power X) BIG TIME! The point where this movie "jumps the shark" is right around the moon launch time, I loved the wood paneling and shag carpet in the vessel though. The moon shot time is also when you hear the Forbidden Planet sound effects, and as distinctive as they sound, you immediately notice them, along with the sound of someone turning a cooking timer to the point that's its really annoying. The damn trivia also stole my thunder about the boom holding the spacecraft in full view (I paused and rewound that because I couldn't believe it was so blatant). This would have been a good MST3K movie to lampoon. The blonde who stows aboard, Virginia, is in full hormone bloom and she delivers some classic lines and moments that are just calling for an ad lib. She is in this one scene and starts saying "Well, if we're all going to die...." you can put your own ad lib in there, mine was "lets all go out with a real bang, gang!" She also says while they are lost in space to her heart-throb referring to when they will die, "Will you come to me?" If you replace the word to with in, I think was what she was really thinking, lol. Anyway, the trivia explained why this movie while never really was all that great in the beginning went totally downhill after that, RKO announced they were closing down! I'm just wondering what the target audience would have been for this movie anyway, it starts out to mature for kids (they'd be either running all over the place or asleep), and I don't see any women appeal, or for that matter many guys. I guess there was a "geek" element in the 50's because that's the only target audience I see. Well I admit I have geeky ways to myself so they got me to watch, the ad libbing I did with Virginia made the last part tolerable, otherwise your not missing much. A Japanese guy in a rubber monster suit is much more fun to watch.