From the Earth to the Moon * (1958, Joseph Cotten, George Sanders, Debra Paget, Henry Daniell, Carl Esmond, Melville Cooper) – Classic Movie Review 7413

Director Byron Haskin’s 1958 From the Earth to the Moon is a pathetic attempt to film the Jules Verne sci-fi fantasy adventure novels De la Terre à la Lune (1865) and Autour de la Lune (1870). It starts with interesting material but it just does not ever take off, and more or less crashes and burns out fast.

Joseph Cotten stars as the crazed American Victorian inventor and weapons maker Victor Barbicane, who in 1868 invents a prototype rocket and develops a military super-explosive called Power X that can fuel a moon-bound rocket manned by himself and his crew.

Once aboard on a journey to the moon with his assistant Ben Sharpe (Don Dubbins), his arch-rival mad scientist Stuyvesant Nicholl (George Sanders) and Nicholl’s daughter Virginia (Debra Paget), Barbicane soon clashes with Nicholl, who believes that Power X contradicts the will of God and then sabotages the rocket to prevent the crew returning to Earth.

In Benedict Bogeaus’s truly feeble production, which does at least boast some splashy Technicolor in Edwin DuPar’s cinematography, all the sets, props, backgrounds and details are totally unconvincing, and the very good actors are terribly down on their luck and not able to do very much to bail it out, though of course they do try their darnedest like the old pros they are.

However, From the Earth to the Moon is one bad movie, nearly worthy of Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space, and almost as much fun.

From the Earth to the Moon also features Henry Daniell, Melville Cooper, Patric Knowles, Morris Ankrum and Ludwig Stossel. Carl Esmond plays the author Jules Verne.

The screenplay is by Robert Blees and James Leicester.

The opening credits are seen as if on the pages of a Jules Verne book, with the stars’ pictures above their names.

Oscar-winning Sanders must have wondered how his career had got so low. He committed suicide in 1972, leaving this note: ‘Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.’

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7413

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com