Panamint Our ancient announcer Francis Bushman in the "First Worldwide Broadcast" promises us "world shattering history". This film does document one great historic fact- the launching of the first lawn furniture into space. The lawn furniture wasn't enhanced, spray painted or otherwise disguised as space equipment- it was just launched "as-is" as purchased at the local Sears store in 1960. True history was thus made in the annals of space exploration.We also know that the same flight launched the first hopeless alcoholic into space- Tom Conway. Truly historic wasn't it? The first dog- a shy flop eared cocker spaniel presumably from the same back yard as the lawn furniture- was also launched on this flight.These brave astronauts flew 240,000 miles to be threatened by a small pit of sand. Fantastic! And a shower without water! A film without budget! Its historic!

Wizard-8 I had wanted to see "12 To The Moon" for a long time ever since I came across a review of it in the Leonard Maltin movie guide. The review gave the book's lowest rating (BOMB), but it also said it was "an ambitious failure." That description intrigued me, so when the movie was recently broadcast on Turner Classic Movies, I watched it.The movie is more progressive-thinking than other sci-fi movies of the time when it comes to casting, casting an international crew including two minorities (and two females.) However, when the script comes to making each crew member an individual, it pretty much fails. There is very little effort made into making each crew member stand out in his or her own way. Also, some of the character actions are pretty laughable. Are we really to believe that the linguist on the crew could read alien script immediately on observing it? The movie also fails in other areas. While the sets constructed that depict various parts of the surface of the moon aren't bad, the rest of the production values are both dated and shabby. The rocket has a COMPASS that is consulted during the flight to and from the moon! The astronauts, walking on the moon, are wearing lace boots and gloves that aren't connected to the rest of the space suit! On the flight to the moon, we see several times stars in the background shining through the near-transparent rocket as it moves from one corner of the screen to the other. (Actually, I think it's the same special effects shot repeated all those times.) To be fair, the first two-thirds of the movie were mildly intriguing, making me wonder what the space crew would find and what would happen to them. But the last third of the movie is tiredly predictable since you have seen this stuff in countless other movies before. This limited intrigue and the few other decent bits of the movie aren't enough to save the movie, as you might have guessed. You can easily skip this movie without thinking you're missing something.

zee The problem with judging science on the basis of MST riffs is that MST writers get science wrong every bit as often as the movie makers. The science in this film is accurate and well considered. To wit, 1) The "steam" is outgassing (which somehow people believe in the movie Deep Impact but not in this film, because MST told them to laugh at it, and they aren't thinking for themselves, alas.) In 1960, it was assumed that there would be constant, dangerous lunar outgassing. As it ends up, the outgassing probably was over by 3.5 billion years ago, but in 1960, we knew only a little bit about the phenomenon.2) The dust pits are of regolith, which NASA was very concerned about when choosing Apollo landing sites. Look it up.3) The moon has an atmosphere. Look it up.4) Walking "slow and stupid" under lesser gravity was also accurate, and since no one had been on the moon in 1960, they guessed how that would look, and they guessed pretty well. It's easy to laugh at this in retrospect, but I never saw even an attempt to get this right in other moon films of the era.and so on. The movie makers got this all right, which for the date of the film in startling and admirable. A lot of contemporary s-f films to this one were ridiculous in comparison. (Yes, they had the typical and inaccurate meteor shower scene, but you can't have everything.) A lot of current s-f movies have much worse science. Much! It is also admirable to see a diverse cast, including, gasp, women. NASA took over twenty years to catch up with the imagination of these filmmakers, and Kubrick didn't get that right in 2001, either, filmed ten years later, so kudos to the filmmakers for that.The movie is a little slow, admittedly. But there is a plot, a heroic sacrifice, and, my favorite part, the earth people don't win. They scurry home barely alive, their asses kicked by aliens. That seems more realistic than all the earth-wins s-f films that posit aliens with profoundly advanced technologies who bother to visit other planets and then can't figure out how to beat up an inferior species with gumption, rain, the magical ability to pilot alien craft, or table salt.Thus, to summarize, the science in this science fiction film is far better than average, even comparing it to today's films. There is a plot, but it's a little bit slow. And the acting is not that wonderful.

bensonmum2 Twelve scientists from around the world are selected to be part of the crew that will be the first to land on the moon. Once there, they begin their work, but it doesn't take long before they realize they are not alone. A mysterious underground race of beings kidnaps two of the crew members and demands the others leave at once. In their haste to get away, another scientist is lost in an accident. As they near Earth on their return, they discover the inhabitants of the moon have frozen all of North America. They come up with a plan to use the heat of a volcano to reverse the freezing process. But this will require the sacrifice of two members of their party to fly the ship into a volcanic crater. Will their plan work? I would be willing to overlook a lot of 12 to the Moon's shortcomings if the movie had any originality. Many of the plot points and set-pieces seem to be almost identical to those found in First Spaceship on Venus. While IMDb lists a release date of 1962 for First Spaceship on Venus, that's the North American release date. The film was released in early 1960 in West Germany. It would have been more than possible for someone to have seen that movie before making 12 to the Moon. I have no idea if I'm right about this, but if you've seen both movies, you undoubtedly noticed the similarities as I did.Beyond the films lack of originality, 12 to the Moon is pretty much a mess. Visible scaffolding and crew members, cheap looking sets, and an unnecessary Nazi subplot are among the many problems found in the movie. I'm not including the poor special effects in this list because, as bad as they are, I've seen far worse in other movies of this type. And besides, who doesn't expect to find problems with the special effects in a movie like 12 to the Moon – that's part of the charm of sci-fi films from the 50s and early 60s.