Destination - Moon

The head of the research group, Charles Kargraves and General Thomas Thayer, are conducting experiments on the creation of a rocket for launching an artificial satellite into Earth's orbit. The prototype of the rocket explodes on the launch pad (they talk about sabotage by a potential enemy). Financing of the project from the state stops. Two years later, the general meets with aeronautics expert Jim Barnes and offers to start a more ambitious project - to create a rocket that could reach the moon. The scientist expresses doubts about the reality of the undertaking, but the general suggests using a nuclear engine from past projects. Barnes is inspired by the project and starts a fundraising campaign in private equity. The message that the US may have priority in the exploration of the moon has taken effect, and a source of funding has been found.

The construction of a single-stage ( Luna ) manned rocket Luna begins. The length of the rocket was supposed to be about 46 meters (150 feet), curb weight - 250 tons. When the project is nearing its end, the voices of critics are heard again, who urge not to begin the tests, since, in their opinion, the atomic engine did not pass the necessary tests and may be a threat to human life. Fearing new problems, the team decides to go to the moon immediately. At the last moment, the radio operator of the team Brown went to the hospital with appendicitis, and with difficulty manages to persuade Brown's assistant, Joey Sweeney, to replace him on the expedition. By a court order, any actions at the cosmodrome were arrested, but the team will start despite this. Four go to the moon: Kargraves, Thayer, Barnes and Sweeney. The launch of the rocket from the site in the Mojave Desert ( Lucerne Valley ) is successful, and the space journey begins. Astronauts experience a state of weightlessness. During the flight, the engines fail, and Cargraves has to go beyond the rocket . Due to the fact that his magnetic boots did not work, Cargraves takes him into outer space. With great difficulty, the general manages to go back using an improvised jet engine from an oxygen cylinder.

The rocket goes into lunar orbit and safely makes a lunar landing in the area of ​​the crater Garpal ( Sea of ​​Cold ). The first astronaut to set foot on the moon says:

By the grace of God and the name of the United States, I take possession of the Moon for the good of all mankind ^{[~ 2]} .

In preparation for departure, it turns out that in a hurry the astronauts did not take everything into account. To take off from the surface of the moon in a rocket too much weight. It even discusses the option of leaving one of the crew members, but in the end, the team gets rid of all the excess equipment, throwing it through the gateway. Luna starts to Earth. Instead of the usual "The End" ("The End of the Film"), the viewer sees the slogan This is THE END ... of the Beginning ("This is the end ... of the beginning").

• John Archer - Jim Barnes
• Warner Anderson - Charles Cargraves
• Tom Powers - General Thayer
• Dick Uesson - Joy Sweeney
• Erin O'Brien-Moore - Emily Cargraves
• Everett Glas - La Porte
• Grace Stafford - Woody Woodpecker (voice)

Background

The first postwar years - the time of the golden age of science fiction . During this period, works that became classics of the so-called solid fiction - the work of Clark , Asimov , Leinster and others - saw the light of day. Books were very popular with readers. In 1946–1949, the first suborbital launches of ballistic missiles successfully passed. The media actively discussed the use of missiles for the purpose of space exploration and for civilian needs ^{[2] [3]} .

In 1947, Robert Heinlein wrote the novel “The Galileo Rocket Ship”, in which he spoke about a young scientist and his young assistant who built a rocket to fly to the moon. The heroes find out that the neo-Nazis got to the Moon even earlier, and founded a military base there. As Heinlein recalled, at the same time he had the idea to film fiction. He believed that filming such a film could have far-reaching consequences and an impact on public opinion in relation to flights into space. Initially, the writer planned to make a documentary or popular science film ^[4] .

In 1948, the writer visited Hollywood and met Fritz Lang there . Attempt co-creation failed. Lang was a man with whom it was not easy to find a common language. Then Heinlein met screenwriter Elford Van Ronkel and then with another like-minded producer George Pal. Already having a certain name in the film industry, Pal bore a similar idea and the parties agreed to create a screenplay for a feature film ^[4] .

The idea did not meet with understanding at large film studios and seemed “too fantastic,” as Heinlein put it. At that time, viewers were attracted by melodramas, musicals and westerns ^[5] . The experience of filming and renting a fantastic movie was very limited. Either these were innovative works like Fritz Lang's films ( “Metropolis” , “Woman on the Moon” ), or pictures of fabulous nature, aimed at teenage audiences ( film series “Flash Gordon” and “Buck Rogers” ( en )). Be that as it may, they did not have much box office success. However, the massive popularity of science fiction literature in the 1950s suggested that the idea definitely has prospects. In the late 1940s, Hollywood first began to experience competition from television and film studios looking for new solutions ^{[2] [6]} .

George Pal found support in the small company Eagle-Lion Films ( en ), where previously films of category B were mainly produced . The parties agreed on a budget of approximately $ 600,000 and planned to begin producing the painting around mid-1949. The working title of the film was “Operation Moon” (“Operation Moon”) and “Journey to the Moon” (“Journey to the Moon”) ^[7] . The creators immediately moved away from the plot of the book. Heinlein and Pal decided to completely change the concept, removing the former historical and social context related to neo-Nazism from the future picture, and focused in the scenario on a technocratic and documentary approach. Representatives of the film company were forced to rework the script several times, fearing failure ^[8] . It took a lot of effort to explain to the studio management the basic concepts for a scientist (for example, the fact that there is no atmosphere on the Moon) and the associated features of the script ^[9] . With difficulty, the consultants were able to achieve an exception from the picture, the light musical interlude, which was customary at that time, which the studio management insisted on so much that at one moment even decided to shoot an almost musical ^[10] . As a result, only the flight to the moon and the name of the main character remained from the book. Heinlein attached great importance to accuracy in the technical side of the issue and constantly consulted with specialists in rocket technology and astronomy. Even the landing site in the area of ​​the crater Garpalus was the subject of discussion. Earth from the surface of its natural satellite in the picture is visible in the frame exactly where it should be ^[11] . George Pal carefully prepared for the shooting, working out all the technical issues that could arise during the production. The preproduction phase was strongly delayed and the shooting was postponed for a year.

I have a criterion in my head regarding this picture: if the public emotionally believes in the possibility of traveling to the moon, as depicted in the film, the picture is waiting for financial and any other success. If not, it will fail.

Original Text (Eng.)

If you’re a little bit of a criterion, you should be ways. If they don't, we're a flop.

- Robert Heinlein ^[5]

Team selection

Simultaneously with the preparation of the script, George Pal began the selection of the team. First of all, he decided that the film will be occupied by little-known performers, as the acting and the conflict at the level of personalities, as the producer believed, will not be so important in the future tape. A certain name among the actors was only John Archer ( en ), who gained fame thanks to his role in the film “White heat” . As an art director, the producer attracted Chesley Bounstella , who specialized in astronomical topics. The illustrations for the book "The Conquest of Space" ( en ) in 1949 by Bounstella served as a basis for the storyboard of the future picture. The image of the rocket, strongly reminiscent of V-2 was also borrowed from this book ^[11] . Lee Zawits ( en ) became responsible for special effects. A very remarkable person, engineer Herman Oberth , who worked with Fritz Lang in the film Woman on the Moon ^{[7] [12],} became a consultant of the project in the field of rocket technology. Pal encouraged every creative start. Heinlein recalled that he was very comfortable working with George Pal, since he gave complete creative freedom to everyone he worked with, without controlling them in trifles ^[4] .

Deciding that the strict course of the picture needs something to diversify, Heinlein and Pal decided to add an animated box to the picture. In it, the woodpecker Woody, created by Walter Lanz, talks about some of the principles of space flight ^[13] . Back in 1948, the preparation of scenery, equipment and test shots began. Wanting to minimize the risk, George Pal even made a small campaign in a kind of focus groups . In several cinemas they showed small excerpts from the film that had already been taken, and he followed the reaction of the public ^[7] .

Filming and renting

After a period of almost a year of preparation, field and pavilion surveys took place from November 14, 1949 to the end of December 1949. Shooting was conducted on a 35 mm color film, in Technicolor Three Strip technology ^{[14] [15]} .

The producer and the director constantly turned to the help of consultants so that the shooting fully complies with the plan. The creators had to enter a completely new territory and many problems were solved for the first time. As Robert Heinlein recalled, the production of the painting itself was reminiscent of real preparation for flight into space. In order to transmit on the screen events in the cockpit of a rocket in zero gravity, we had to go through difficulties, creating a special camera mount and operator’s workplace, which could rotate. One of the first creators to use the effect, which was then often used in many pictures of space travel - the distortion of the astronauts' faces due to the overload caused by the separation of the rocket from the Earth. A similar effect (which, by the way, is a fiction) was transmitted by a special make-up and overlays on the face ^[10] .

Separate complexity arose with spacesuits. At first, the director wanted to borrow the ammunition from the pilots. Such vestments looked very advantageous and authentic, but it turned out that the fabric of such costumes was gentle and easily torn from contact with piano strings, on which actors were hung to imitate weightlessness . The artist had to create a spacesuit design from scratch, but Paychel got what he wanted: he put actors on colorful suits and it became easier to distinguish between them and the viewer. In the heavy, closed suits, the actors had difficulty moving, and they quickly gasped and tired. It got to the point that it was necessary to apply forced ventilation, and Irvine Peichel - to quit the habit of smoking on the set of ^[16] . Usually in American films of that time, the sound was recorded directly on the set, but then I had to abandon the usual approach. First, from the spacesuits the voices of the actors were still not heard; and secondly, the doors of the pavilions, for better ventilation, were open and noise from the street penetrated inside. Thus, the sound had to be imposed even at the post-production stage ^[17] .

For filming rocket-related episodes, decorators had to create a full-sized replica of a rocket about 40 meters high ^[18] . The area of ​​the lunar surface, where the village rocket, was completely recreated in the pavilion. Its construction took about two months ^[8] . The starry sky was several hundred square meters of velvet stretched on the backdrop and car bulbs as "stars". For a more realistic creation of the crater Harpalus used fresh photographs of the surface of the Moon, taken at the Palomar Observatory . The crown of the work of the artist Bounstella was an oil painting with an area of ​​several tens of square meters, depicting the lunar landscape on the backdrop ^[12] . In his work on the film, George Pal was greatly helped by past experience with animated ribbons. In the picture, a total of about 5 minutes of animation inserts, and only preparing and shooting them took as much time as shooting the entire game part of the picture ^[10] .

Shortly before the release of the film in the rental it turned out that competitors are not asleep. In extreme haste, the small studio Lipert Pictures rolled out for rent three weeks earlier the black and white picture “Launch XM-1” ( en ) with a similar plot. George Pal calmly took this news and did not push his people in any way, deciding to finish the picture in accordance with the schedule. The painting "Destination - the Moon" was released on June 26, 1950. The picture was very successful at the box office. With a budget of about $ 600 thousand, she collected more than $ 5 million at the US home box office. ^[19]

Criticism and credibility

An adequate assessment of the film by critics of its time was hampered by the fact that it was difficult to compare it with anything. The plot of the picture conveys the story in a documentary vein, from the standpoint of "solid fiction" it can even be called a bit tedious ^[8] . There are no aliens, blasters or flying saucers yet. There is also some ideological subtext — unmarked enemy agents who are sabotage scouts at the launch site of the rocket, but this topic has no further development. There is no special drama or romantic line in the film. Modern critics of acting game called "strained." Spacious inserts, explaining to the viewer some technical subtleties, bring the “Destination - Moon” closer to popular science films ^{[20] [21]} . A certain tension and plot twist can be observed closer to the ending, however, all these actions are more technocratic. Writer John Baxter ( en ) said that the film turned out to be a rather boring “production drama” from the lives of astronauts ^[22] .

Bosley Krauter noted that the viewer is unlikely to appreciate the authors' efforts to follow the scientific credibility ^[23] . However, the novelty of the plot and revolutionary for its time, special effects are also impressive. This is no longer an attempt to film Vern or Wells : events are shown in the new tradition ^[24] . On the screen, nothing extraordinary happens, but the viewer begins to empathize with the heroes, plunging into the atmosphere of the preparation of the expedition and the flight itself. Krauter pointed to the director's flaw. During the landing on the moon of the astronauts, the scene, which in its sense was the emotional peak of the picture, nothing actually happens. The viewer for quite a long time has to wait for events ^[25] .

Some technical inaccuracies that are striking the modern viewer were completely excusable. In reality, the cosmonauts used a separate landing module to save fuel during landing. The creators did not yet know about such intricacies. Chesley Bounstell unwittingly became the author and another significant error. For greater effect, he depicted the surface of the moon with deep valleys and high mountains in an “earthly” style — with jagged edges and heavily rugged erosion , which is absent on the moon ^[4] . The rocket in the film is actually one-step, its description is generally quite reliable. It was quite correct that most of the rocket’s curb weight is fuel - only this way the Earth’s attraction can be overcome ^[11] . Some details anticipated and fairly accurately described the details of travel and stay on the moon. For example, a peculiar moon gait associated with low gravity ^[26] .

Meaning and recognition

The film was in fact the first full-color color science fiction film in the modern tradition. “Destination — the Moon” bore the imprint of its time, and the mood of the Cold War and the arms race is clearly felt in the mood. The picture also contains a clear hint of the cosmic race that had just begun between the USSR and the USA, but its significance in the history of cinema turned out to be far beyond the usual conjuncture success ^[27] . Techniques and scenario moves had a great influence on the popularity of the genre for many years ^[28] . The picture with its limited budget had practically no advertising campaign, but at the production stage, innovative work attracted media attention. As a result, it turned out that even a small studio was able to influence the development of the film industry as a whole ^{[29] [30]} . The tricks and visual effects used in the picture enriched the arsenal of the tools of her successors. “ When the worlds collide ”, “ Countdown ”, “ Close contacts of the third kind ” and other fantastic pictures have experienced the significant influence of the film by George Pal ^{[31] [32]} . Stanley Kubrick in his 2001 Space Odyssey used a similar technique of unhurried developments with close attention to technical details ^[33] . The successors copied even the trailer of the picture, emphasizing that the main character of the film was technology and special effects, on which the budget of the picture was mainly spent ^[34] . In many 1950s ribbons, it became fashionable to use a cigar-shaped silver rocket, in accordance with the design of Bounstella. After the picture, the specific technical jargon became popular (“ Houston, we have a problem ”), which the heroes of the picture used. Even the phrase " Destination - Moon " after the release of rental steadily entered the dictionary of the English language ^[35] .

“Something from another world” and “Destination — the Moon” laid the foundation for two types of plots of future science fiction films. If the first has become a classic of horror fiction, the second has staked out the technocratic direction. Richard Hodgens, in his article “The Short Tragedy of Cine-Fiction,” noted the historical significance of the film Destination — The Moon, a tradition that unfortunately did not become popular. Nowadays, the spectator associates cinema fiction primarily with violence and horror. Meanwhile, the 1950 film, which stood at the origins of the genre, offered a completely different direction of development of the genre, much more consonant with the book fiction ^[36] . Critic Vivienne Sobchak noted that the dull, at first glance, journey to the moon showed the future of human fusion and technology capabilities. Achievement, seemingly impossible yesterday, goals outside the Earth. The picture is not about the sacred fear of the mysterious machines and their priests scientists, but about the fact that it is science that will allow a person to take the next step into the unknown ^{[37] [38]} .

One of the characters in the picture utters the prophetic phrase: “Whoever controls the moon will control the Earth in the future” ( whoever controls the moon will control the Earth ). The film predicted many events related to the actual landing on the moon that took place nineteen years later. Up to the solemn words that accompanied the first step of the human being to the Moon ^[39] .

Awards and nominations

• 1951 - Academy Award
  • best visual effects
• nominations for an Oscar
  • the best work of art director

• 1951 - Berlin Film Festival
  • "Bronze Bear" - the best drama / adventure
• 1951 - Hugo Award ^{[~ 3]}
  • best drama production

The picture was not published on VHS due to the copyright issues of the Eagle-Lion paintings that were transferred first to MGM and then United Artists. In 2000, to the 50th anniversary of the film, a DVD edition was produced by Image Entertainment. The Savant DVD resource rated the transfer qualities as satisfactory, noting that, fortunately, the picture was generally preserved in any acceptable quality. The publication is very modest: the sound track is only mono and there are no subtitles. Additional materials are practically absent: there is only a trailer and a few posters of the time of release for hire ^{[20] [21]} .

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• " Destination - The Moon ” (Eng.) On the Internet Movie Database