Columbia Pictures released First Men in the Moon in the United States on 20 November 1964. They released it in the UK a few months before that.

This is an amazing film! It takes the HG Wells novel and places it in the frame of the race to the Moon. The astronauts land on the Moon and discover a British flag. So they find one of the men who did this decades before. And he tells the novel story. This works really well. It also allows the producers to tack on a War of the Worlds ending.

The film starts with the following acknowledgment in the middle of the credits, “The Producer acknowledges with thanks the co-operation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washingtin DC…” When I saw that, I laughed. But then the narrative started and it presented a landing on the Moon. And it presented the procedure that was actually used by NASA just five years later!

I figured the film would be what I think of as science-based science fiction. That includes films like Destination Moon and Phase IV. And it tries to be. It’s limited by the source material. And the first half of the film is a comedy. Lionel Jeffries lights up the screen in this regard.

But the realism does matter. I like films where humans land on the Moon and it’s a tropical paradise with women in bikinis. But those have to maintain that level of silliness throughout. If a film can manage to be reasonably correct, it helps my enjoyment.

I suspect that after the actual Moon landing, people weren’t interested in watching this film. It does, after all, feature a bunch of insect creatures living under the surface of the Moon. But it’s actually a whole lot of fun. After all, Americans lost interest in the Moon after it turned out to be just a big space rock. This film is a great corrective!

So on the 61st anniversary of its release, let’s watch First Men in the Moon!

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First Men on the Moon (1964) poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.