Destination Moon (Full Frame)

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Industrialist John Archer, former Army general Tom Powers and research scientist Warner Anderson collaborate on a manned rocketship with an atomic engine, convinced that the nation that militarily controls the Moon controls the Earth as well. But as their work crews construct the spaceship "Luna" in the Mojave Desert, insidious foreign-inspired propaganda turns the tide of public opinion against them. Realizing that the project's enemies can use the law to halt the launch, Archer, Powers, Anderson and electronics technician Dick Wesson decide to make a hasty pre-dawn liftoff in the untested rocket--"Destination Moon!" Years before the first U.S. satellites were launched, and nearly two decades before Man first set foot on the lunar surface, George Pal's "Destination Moon" depicted these future events with a high degree of technical accuracy--and opened the floodgates of '50s Science Fiction. Robert A. Heinlein, renowned author of the novel "Rocketship Galileo," arrived in Hollywood with no knowledge of motion picture production or costs and no screenwriting experience--"nothing but a yen to write the first Hollywood picture about the first trip to the Moon," Heinlein later recalled.

Production info by science fiction film historian Tom Weaver.Production Notes, NTSC.