12 to the Moon (1960)

"12 to the Moon" is certainly not a very good sci-fi film, though with so many terrible sci-fi films made during this same era, at least it cannot be counted among them. Heck, at times the film almost is good...almost. The film is about an international space flight to the moon with 12 astronauts from 9 different nations. Despite this, all of them sound pretty much like Americans...except for some of the astronauts from enemy nations--they are a bit like cartoon characters. It's especially annoying when the Russian astronaut argues with the three Americans and talks about the joys of communism. It's all a lot of Cold War hooey. Fortunately, this crappy dialog ends when they land on the moon. Unfortunately, the moon is inhabited by super- intelligent creatures that communicate to the crew telepathically and they warn them to get lost...which they promptly do. However, these nasty moon folk aren't very nice and do all sorts of nasty things to prevent them from getting back and telling the rest of the human race about them. Ultimately, a really stupid plan is executed and the day is saved...or is it?The biggest problem with the movie aren't the silly sets but the dumb dialog...and the film too often sounds as if the film were rushed to completion. According to IMDb, that's exactly what happened and the film was made in a paltry 8 days! Occasionally interesting...but not very.

12 to the Moon (1960)* 1/2 (out of 4)The title pretty much gives the plot details but to expand on it you'd have to say ten men, two women, two cats, two monkeys and a dog enter a spaceship and head off to the moon. After finally getting there they are confronted by a faceless alien and on their way back to Earth they learn the U.S. has been frozen by the alien so they must thaw it out before they can land. This Columbia sci-fi film has pretty much been forgotten, which is somewhat of a shame but the bigger shame is that such an ambitious film is wasted in the hands of screenwriters who obviously don't care too much for the genre. Just about every possible cliché is thrown into this film and it even comes up with a few new clichés. The movie is certainly bad due to the special effects, acting and directing but at the same time I have a lot of respect for the movie trying to be something special. Every five minutes a new plot device jumps up to make things difficult and had the film enjoyed a bigger budget some of these ideas probably would have worked a lot better. There's a sequence on the moon where the astronaut's enter a cave where a couple are sucked down into some quicksand like material. The lingering shots of the arm sticking out are quite effective but a great item like this is followed by a silly scene on the spaceship, which looks incredibly fake and takes away the atmosphere. All of the special effects are beyond bad and I'd probably rank them down there with PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE in terms of awfulness. Just take a look at the scenes with the rocket flying through space. For starters, they keep showing the same scene over and over but to make matters worse is that you can see through the spaceship!! Other really bad looking scenes include the stuff on board when we see meteors coming towards the ship. Once again, incredibly fake looking to the point of being laughable. The performances really aren't anything good either and that includes Ken Clark and Tom Conway. The one interesting thing is that a multi-raced cast was used, which certainly wasn't the norm for this period in Hollywood's history. It was quite refreshing seeing a movie with so many different characters but this too leads to some rather dumb stuff including obvious references to the Holocaust. In the end, this is a pretty bad movie but there's so many interesting things that one can't help but wish a better budget and real writers were used to make it work.

OK, let's get the obvious out of the way. The writers had no clue about scientific principles, especially space science. Even in 1960, we already knew about the lifeless moon (it had been years since we abandoned the notion of little green men from Mars).But the social implications were fascinating to me. The international crew of the ship was quite impressive, especially in the midst of the cold war.The inclusion of women, Asians, and even an African American man that avoided stereotyping was admirable. Talking about racism, the issues of Israel as a country, and other issues that are just as relevant today was outstanding.So as a movie, lousy, but the message, outstanding!

I find splendor in these B gems depicting man's future in space. Obviously, this is before the first moon landing, although the movie makes the moon seem so much fun (and more gravity). There is a multi-ethnic cast which brings conflict between a few of the nation's reps. Of COURSE, USA leads the mission and it doesn't really go that well. Laugh at the moon sandbox, lava flowing, a couple of cats, an astronaut who suddenly starts claiming "evil" surrounds them, the cheesy ship and even cheesier meteor shower, inept and incompetent astronauts making stupid decisions, alien hieroglyphics and 12 to the Moon is one of those yesteryear films that was just so wrong, but unintentionally funny. Those poor cats! I don't know how but Mike and the bots make this really bad movie a hoot to watch.Not as dull as Fire Maidens from Outer Space.