Rocket to the Moon (1967)

User Rating:

5.1/10   

Director:

Don Sharp

Writers:

Jules Verne (inspired by the writings of)
Dave Freeman (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

21 June 1967 (USA)

Genre:

Sci-Fi | Comedy

Tagline:

The most fabulous entertainment event of the year!

Plot:

Phineas T Barnum and friends finance the first flight to the moon but find the task a little above them...

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel | Independent Film

Cast

Burl Ives	...	Phineas T. Barnum
Troy Donahue	...	Gaylord Sullivan
Gert Fröbe	...	Professor von Bulow (as Gert Frobe)
Terry-Thomas	...	Sir Harry Washington-Smythe
Hermione Gingold	...	Angelica
Daliah Lavi	...	Madelaine
Lionel Jeffries	...	Sir Charles Dillworthy
Dennis Price	...	Duke of Barset
Stratford Johns	...	Warrant Officer
Graham Stark	...	Grundle
Jimmy Clitheroe	...	Tom Thumb
Edward de Souza	...	Henri (as Edward De Souza)
Joachim Teege	...	Joachim Bulgeroff
Joan Sterndale-Bennett	...	Queen Victoria (as Joan Sterndale Bennett)
Judy Cornwell	...	Electra

Also Known As:

Blast Off
Journey That Shook the World
Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon (UK) (complete title)
P.T. Barnum's Rocket to the Moon
Those Fantastic Flying Fools (USA)
Aqueles Fantásticos Loucos Voadores (Brazil) [pt]
Chiflados del espacio (Spain) [es]
Enas trellos iptamenos kosmos (Greece) [el]
Le grand départ vers la lune (France) [fr]
Quei fantastici pazzi volanti (Italy) [it]
Tolldreiste Kerle in rasselnden Raketen (West Germany) [de]

Runtime:

USA:95 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:U

Filming Locations:

Ardmore Studios - Herbert Road, Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland

Company:

Jules Verne Films Ltd.

Trivia:

Bing Crosby was attached to this project he was going to play P.T.Barnum but delays and rewrites caused him to drop out.

ROCKET TO THE MOON (Don Sharp, 1967) **1/2

From exploitation writer-producer Harry Alan Towers comes this curiously upmarket but essentially lowbrow comic adaptation of the Jules Verne adventure "From The Earth To The Moon" – already filmed straight under that title in 1958, and which I also own recorded off TCM U.K. For what it's worth, both versions managed to attract notable actors to the fold: in this case, it's Burl Ives (as real-life showman P.T. Barnum – apparently, the role had first been offered to Bing Crosby!), Gert Frobe (amusing as a German explosives expert), Dennis Price, Lionel Jeffries (as a flustered engineer – basically a variation on his role in the superior FIRST MEN IN THE MOON [1964]), Terry-Thomas (as a vindictive financier and Jeffries' shady partner), not forgetting Troy Donahue (unconvincing as an American scientist and made to don a silly astro-nautical outfit more attuned to dystopian allegories!), Daliah Lavi and Edward de Souza who supply the obligatory (and bland) romantic triangle.

Whilst readily conceding that it doesn't have much of a reputation to begin with, the film itself proved a bit of a let-down for me – especially since, unlike the earlier version, we never even get to go in outer-space!! Besides, the pace is inordinately slow for this type of film; director Sharp was clearly more adept at deploying atmosphere and suspense than at he was at comedy timing. That said, the first half is undeniably pleasant with the amusing trial-and-error experiments of the various people involved (often witnessed by a perpetually unperturbed Queen Victoria) and, later, Frobe's disastrous attempts to find the correct amount of Bulovite (his own invention) to fire the rocket (Donahue's design of which is favored over that of the more experienced, and consequently inflamed, Jeffries) all the way to the moon! Alas, the film's latter stages – involving Jeffries and Terry-Thomas' attempts to sabotage the launching, Lavi's determination (after being abducted by them and escaping) to reach Donahue and alert him of their nefarious plan, and which also needlessly throw in a number of other characters (including even more romantic complications!) – tend to fall flat; the finale, though, as the rocket actually does go off with Jeffries, Terry-Tomas and, unbeknownst to them, a Russian spy inside (and which rather than land on the moon as intended takes them all the way to Siberia!), is quite nicely done.

A measure of the film's overall failure can be gleaned from the fact that it was released in several quarters under a multitude of different titles, including THOSE FANTASTIC FLYING FOOLS in the U.S. where it was marketed as a would-be follow-up to the highly successful epic spoof THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES (1965) which had also starred Terry-Thomas and Gert Frobe. Unfortunately, my viewing of the film was somewhat compromised by the faulty copy I acquired, with the audio being ever so slightly off, while the picture froze – though not the soundtrack! – for about 10 seconds half-way through!!