First Men in the Moon
Based on the HG Wells story. The world is delighted when a space craft containing a crew made up of the world’s astronauts lands on the moon…
- Director:Nathan Juran
- Genre:Adventure | Sci-Fi
- Runtime:103 minutes
Cast
Edward Judd : Arnold Bedford
Martha Hyer : Katherine ‘Kate’ Callender
Lionel Jeffries : Joseph Cavor
Miles Malleson : Dymchurch Registrar
Norman Bird : Stuart, Moon Landing Crew
In 1964, the United Nations has launched a rocket flight to the Moon. A multi-national group of astronauts in the UN spacecraft land on the Moon, believing themselves to be the first lunar explorers. They discover a Union Flag on the surface and a note naming Bedford and Cavor, claiming the Moon for Queen Victoria. UN authorities trace the aged Bedford now an old man in a mental hospital. The mental hospital staff prevent him from watching the television reports of the expedition because, according to the matron, it “excites him” with his claims to have been on the Moon dismissed as an insane delusion. The UN representatives question him about the Moon and he tells them his story. The rest of the film, as a flashback, shows what Cavor and Bedford did in the 1890s.
In 1899, Arnold Bedford and his fiance Katherine Callender – known as Kate – meet an inventor, Joseph Cavor, who has invented Cavorite, a substance that will let anything it is applied to or made of deflect the force of gravity and which he plans to use to travel to the Moon. Cavor has already built a spherical spaceship for this purpose, taking Arnold and (accidentally) Kate with him. Whilst exploring the Moon, Bedford and Cavor fall down a vertical shaft and discover to their amazement an insect-oid population, the Selenites, living beneath the surface. (Cavor coins this name for the creatures after the Greek goddess of the moon, Selene). After escaping from the Selenites back to the surface, they discover that their ship, still containing Kate (who stayed behind because Cavor had brought only two spacesuits), has been dragged into their underground city.Read more
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