Happy 50th anniversary, you cinematic landmark you! To celebrate, here's the most wretched DVD transfer of any movie ever!

Message to Image Entertainment: Stop wasting DVD technology on a sub-VHS transfer.

I bought this for $5.99 from a bargain bin. Turns out it was ludicrously overpriced.

This DVD is an insult to classic sci-fi fans everywhere.

I think that's all.

Produced by the legendary George Pal and based on a story by Robert Heinlein, Destination Moon was really the first sci-fi film that ambitiously aimed for technical authenticity. The film won an Academy award for special effects and while they will look very low budget by today's standards, they were cutting edge in 1950. The movie is also a strong bit of cold war propaganda (although never mentioned) in a race to see which country can be the first to land on the moon.

Basically a group of scientists arrange funding for a mission to the moon through soliciting private corporations. This part of film really bogged down to me. The movie begins to shine once the mission begins. The effects team do a pretty good job at showing the effects of gravity and weightlessness. While landing the entire rocket on the moon wasn't so realistic, the moon itself was very well done. And of course the whole part about not having enough fuel for the return trip was something pretty chilling giving the era it was made in.

The acting is perhaps the main weakness of the movie. It's filled with largely wooden actors lead by the always dull John Archer. Archer was a b-movie actor who had starred in poverty row films such as "King of the Zombies" and "Bowery at Midnight" with Bela Lugosi. Warner Anderson who would give fine performances in "The Caine Mutiny" and "Blackboard Jungle" probably turns in the best performance as Dr. Cargraves.

The Print is average and there's little in the way of extras. While I would never call this a classic, It is notable as perhaps the grandaddy of sci-fi films.

"Destination Moon" was the first major science fiction film produced in the United States and is credited with providing the genre with a realism that it had previously lacked. Based on Robert Heinlein's novel "Rocketship Galileo," this 1950 film does a pretty good job of working out the science for a trip for the moon, 19 years before it actually happened. Compare "Destination Moon" to the low budget "Rocketship X-M," which ws rushed into production by Robert L. Lippert to beat George Pal's movie to the theaters by three weeks, and you can see why it is this movie that is the most important American science fiction film before "2001: A Space Odyssey." Granted, with "Destination Moon" the historical impact greatly outweighs the artistic merits of the film, but that is really the only way this film gets a fifth star.

Heinlein's original 1947 novel was about a group of boys who build a rocket and travel to the moon, helped by a mentor who was an engineer (just like the author). Producer Pal optioned the story and insisted on a script that would be as scientifically accurate as possible. Heinlein worked with writers Rip Van Ronkel ("Destination Space," "The Bamboo Saucer") and James O'Hanlon ("The Harvey Girls," "Conquest of Space") and they put together a script that represented up to the moment thinking as to how to get a man on the Moon.

Charles Cargraves (Warner Anderson) is a rocket engineer whose final test launch of an experimental rocket ends with the ship crashing. Convinced his rocket ship was sabotaged, Cargraves seeks private funding for a new rocket that will use a nuclear reactor for propulsion. Investors are shown a cartoon where Woody Woodpecker provides the basics of rocketeering, and it is pointed out that whoever controls the moon will be able to launch missiles against whoever they want. General Thayer (Tom Powers) and Jim Barnes (John Archer) becomes Cargraves' key partners, but as the date for the launch approaches the bureaucratic red tape increases substantially. So the group decides to launch at the next opportunity, which happens to be in 17 hours (fortunately they have this giant computer to help them with their last minute calculations). Along as radio operator is Joe Sweeney (Dick Wesson), who provides a modicum of comic relief as the guy from Brooklyn who does not believe the rocket will ever get off the ground let alone to the moon.

The part of the film where they rocket ship is constructed is interesting enough, and the whole idea of sabotage, red tape, and wives left behind are minor distractions. The main part of "Destination Moon" is the trip to the moon where such things as a space launch, a space walk, and walking on the moon are all presented with an impressive scientific accuracy via some nice old-fashioned wire-work. From the time the space ship takes off the movie becomes rather fascinating, so it is clear the second half is a lot stronger than the first and you just have to make yourself sit through it to get to the good stuff.

The film won the 1951 Oscar for Lee Zavtiz's Special Effects, while the Art Direction-Set Decoration (Color) of Ernst Fegté and George Sawley received a nomination. The panoramic view of the lunar scenery was a massive painting by astronomy artist Chesley Bonestell. Again, this is not an argument that "Destination Moon" is the best science fiction film of the 1950s, an honor that probably goes to "The Day the Earth Stood Still" or "Forbidden Planet" (although it is well known I have a warm spot in my heart for "The Thing From Another World"), but this is a film that is as historically important as Georges Méliès' 1902 "Le Voyage dans la lune," and a lot more accurate from a scientific standpoint. Of course, producer George Pal would go on to make other landmark films in the science fiction genre, including "When Worlds Collide," "The Time Machine," and "War of the Worlds," but it is "Destination Moon" that stands out as the grandfather of American science fiction films.

"Destination Moon" was an ambitious effort on an ordinary studio budget to present a realistic portrayal of lunar flight -- at least from the point of view of the very late 1940s, when the film was begun.

The plot starts out well enough, but by the end becomes almost cartoon-like, complete with the requisite ordinary Joe from Brooklyn named, well, Joe. The technical look of the spacecraft is the usual collection of analog dials and switches, the pressure suits are in a range of pastels with clunky helmets and, well you know. On the one hand I want to allow leeway in my assessment, considering the half-century old vintage of the film. On the other hand, though, consider "The Day the Earth Stood Still," in production at roughly the same time. That film displayed a far more imaginative view of technical evolution and a more thought provoking plot.

Still, as a piece of history "Destination Moon" is worthwhile. Robert Heinlein was involved in the screenplay. Well known space artist Chesley Bonestall painted the astronomical and lunar backdrops. Woody Woodpecker is used to explain space travel concepts to a group of industrialists. (NASA itself would employ the services of Mr. Woodpecker as PR spokes-, um, bird about a dozen years later and would refer to "Destination Moon" in its timeline of events leading to Apollo 11.) The film received a great amount of press at the time and evidently was a true seminal moment for those involved with it and much of the culture. It won an Academy Award in 1950 for best special effects.

This is a must-have for those interested in older Sci-Fi films, the space program, or film buff completists. The film is one of the first sf films in technicolor (including a Woody Woodpeckier animated sequence), and won an Academy Award for best special effects. It also lead to an award for the writer, Robert Heinlein, from NASA, over 35 years later.