The First Men In The Moon

Why isn't this a better film?

Not that it's bad. The opening is all you could want. Here we are in 1964, watching the first official expedition to the moon (sponsored by the UN . . . aaaah, if only). The module lands. Members of the international crew, including Americans, Brits and Russians, land and explore the surface. Sudden sensation! On a lunar rock they find a tattered Union Jack, along with a document claiming the moon in the name of Queen Victoria.

This is a quality film with a surprisingly big budget. Nigel "Quatermass" Kneale co-wrote the screenplay. Ray Harryhausen supplied the Dynamated special effects (which are excellent, especially the gigantic caterpillar-like Mooncalf):



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It ought to be a sci-fi classic, up there with Things To Come. It isn't, though. because at some stage in the inception of the movie it was decided to play the whole thing for knockabout laughs.


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Lionel Jeffries, who plays the inventor Cavor, is a fine character actor who can also play serious parts, as witness his tortured Marquess of Queensberry in The Trials Of Oscar Wilde (1960). Here he's reduced to mugging, flapping, double-taking and muttering to himself. Edward Judd, one of the Nearly Men of the British Screen, has no obvious gift for comedy, but he's obliged to take his share of pratfalls as Bedford and looks thoroughly embarrassed. He should have been allowed to play it straight, as he did the alcoholic journalist in The Day The Earth Caught Fire (1961).

Naturally a love interest has to be imposed on H.G.Wells' original story, and naturally she has to be an American actress in the hope of putting bums on transatlantic seats. In fact Martha Hyer gives us a good turn as the Emancipated Woman of 1899, ready to stand up to Men and Selenites with commendable feistiness. But she too has to suffer knockabout indignities:


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Add to that a bunch of splendid British eccentric bumblers such as Miles Malleson and Gladys Henson . . . and a wholly unnecessary (and unfunny) flock of geese. Why is it that the cinema has so often felt it necessary to impose cute animals on sf adventures? Disney transplanted a seal on to 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and a duck on to Journey To The Centre Of The Earth. City Under The Sea has David Tomlinson sharing his diving suit with a chicken . . . Oh that's right, there's a "side-splitting" scene in The First Men In The Moon when some chickens get loose in the spacecraft. Oh joy!

The odd thing is that there actually is a good deal of humour in the novel. Wells had a fine comic sense, as witness Kipps and The History Of Mr Polly. When the book was broadcast in 1981 as a BBC Radio Play starring Hywel Bennett and William Rushton, there were plenty of laughs from Bedford's incomprehension and indignation. Cavor came across as larger-than-life, vague and hopelessly naive: not, emphatically not, a "crackpot".

One wonders what Nigel Kneale made of the end result. Famously outspoken as he was, I'm surprised never to have come across a few scathing comments. And yet the Kneale touch is clearly evident, especially in the climactic scene where Cavor confronts the Grand Lunar -


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- and expatiates upon Mankind's attitudes to War and Conquest. This scene, and the sequence where Bedford is shown heartlessly slaughtering Selenites while Cavor begs him to stop, make me realise how good the film could have been, if it had taken the story seriously and concentrated on H.G. Wells' trademark themes.

Worth watching nonetheless. The special effects are remarkable for 1964: worth sitting through the slapstick just for them.

By the way, the book was originally filmed by British Gaumont Studios all the way back in 1919. The Second First Men In The Moon, anybody?

Good post, Byron!! I must confess to having fond memories of TFMITM as a kid. The Selenites and the moom calf were incredible SF for the time (God bless the genius that is Ray Harryhausen) but I agree that Jeffries does seem to be playing a slightly less eccentric version of Carracticus Potts Snr from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Good point about Disney and the superfluous cute animals...why??


TFMITM is one of the SF films of yesteryear that may well benefit from a remake using CGI...(although the remake of The Time Machine a few years back does show what can happen when a classic Sci-Fi film is remade)

One film I think could really benefit from a CGI laden update is 'THEM!' (the one with the giant ants).

Gee Byron your post is better than the film. I want to see it again.

TFMITM is one of the SF films of yesteryear that may well benefit from a remake using CGI...(although the remake of The Time Machine a few years back does show what can happen when a classic Sci-Fi film is remade)

One film I think could really benefit from a CGI laden update is 'THEM!' (the one with the giant ants).

Nope, sorry Charlie. Mildest of men though I am, I'd readily sign a petition for the reintroduction of pein forte et dure for anyone attempting to remake a Harryhausen film using CGI. Or any of the great fx masterpieces of yesteryear. Compare the Willis O'Brien and Peter Jackson King Kongs: countless hours of painstaking craftsmanship supplanted by slick 'n' soulless key-clicking. Blasphemy.

Mind you I don't care what you do with Clash Of The Titans. That was a sorry experience from start to finish.

I've long said that colourisation should only be used on films that didn't look all that hot in the first place - Charlie Chan In Egypt would definitely benefit from a bit of jazzing up - but NEVER on fine, gleaming works of b&w art like Rebecca or The Innocents. By the same token, CGI remakes should only be allowed for films whose fx were genuinely laughable. Them by all means. The Mole People, perhaps?

I have spoken. Tremble, mortals, and obey.

Mind you I don't care what you do with Clash Of The Titans. That was a sorry experience from start to finish.

Oooh! I think Aries might have something to say about that! :D

Yes..I agree..and I retract my statement regarding FMITM. Harryhausen's work is one of genius and it would be sacriledge to replace it with CGI..what was I thinking???

But THEM!..definitely!

I am against any colorization. The remake issue, hmmm, they at least aren't tinkering with the original film, it still exsists in all of it's glory. I love the Harryhausen films, I think they are sheer genius. Ok Clash of the Titans was a clinker.

I personally avoid remakes like the plague. I'll always take the original over the fake anyday. The original King Kong is still the best, I like the original War of The Worlds, the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I can't think of one remake that I have liked. But we can't stop it from happening. Maybe a remake of a film will spark some interest in the original and people will seek them out. We can only hope.

We seem to have branched off into three different topics: Old films that would benefit from CGI remakes, Remakes generally and the dreaded "Colorization" (which I suppose is how it's spelt).

Might I suggest we open three new threads and develop the arguments on each topic with sufficient elbow room? Any rooted objections? No? OK, votes for? Hmm. Against? That's better. Motion carried.

We need a new "The Giant Gila Monster". Oh yes we do!!!

We need a new "The Giant Gila Monster". Oh yes we do!!!

One wasn't enough already?

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.

Who is this prat?

Who is this prat?


Forget it, Byron..it's Spammytown....