First Men in the Moon (1964 film)

See also: Le voyage dans la lune, The First Men in the Moon (1919 film), and The First Men in the Moon (2010 film)

The First Men in the Moon
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Nathan Juran
Screenplay by	Nigel Kneale Jan Read
Produced by	Charles H. Schneer
Starring	Edward Judd Martha Hyer Lionel Jeffries
Cinematography	Wilkie Cooper
Edited by	Maurice Rootes
Music by	Laurie Johnson
Production company	Ameran Films
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date	6 August 1964 (UK)
Running time	103 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Box office	$1,650,000 (US/Canada)

First Men in the Moon is a 1964 British Technicolor science fiction film, produced by Charles H. Schneer, directed by Nathan Juran, and starring Edward Judd, Martha Hyer and Lionel Jeffries. The film, distributed by Columbia Pictures, is an adaptation by screenwriter Nigel Kneale of H. G. Wells' 1901 novel The First Men in the Moon. Ray Harryhausen provided the stop-motion animation effects, which include the Selenites, giant caterpillar-like "Moon Cows" and the large-brained Prime Lunar.

Plot

In 1964, the United Nations has launched a rocket flight to the Moon. A multi-national group of astronauts in the UN spacecraft land, believing themselves to be the first lunar explorers. However, they discover a Union Jack flag on the surface and a note mentioning Katherine Callender, which claims the Moon for Queen Victoria.

Attempting to trace Callender, UN authorities find she has died but that her husband Arnold Bedford is still living in a nursing home. The home's staff do not let him watch television reports of the Moon expedition because, according to the matron, it "excites him". Bedford's repeated lunar claims are dismissed as senile delusion. The UN representatives question him about the Moon, and in flashback he tells them his story.

In 1899, Arnold Bedford and his fiancée, Katherine Callender, known as Kate, meet inventor Joseph Cavor. Cavor has invented Cavorite, a substance that will let anything it is applied to or made of deflect the force of gravity. He plans to use it to travel to the Moon, and for that purpose, Cavor has already built a spherical spaceship. He takes Arnold and Kate with him.

While exploring the lunar surface, Bedford and Cavor fall down a vertical shaft and discover an insectoid population, the Selenites, living beneath the surface. (Cavor coins this name for the creatures after the Greek goddess of the Moon, Selene). Bedford attacks a group of Selenites out of fear, killing several, despite Cavor's horrified protests. After escaping from them, the two men discover that their sphere, still containing Kate (because Cavor had brought only two spacesuits), has been dragged into the underground city.

They find that the city holds a breathable atmosphere, so they remove their space helmets. They are attacked by a giant caterpillar-like "Moon Bull" which pursues them until the Selenites are able to dispatch it with their rayguns. Cavor and Bedford see the city's power station, a perpetual motion machine powered by sunlight. The Selenites quickly learn English and interrogate Cavor, who believes they wish to exchange scientific knowledge. Cavor has a discussion with the "Grand Lunar", the ruling entity of the Selenites. Bedford makes the assumption that Cavor, and presumably all humanity, is actually on trial, and attempts to kill the Grand Lunar with an elephant gun but fails due to Cavor's interference. Running for their lives, Bedford manages to find their sphere, and he and Kate escape; Cavor voluntarily stays on the Moon.

Bedford flies the sphere up a vertical light shaft, shattering the window-like covering at the top, and returns to Earth. He concludes his story by mentioning that they came down in the sea off Zanzibar, and their sphere sank without trace, while he and Kate managed to swim ashore. Cavor's ultimate fate remained unknown to them.

In the present, Bedford, the UN party and newspaper reporters watch on television the latest events on the Moon, where the UN astronauts have broken into the Selenite city and find it deserted and decaying. The ruined city starts to crumble and collapse, forcing the astronauts to retreat hastily. Seconds later the city is completely destroyed. Bedford realizes that the Selenites must have succumbed to Cavor's common cold virus to which they had no immunity.

Cast

The 1890s expedition claim the Moon for Queen Victoria

The 1960s astronauts find Cavor's party's flag

• Edward Judd as Bedford
• Martha Hyer as Kate
• Lionel Jeffries as Cavor
• Miles Malleson as Dymchurch registrar
• Norman Bird as Stuart
• Gladys Henson as nursing home matron
• Hugh McDermott as Richard Challis, UN Space Agency
• Betty McDowall as Margaret Hoy, UN Space Agency
• Huw Thomas* as announcer
• Erik Chitty* as Gibbs
• Peter Finch* as bailiff's man
• Marne Maitland* as Dr. Tok, UN Space Agency

* Not credited on-screen.

Production

Development

Harryhausen was planning on following Jason and the Argonauts with a version of HG Wells' Food of the Gods when he met with writer Nigel Kneale. Harryhausen had long wanted to film Wells' First Men in the Moon but producer Charles Schneer was not enthusiastic, in part due to worries about the film's period setting. Kneale thought it was an excellent idea however and he and Harryhausen managed to persuade Schneer to make it.

Schneer said Kneale "is a very dour, straightforward, serious classicist. He was recognized in England as being the contemporary science-fiction screenwriter. I hired him because we needed his technical expertise. Then, we superimposed on that what we thought audiences would appreciate."

Another writer was brought on to rework Kneale's script. According to Kneale, "They wanted to jazz it up, make it funnier than I had imagined." He says this inspired the casting of Lionel Jeffries.

Kneale said in the book Judd's character "was a blundering creature and it seemed important to keep that" The writer says he knew that a country would get to the moon relatively soon and discover there were no Selenites. This is why he added to the script that the Selenites were wiped out by a cold from the professor, an idea Kneale says he took from The War of the Worlds.

Director

This was the third collaboration between producer Charles Schneer and director Nathan Juran. Schneer said Juran "was an excellent man for what he did, but he wasn't an actor's director. Many of our actors were used to more help from a director than he gave them. They felt a little adrift when they were expected to get on with their work without any great directorial assist. Jerry wasn't very patient with actors. He couldn't tolerate actors who wanted to know what their character's motivation was. He wanted to get on with the job he was hired to do."

Casting

Schneer cast Judd off the back of his performance in The Day the Earth Caught Fire. Edward Judd was under contract to Columbia Pictures. "I had never done anything like that at the time, so I thought it would be fun", Judd said. "Since Lionel was already a great chum of mine I knew we would have laughs on the set".

Martha Hyer's character was not in original drafts of scripts but introduced later.

Designs

Ray Harryhausen used blueprints from NASA for the UN's lunar lander while designing sets.

The sculptor Bryan Kneale constructed the Selenites from Harryhausen's designs.

Spacesuits used

See also: Spacesuits in fiction

Two types of space suits are featured in the film. During the story's main events, which take place in the 1890s, the film's Victorian-era astronauts are outfitted in space suits adapted from deep sea diving suits. Each is fitted with a 1960s-type aqualung cylinder worn as a backpack. Their space suits are neither pressurized nor heated or cooled, and they do not wear protective gloves in the vacuum of space and extreme cold and heat found on the lunar surface. There is an important technical issue with the heating and cooling provided: Using rubber-lined diving suits on the Moon is impractical due to the brittleness of natural rubber once it is exposed to a vacuum.

Cavor and Bedford have no radio communication and must make their space helmets touch in order to be able to talk with one another in the Moon's vacuum (the filmmakers violate this rule several times). It is not made clear whether the Selenites have radio. On Earth, the history of radio was only just beginning when the film's 1890s-set events were unfolding. Wireless communication from the stranded Cavor within the Moon appears later in Wells' novel.

The spacesuit type worn by the UN Astronauts in the film is actually the Windak high-altitude pressure suit, developed for the Royal Air Force, each fitted with a 1960s-type aqualung cylinder worn as a backpack. These pressure suits would also be used in two Doctor Who stories: William Hartnell's final story "The Tenth Planet" and the Patrick Troughton-era "The Wheel in Space". They also appear in the original Star Wars trilogy as the costumes for Bossk and Bo Shek.

Shooting

Filming started 1 October 1963.

Schneer convinced Harryhausen the movie's commercial prospects would be improved if it was shot in Panavision. "Ray was terrified of Panavision," said the producer. "All I had to do was suggest something different to him, and he would get nervous. "

"After you got past the first couple of reels, it was a funny film", said Juran. "Lionel was a swell actor. I liked him very much. His performance added immeasurably to the picture's entertainment value. He played it tongue-in-cheek but being such a good comic actor he controlled himself and never went too far. He made a great team with Edward Judd. Their personalities, one against the other, were just perfect".

"It was fun to do but it was bloody hard work," said Judd. "Lionel called it 'acting with chalk marks' because we were pointing at things that weren't there and dealing with blue backing and traveling mattes".

Harryhausen would explain to the actors what the creatures would eventually look like just before they shot scenes involving them.

"Lionel and I didn't like Jerry's working methods too much," said Judd. "He was more of a technician than an actor's director. We always thought of him as an art director, which of course he had been".

Reception

Critical reception

Among contemporary reviews, Variety wrote, "Ray Harryhausen and his special effects men have another high old time in this piece of science-fiction hokum filmed in Dynamation", adding that "Wells' novel and has been neatly updated", and concluding that "The three principals play second fiddle to the special effects and art work, which are impressive in color, construction and animation".

However, The New York Times wrote, "Only the most indulgent youngsters should derive much stimulation - let alone fun - from the tedious, heavyhanded science-fiction vehicle that arrived yesterday from England";.

The Guardian called it "good of its type".

TV Guide called it "An enjoyable science fiction film". and Blu-ray.com highly recommended the film as "a fun and exciting viewing experience".

Box Office

The film was a box office disappointment. Harryhausen felt this was due to the inclusion of too much comedy.

Schneer said he preferred the film to Jason and the Argonauts because "it was set in the Victorian era, whereas Jason took place in a much further removed period of history. Also, I thought the humor in it was delicious, whereas there wasn't much humor in Jason." The producer says Harryhausen felt "fantasy film fans are dead serious about these pictures and have no sense of humor. So, who am I to quarrel with him?"

Kneale says the final movie was "all right. It could have been better if it had been a bit less farcical; that would have been more imaginative."

Legacy

Schneer says that when the real Moon landing happened in 1966 NASA "had no footage showing the space capsule separating from the 'mother ship' and landing on the M oon's surface. All they had were shots of Neil Armstrong walking around." NASA went to Columbia ictures and used the opening sequence of First Men on the Moon. "They used those portions of it which were applicable to their needs," said the producer.

Following the movie, Harryhausen and Schneer did not work together for five years.

Comic book adaptation

• Gold Key: First Men in the Moon (March 1965)

Notes

• Kinnard, Roy (September 1979). "First Men on the Moon". Fantastic Films. p. 48-54.
• Newsom, Ted (Spring 1995). "Dynamation Ray Harryhausen Part Two". Imagi Movies. Vol. 2, no. 3. p. 14-28.
• Walker, Kenneth (August 1980). "The A to Z of Creating First Men in the Moon". Starlog. p. 38-41.
• Warren, Bill (March 1989). "Nigel Kneale Part Two". Starlog. p. 52-56, 62.

External links

• First Men in the Moon at IMDb
• First Men in the Moon at Rotten Tomatoes
• First Men in the Moon at AllMovie
• First Men in the Moon at the TCM Movie Database
• First Men in the Moon at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films