| Project Moonbase | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Richard Talmadge |
| Produced by | Jack Seaman |
| Screenplay by | Robert A. Heinlein Jack Seaman |
| Starring | Ross Ford Donna Martell Hayden Rorke Larry Johns Herb Jacobs Barbara Morrison Ernestine Barrier |
| Music by | Herschel Burke Gilbert |
| Cinematography | William C. Thompson |
| Editing by | Roland Gross |
| Studio | Galaxy Pictures Inc. |
| Distributed by | Lippert Pictures |
| Release date(s) | September 4, 1953 (United States) |
| Running time | 63 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Project Moonbase is a black-and-white 1953 science fiction film directed by Richard Talmadge. The film is also known as Project Moon Base and is based on a story by Robert A. Heinlein, who shares screenwriting credit. Mystery Science Theater 3000 featured it as an episode in its first Comedy Channel season in January 1990 and it was also broadcast in a syndicated television episode of the Canned Film Festival in 1986.[1][2]
The film is unusual for its time in both attempting to portray space-travel in a "realistic" manner, and for depicting a future in which women hold positions of authority and responsibility equal to men; in the script the president of the United States is a woman. The interior set of the spaceship was later used in the film Cat-Women of the Moon.
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Set in a future 1970, the United States is considering building bases on the Moon. Colonel Briteis (Donna Martell), Major Bill Moore (Ross Ford), and Doctor Wernher (Larry Johns) are sent to orbit the Moon to survey landing sites for future lunar missions. However, Dr. Wernher is an impostor whose mission is to destroy the US's Earth-orbiting space station, which he plans to do by colliding the rocket with the station on the way back from the Moon.
While on the way out, however, Wernher inadvertently gives his identity away. In the ensuing struggle for the control of the rocket, Col. Briteis has to make an emergency landing on the Moon. With them all marooned, Dr. Wernher redeems himself by helping establish communications with Earth, although an accident results in his untimely death. In response to the unexpected turn of events, the US authorities decide to make the immobilized spaceship the core of a new moon base. To avoid a scandal, their commander, General Greene (Hayden Rorke), cajoles Major Moore into proposing to Colonel Briteis (so as not to have an unmarried male and female astronaut alone in close quarters for weeks). Briteis accepts, but requests that Major Moore be promoted to Brigadier General after they are married so that he will outrank her.