Rocket to the Moon

With its obvious attempt to cash in on the enormous success of ‘Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines’ ROCKET TO MOON is a 1967 adventure comedy based on an original work by French author Jules Verne and stars an international cast attempting to fire the first rocket to the moon… though will they succeed?

The film begins with a series of scientific failures presented to Queen Victoria (little known stage actress Joan Sterndale Bennett doing a stock impersonation and bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the monarch): the Duke of Barset’s (Dennis Price) dreams of an all new 'electric' mansion are literally going up in flames, a suspension bridge constructed by Sir Dillworthy (Lionel Jeffries) falls to pieces as soon as the Queen cuts the inaugural tape holding the pillars together while in Germany, nutty Professor Siegfried Von Bulow’s (Gert Fröbe) powerful new explosive also is destined for failure. Meanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic, famous showman P. T. Barnum (Burl Ives) sees his ‘Greatest Show on Earth’ burned to cinders. With nothing to lose but plenty to gain he heads off to Ole Blighty and takes with him his star attraction, Tom Thumb (played by then top English Radio star Jimmy Clitheroe).

During a lecture hosted by Von Bulow the German professor suggests the idea of shooting a rocket to the moon via means of his new and powerful explosive, however, seeing how said explosive had already miserably failed the other delegates cannot possibly take this seriously… with the exception of Barnum who reckons the idea could hold some potential after all (meaning HE might make lots of money). He immediately puts plan into action to find financial backers while poor little Tom Thumb is supposed to be the guinea pig inside the rocket.

Soon word gets out and the project not only attracts possible investors from all over the globe but it goes without saying, crooks as well. Amidst the ensuing chaos Barnum meets up with fellow landsman Gaylord Sullivan (Troy Donahue), an aeronaut whose exotic girlfriend Madelaine (Israeli pop singer/actress Daliah Lavi) has stood up her wealthy French husband-to-be Henri (Edward de Souza) on their wedding day and now finds herself in a hot-air balloon with Gaylord heading direction Wales. There he meets up with Barnum and claims he has indeed designs for a suitable rocket – great news and despite the awkward ‘love triangle’ cuckold Henri agrees to finance the construction of Gaylord’s missile albeit under one condition: that Gaylord will sit inside the rocket when it gets fired to the moon and not Tom Thumb… the perfect way to get rid of his love rival!

Of course, it wouldn’t be an adventure comedy if there weren’t a few baddies thrown in for good measure and here we have Sir Dillworthy, his deeply dodgy brother-in-law Sir Washington Smythe (the inimitable Terry-Thomas, naturally!) and Russian spy Bulgeroff (Joachim Teege) whose plans to sabotage Gaylord and Barnum’s project starts with kidnapping Madelaine. Washington-Smythe uses an armoury of dirty tricks and is prepared to go to any lengths to achieve his end and to ensure he gets a deal so it’s the Brits who will put the first rocket to the moon…

Don Sharp (known as an 'action' director and who also worked on 'Those Magnificent Men) does a reasonable job of directing. Nevertheless the film is a somewhat played out and contrived saga - does anyone actually believe the rocket will reach the moon? The entire film was shot at the Ardmore Studios and County Wicklow in Ireland, as were Towers previous two Fu- Manchu films (before he went East) for tax reasons, of course. The film is nicely shot by Reginald Wyer and the versatile John Scott supplies a decent musical intro though we could have done with a bit more incidental music.
As for the film’s producer: was there ever anyone quite like Harry Allan Towers in the film industry? Well, a couple do indeed spring to mind but they are among the living so here it will end. In Towers’ lifetime the Equity Journal actually advised its members against taking a job on a Towers production. Our esteemed ‘experts’ - featured on the Bonus material, will enlighten you a little more as to this unbelievably enterprising mini movie mogul's 'illustrious' career. The man in question also supplies the original storyline (as he invariably did under his usual pseudonym of Peter Welbeck) which was scripted by TV-gag writer Dave Freeman. It will be pretty obvious to most of us that the always quick off the mark Towers was cashing in on the enormous success of the far superior 'Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines' which was released two years earlier. Still though, ‘Rocket to the Moon’ remains Towers most ambitious film and one wonders just how he managed to get the financial backing. It is not in the class of ‘Those Magnificent Men…’ but it’s not altogether a bad effort.

Jules Verne’s ROCKET TO THE MOON has just been released in a brand-new restoration and is available for the first time on Blu-ray and DVD, with interviews and archive silent footage courtesy of British Pathé.