*For the next few days, I’m going to add a random film the great Ray Harryhausen worked on. The legendary special effects MASTER passed away on May 7, 2013 at age 92 in London and yes, the film world has lost a true giant as well as a fine and talented gentleman…

It’s actually pretty fun to watch early 50’s to mid-60’s sci-fi films for their historical as well as entertainment value because the space race was in full blast and Hollywood was finding out fast that NASA was making most of what they were doing obsolete. Granted, other than the opening few minutes, Nathan Juran’s excellent First Men in the Moon doesn’t need to juggle much in the way of realism other than making sure its 1964 astronauts (made up of members of UN countries!) making that moon landing were wearing gear that at least looked up to date.

Once that’s out of the way, the film lets the imaginations of H.G. Wells and Ray Harryhausen (interpreting the author’s words into Dynamation) take over as the story shifts back in time to 1899 and tells the tale of man’s “real” first trip to the moon. Juran’s direction and his solid cast provide the proper Victorian tone and Harryhausen’s great effects add the perfect amount of rustic charm that propel the films wildly fanciful “science” into the plane of believability…

Granted, given the time period the film is set in, although there’s a woman on that trip to space, she has to sneak aboard the spacecraft and later gets kidnapped along with that craft by the insect-like natives who live below the moon’s surface. At least she gets to help out and repair the ship at one point, so she’s not a totally helpless or useless character. Amusingly enough, it’s the men who make most of the bigger mistakes throughout the film from not packing an extra suit or two along 9just in case something went wrong with the ones they were wearing), to carrying a loaded shotgun around that leads to a wee bit of a misunderstanding that sets up the film’s finale. Still, there’s a great sense of fun in the intentionally stuffy British-ness found throughout the film, as well as a bit of a bittersweet conclusion that shows how carelessness in exploration isn’t a great thing for explorer or native alike.

“So we two poor terrestrial castaways, lost in that wild-growing moon jungle, crawled in terror before the sounds that had come upon us. We crawled, as it seemed, a long time before we saw either Selenite or mooncalf, though we heard the bellowing and gruntulous noises of these latter continually drawing nearer to us…”

Harryhausen’s effects are again, fantastic, with the moon calf sequence still memorable and impressive, although at 103 minutes, the film of course sometimes condenses or loses Wells’ more striking prose in favor of Ray’s visual genius. When I saw this film as a kid, I’d already seen a few of Harryhausen’s films he’d done that had music by Bernard Herrmann, so I was surprised that I liked the score almost as much as I did the ones from those other films. So much for youth being wise, I suppose. Laurie Johnson’s effective score is a perfect fit for the film’s pacing and assorted moods and like any great soundtrack, makes each viewing of the film an almost new experience as one discovers something missed previously in the music.

I guess pairing this up with Ray’s other past-period effects piece The Three Worlds of Gulliver is a good idea, at least for me, as that’s my least favorite film he worked on and that’s only because of the casting and not his effects work. I was going to suggest 2001: A Space Odyssey, but that’s not a film you want to show to young kids because they’ll be asleep before the Blue Danube finishes playing. Anyway, I’ll get to that new post later, folks. For now, I’m off to stick my head in the fridge. All this moon talk has made me hungry for some green cheese. i think I have none at the moment, but a subtle substitute will have to tide me over, it seems…

– GW