![]() The first moon landing movie was Georges Méliès legendary A Trip to the Moon (1902, review) and the second one was the British 1919 film First Men in the Moon (sadly a lost film). Sure, there had been films involving space trips and moon landings, but most of them were very vague on the subject of how these voyages would work practically and scientifically, and portrayed the moon and the planets in a fantastic rather than realistic manner. That’s because we forget that this isn’t just an old moon landing film, it’s the original moon landing film. Watching the film today, it’s perhaps difficult to grasp just how novel it was in 1929. As technical adviser Lang hired Willy Ley, later one of the architects of the American space program. Werner von Braun, creator of the V-2 ballistic missile and later head of the Saturn rocket program. In theory he actually got most of the science and technology right in his film, in large part thanks to technical advisor Hermann Oberth, the father of German rocketry and mentor of Dr. Lang himself was extremely interested in space and space technology, as well as science fiction, and was convinced that the technology to make a trip to the moon was within reach in the coming few years. Originally the script for that film had an ending which saw the protagonist flying to the stars, but that was scrapped and reworked by his wife and collaborator Thea von Harbou into yet another novel to be put on the screen, just as with Metropolis. However you look at it, no-one can deny the impact it had on latter moon launch films, nor the film’s visionary scientific accuracy.įrau im Mond, or Woman in the Moon, sometimes referred to as Girl in the Moon or By Rocket to the Moon was made two years after Austrian demon director Fritz Lang had made his genre-defining sci-fi epic Metropolis (1927, review). I am inclined to agree with the first assessment, but I can certainly understand the latter. Metascore: N/A.įrau im Mond (1929) has a bit of a patchy reputation – some regard it as one of Austrian cinema legend Fritz Lang’s masterpieces, others see it as a short bit of sci-fi excitement sandwiched between over-long schmaltzy melodrama. Starring: Willy Fritsch, Gerda Maurus, Fritz Rasp, Gustav von Wangheim, Klaus Pohl, Gustl Gstettenbaur. Written by Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou, Hermann Oberth. Thanks to the help of the world’s leading rocket scientists, the scientific accuracy is eerily prophetic. But if you like Lang’s spy yarns, the build-up is pure cinematic delight - and when the actual space voyage gets underway, it is as riveting today as it was 90 years ago. Fritz Lang’s German silent film is one of his sillier entries, and has a reputation for being over-long and sluggish during its first half. You name a trope, Frau im Mond created it. This 1929 movie is the grandfather of the modern space rocket movie.
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