I'm just watching an old British film called Mouse on the Moon.
Starring Bernard Cribbins it tells a story of glory and fibs. The tiny state of Grand Fennick wants to send a manned DIY rocket to the moon. There's plenty of good old-fashioned buffoonery and Heath Robinson rocketry!
Reminds of those other DIY space mission movies full of eccentrics from the Sixties. The First Man in the Moon springs to mind with a bumbling Lionel Jeffries.
Can you think of any more films like this?
There's a dreadful British film, with Terry Thomas in it, called Rocket to the Moon. The whole film is about how various Victorian eccentrics compete to get to the Moon, but they never actually do !
ReplyDeleteIt ran at my Saturday morning matinee cinema, in about 1970, and the kids were furious that the title of the movie suggested it would be a Sci Fi, but all we got was a naff comedy ... with no Moon !
Probably the worst ever made was on an American cable channel last night. It was called "Have Rocket Ship Will Travel" with the Three Stooges as the main protagonists and even includes them singing the title song.
ReplyDelete"Mouse on the Moon" is a fun film!
ReplyDeleteWonderful followup to "The Mouse that Roared."
"Catwomen on the Moon" or "Missile To The Moon" anyone?
And of course "Abbott and Costello go to Mars." and Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in "The Road to Hong Kong"
Almost forgot "The Queen Of Outer Space!"
DeleteAnd Don't Forget "Way Way Out!" with Jerry Lewis
DeleteAnd while we're on 60s British space mission movies, there's Peter Sellars in Heavens Above where he hijacks a British orbital capsule so he can deliver his sermons uninterupted. (From a script by Malcolm Muggeridge!!!)
ReplyDelete-speaking of sermonizing from a space capsule, there's also Wings of Honniamise, but that's a 90s anime!
And of course Aardman's 'A Grand Day Out', with Wallace and Grommet.
ReplyDeleteIf we're talking eccentrics on the Moon, how about 'Moon Zero Two', with Warren Mitchell and Bernard Breslaw.
ReplyDeleteYes Mish! I loved Moon Zero Two as a kid Mish. The scene where the space helmet turns to reveal a skull scared me to death! Not sure who's skull it was though now! I always get James Olsen and Roy Thinnes mixed up so Doppelganger slips into my mind too when I think of MZ2.
DeleteWasn't Gerry Anderson involved in the Queen of Outer Space or something similar?
ReplyDeleteSorry, Very much doubt Gerry Anderson was involved in "The Queen of Outer Space." That was a bad Hollywood picture with Zsa Zsa Gabor and a whole lot of costumes pulled from "Forbidden Planet" with Astronauts landing on a planet inhabited only by women.
DeleteGerry as Gerald Anderson was a sound editor on the 1954 film The Devil Girl from Mars
DeleteThats the one! Thanks Scoop! I've never seen it. Have you?
DeleteI've got it on DVD, Woodsy, but it has been shown on Talking Pictures TV fairly recently.
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