Woman In The Moon, The; By Rocket To The Moon

989.THE WOMAN IN THE MOON (By Rocket to the Moon) (1929-Germany). Directed by FRITZ LANG. Travel on the first spaceship to the moon, along with four men, one boy, and or womanÑand experience with them the agony and ecstasy of liftoff, the thrill of weightlessness, and the excitement of the first steps on the lunar surface! The voyage is sponsored by a powerful group of bankers, hoping to test a scientist’s theory that there is gold on the moon. The space pioneers do indeed discover gold resulting in greed, jealousy, violence, and the group’s possible destruction. This influential science fiction epic has been widely acclaimed for its imaginative sets and special effects, and for its expressive photography, preparing the production, Fritz Lang spent a great amount of money and time to ensure the utmost scientific authenticity. (His technical advisers were rocket experts Willy Ley and Hermann Oberth, who would work for the U.S. and Nazi Germany, respectively.) Of course, a 1929 film was bound to have some inaccuracies, its most glaring (and amusing) of which is the existence of a normal atmosphere on the moon, enabling the group to stroll about in street clothing. But the details are often impressively prophetic (for example, the use of multi-stage rocket). In fact, the rocket’s design, the drawings of its trajectory, and many aspects of the launch itself were so accurate that the Nazis withdrew the film from exhibition during the development of their Verein fur Raumschiffahrt program! One fascinating sidelight to the film is that Lang, in order to heighten suspense during the moment before the launch, came up with the idea of counting backwards, from 10 to 1Ñthus inventing the countdown. All in all, a beautifully made, historically important, exciting space adventure, with a shocking surprise ending. Silent film with music score, title cards in English, correct projection speed. 146 minutes ÒSilentÓ Science Fiction