peteryoung | 1950s SF film

Missile to the Moon, 1959, USA DIRECTED BY RICHARD E. CUNHA
Setting aside the partially derivative but superior Queen of Outer Space, the Cat-Women of the Moon were given another lease of life in 1959 courtesy of Richard Cunha's remake, Missile to the Moon. It's one of those remakes that, in retrospect, seems entirely unnecessary – Cunha had a short Hollywood career, this was his one go at helming a proper science fiction movie and like his other genre films was shot for $65,000 in less than a week. It improves on Cat-Women in terms of cinematography, but the script unfortunately – okay, inevitably – retained some of that earlier movie's rampant gender stereotyping. Missile is still reckoned to be Cunha's worst film by a long way, in my opinion not so much because he incorporated stock footage that somehow deadens the livelier parts, but because the drama-queen histrionics of the Moon Women are simply laughable and embarrassing for the actresses involved, and Cunha must at times have felt like he was directing a school play. Up until the moon landing the overall quality of the acting and script are fairly even, but it then proceeds to spiral down to the unlikely level of Cat-Women in terms of suspension of disbelief, and the explanation for the rocket from Earth running into the Moon Women at all is little better than that used in the earlier film.

Cunha had some good experience contained within his cast and crew, and not just the human variety: while lead actor Richard Lewis had played a minor role in the unforgettable Mesa of Lost Women and cinematographer Meredith Nicholson had also worked on the far inferior The Amazing Transparent Man, we were also treated to the same veteran Moon Spider from both Cat-Women and Mesa, found dismembered in a Hollywood props room, resurrected almost out of pity, re-assembled and brought back to the screen for an encore performance. Other actors went on to later genre credits: Leslie Parrish appeared in Star Trek, The Giant Spider Invasion and Logan's Run; K.T. Stevens made it as far as Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, however Nina Bara, previously in Space Patrol and who played a major role here, quit acting after this movie – are we surprised? – and Richard Cunha himself only made two more films before quitting the business. Of this trio of linked films, Missile doesn't quite come out of it the worst, but it's really only because of the cinematography that it could be considered any better than Cat-Women, and Queen of Outer Space tops them all by a long way.

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1950s SF film

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