ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

______________________ Man and the Moon


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[Shown aso as "Tomorrow the Moon" in 1959]

This amazing Disneyland episode thrilled viewers both young and old in 1955 and again in 1959 by presenting a "science factual" view of the first exploratory flight to moon.













The show is directed by veteran Disney animator Ward Kimball, who presents the audience with an entertaining look at mankind's ancient superstitions concerning the moon before the program embarks on a wonderful simulation of what the first trip to the moon might be like when it's accomplished by America's space program.

This is a live-action segment, complete with fantastic models of a lunar spacecraft and an orbiting space station.







The most exciting moment in this thrilling program occurs when the lunar spacecraft fires a flare at the dark and mysterious "backside" of the Moon — and the astronauts gaze down at evidence of an alien outpost which once existed on the part of the lunar landscape never before seen by man!











Fans of 1950s science fiction films will enjoy this intelligent and dramatic presentation of mankind's future in space.











In many ways, this is the best science fiction movie made in the 1950s — despite the fact that it's only 20 minutes long, never played in movie theaters, and was only viewed in black & white!



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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[orzel-w]

Love those animated introductions giving the historical background material, such as the Dark Ages, when the moon was scarcely mentioned...



"Moon."
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...or not...

WayneO
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[Rick]

Nothing to say about this one. Just that I was looking through your Chronological Index and found that this was the only title listed from the '50s which I hadn't seen.

I don't feel too bad about it because it was, after all, a TV episode and not a feature film. Plus, there's a very good chance I saw it on the Disney show. I watched that pretty regularly as a kid and I do remember seeing some space stuff on the show, just not sure if this was it.

But, anyway, thanks for the YouTube link. I'll check it out soon as I can.
_________________
Man need not kneel before the angels,
Nor lie in death forever,
But for the weakness of his feeble will.

[Brent Gair]

This was/is available on a "Disney Treasures" DVD set released in 2004. I have the set.

However, it's OOP so an unopened copy is going to cost more than a few bucks these days.

[Eadie]

I'm lucky. Butch has every one of the Disney space programs AND all of the models — 2 of each, in fact. One built and one still in the original box.

Brent what does OOP stand for?

[orzel-w]

I wanna guess! I wanna guess!

"Out Of Production"?
_________________
...or not...

WayneO
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[Brent Gair]

OOPS! (pun intented) .

I hate it when people use acronyms for things and I've committed that very sin. I've been hanging around too many home video forums for too many years (where OOP is a common acronym)!

Yes, OOP stands for Out Of Production or Out Of Print.

[Bud Brewster]

[orzel-w]

That one short had remarkable production values for just a TV segment. It makes me wonder how much its cost per minute compared with other TV and movie properties of the time.
_________________
...or not...

WayneO
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[Bud Brewster]

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Exactly! I'd venture to say that the budget for that segment alone rivaled some of the best sci-fi movies of the 1950s, if you discount the salaries of the well-known actors whose presence inflated the budgets of those films.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Rick]

Well now, Bud... I know this is trailing you a little off-topic, but what well-known actors are you referencing? Kenneth Tobey? Michael Rennie? Gene Barry? Kevin McCarthy? Grant Williams? Certainly not John Agar? Well, I guess they were sort of well-known, at least in their generally B-film and often supporting roles.

Point being, the s-f films of the '50s, even the good ones, didn't generally feature big money actors. No John Wayne or Gary Cooper or Martin & Lewis or Audrey Hepburn or ... much of anybody. There wasn't really much moolah in the actors' column of the ledger.

Just off the top of my head, I'd guess the highest-paid actors in the big '50s s-f movies might have been Patricia Neal, who still wasn't exactly raking in the big bucks, and Walter Pidgeon, who was on the downslope, on a long-term contract, and in a movie which, whatever he was paid, didn't stint on the effects.

Years ago, I saw Kenneth Tobey at a Fangoria Weekend. He was introduced with a beautiful montage of movie scenes showing him dealing with a variety of '50s monsters. When Tobey came onstage, he remarked that it looked like he'd been awfully busy, but, in truth, most of those jobs were a week or two, not highly paid. He also said that he'd made much more money by selling real estate than he ever had from the movies.

Maybe, as a retired actor, I'm too sensitive on this subject. Certainly the big stars, particularly nowadays, are grossly overpaid, just like star athletes. But nearly all of those '50s s-f heroes and heroines were just working Joes and Janes, trying to make a living at a job where you're doing pretty well if you're actually working a third of the time.
_________________
Man need not kneel before the angels,
Nor lie in death forever,
But for the weakness of his feeble will.

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

You'd know much more about this than I would, Rick, but I was just thinking perhaps that actors like Gene Barry or Michael Rennie, with feature films to their credit, might be paid more for an appearance in a full length movie released by studios like Paramount and 20th Century Fox, compared to complete unknowns like those in Man and the Moon, which was only a 14 minute segment of a Disneyland television episode.

Add to this the fact the cast of Man and the Moon was comprised of only four actors, whereas full length features like Conquest of Space had a much larger cast, thereby causing the budget to be much larger for that reason alone.

So, the budget of Man and the Moon is, as they say, "All right there on the screen."



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____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Rick]

Oh, I'm sure they were paid more. They just weren't paid a lot.

What I'm hopelessly trying to say is that the movies just were what they were. If they'd had actors who only got union scale, the cast budget would have been less for those movies, but it's doubtful the effects budget would have been boosted.

MAN AND THE MOON was Disney, as was 20.000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. (I forgot that one for my earlier post.) Certainly the likes of Kirk Douglas and James Mason were very well paid, but Disney still spent zillions on the effects because...it's Disney.

Same with FORBIDDEN PLANET over at MGM. They had good, solid actors, though probably only Pidgeon really made much, but they still spent a ton on effects because it was MGM and it was a big movie to begin with.

In those cases, replacing Kirk Douglas or Walter Pidgeon with Joe Schmoe wouldn't have provided any more dollars for the effects because they already had a lot of money thrown at them.

On a smaller movie, replacing Gene Barry with Sam Nobody would have saved what?? Probably a couple of thousand dollars at best. Would George Pal have then said, 'let's spend that money on another ray blast'? Probably not.

The reason that these effects look so good is that Disney wanted them to. But, in this case, actors really didn't matter much. It wasn't a theatrical movie, after all, it was only a segment on his TV show.

Frankly, I'd rather have Grant Williams and the effects we now have for INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, than Al Anonymous and an extra pass through the optical printer.

Bottom line...I can't think of a single movie from the '50s in which replacing an actor with a cheaper (and probably less talented, less appropriate) actor would have tipped the scales to improve the effects even a jot. I certainly wish that THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS had better effects, but John Agar was probably already making not much over scale and saving a few bucks wouldn't buy a better brain balloon.

Those movies are what they are, and that's what they would have been whoever was starring in them. Certainly the filmmakers could have spent more on the effects, but the acting budget had nothing to do with what they spent.

I mean, if they'd hired a total nobody to star in WAR OF THE WORLDS, they would be downgrading the whole movie, figuring they'd sell fewer tickets, so they'd not spend more money anywhere.

Am I making any sense? I'm trying to. Just saying, wishing for better effects is great, thinking you'd get better effects by hiring cheaper actors just does not compute.
_________________
Man need not kneel before the angels,
Nor lie in death forever,
But for the weakness of his feeble will.

[Bud Brewster]

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Thanks, Rick! That's interesting.

I think maybe you missed the simple point I was making after Wayne said this —

[Rick]

Oh, yes, sounds very reasonable. Sounded reasonable right from the beginning. I just saw actors being blamed for bad special effects and took off a-runnin'.
_________________
Man need not kneel before the angels,
Nor lie in death forever,
But for the weakness of his feeble will.