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Rating: 
Summary: A very mixed bag to watch
Review: A very mixed bag of things to watch. Women astronauts at a time when the government wouldn't even consider such a thing, cordless phones (maybe the inventor got the idea here), people walking on the floor AND the ceiling in the space station(I liked that).Cartoon character Commie spies and doubles, grade school kid quality lunar landing(hadn't these people ever heard of using a wire to lower the model?), inconsistent treatment of women in the script (respectful then patronizing). The cheap spacesuits bothered me but I did think it was interesting the way they simulated lowering the astronauts to the surface of the moon, I just wish their little model men had been a little higher quality. Better than Rocketship X-M.
Rating: 
Summary: Wretched/Quaint by modern standards, but...
Review: As a 1953 follow-on to the 1950 Destination Moon (see also), this work is interesting in that it features the va-va-va-voom Donna Martell as Heinlein's typically strong but ultimately submissive female lead. Not necessarily bad unless you're a feminist, I guess; still she, like other Heinlein heroines, comes across sharp as a tack compared to the rather obtuse hammer-sack jocks she's compelled to work with.The paternal commander played by Hayden Rorke (aka Dr. Bellows in I Dream of Jeannie) is obviously a stand-in for Heinlein himself -- think of SiaSL's Jubal Harshaw in uniform -- who bizarrely shows his kink in threatening to spank his unruly female subordinate. Definitely creepy. This work anticipates Kubrick's 2001 etc by 15 odd years, but scans like the other straightforward, stiffly acted clunky space operas typical of the time. The plot and situations are adult and so I would not recommend this movie for preteens.
Rating:
Summary: SHE RIDES
Review: By 1970 the United States has put a station in space, and now we govern the heavens and keep an eye on our enemies - The Soviets, and keep them in line... but we have never landed a man on the Moon... much less a woman. Ahead of it's time, but hampered by a poor script, a television running time (only 63 mins) and some often dead on effects mixed with some dead wrong ones as well (check out the hand that lands the supply rocket on the moon... classic), this film is an overlooked gem that is worth watching at least once just to see both the far reaching ideas (the first person in space is a woman - yeah! The only reason why she was... she weighed less than a man... boo! A female President- yeah!), and the often disturbing relations between male and female (Col. Briteis - pronounced by everyone as "Bright Eyes", years before Zira named Col. Taylor the same - our spunky female hero is threatened by the station commander with a sound spanking if she dosen't grow up... and then of course there is that ending). It's uneven, odd, but compelling... if you're a collector of Sci-Fi then this is a must for your library.
Rating: 
Summary: A lot of fun to watch...
Review: It is a hoot. A silly but enjoyable piece of work from start to finish. The special effects (produced by an old friend)are fun to look at. The 1950s good guys (Americans) against the bad guys (communist)shows an interesting little piece of the American social world then. Worth the price just for the fun it supplies.
Rating:
Summary: Spies in space
Review: Shorts, tight t-shirts and funky skull caps are the uniform that will be worn for space flight in the 1970's. Actually this movie was somewhat accurate in the depiction of space flight. As seen through the eyes of people in the 50's im sure this was pretty high tech thinking. A commie spy forces a landing on the moon and the astronauts must find a way to survive for they cant get back to the space station. All in all a charming slice of cheese from a time at the hight of the cold war.
Rating:
Summary: Gorgeous DVD of essential 1950s space opera
Review: Somehow this movie never played on TV in my locale (Milwaukee/Chicago) when I was a horror-crazed kid (unlike apparently every other cheap SF flick of the period). For fans of low-budget 1950s space operas this is a terrific find. Project Moonbase neatly straddles the fence between "serious" science-fact specimens such as Destination Moon or Riders to the Stars and tacky "babes in space" fare like Cat Women of the Moon or Queen of Outer Space. It shares a similar look and feel with all those films and other typical titles of the era from Astor, Allied Artists, UA, and other independents, such as Missile to the Moon, Fire Maidens of Outer Space, War of the Satellites, etc. Co-written by pioneering modern SF icon Robert Heinlein (Destination Moon, The Puppet Masters, Starship Troopers) and low-budget western producer Jack Seaman, PM contains enough sober "speculative fiction"/rocketry tech stuff to satisfy hardware geeks as well as plenty of cool atomic-age design and forehead-slap-inducing sexism ("I ought to turn you over my knee and spank you") for irony-wallowing bad cinema fanatics. 'Genre' names peppering the credits include director Richard Talmadge (the silent movie star, stunt man, and 2nd unit director); Ed Wood's house cinematographer, William C. Thompson, and makeup man, Harry Thomas (unfortunately no one gets their face burned off with acid in this); former Columbia art director Jerome Pycha (Riders to the Stars, Unknown Island, Prehistoric Women), and future director (Cry Baby Killer, Twilight Zone, Lost in Space) Justus Addiss.
The year is 1970, the United States has a floating space platform, and the government is about to embark on exploration of the moon. The Russkies, who look and sound like Midwestern businessmen, find out, and decide to sabotage the operation by commandeering one of our spaceships and crashing it into the space station. To accomplish this, they infiltrate the mission with one of their 350 (!!) Exact Doubles of Prominent Scientists that they just happen to have lying around. After some talky explanations of gravitational principles by General "Pappy" Greene (Hayden Rorke, I Dream of Jeannie's Dr. Bellows), Major Bill Moore (Ross Ford), and Colonel Briteis (pronounced "bright-eyes," cringe now) played by Donna Martell (Rocky Jones: Space Ranger) are selected, along with the doubled Dr. Wernher, for the mission to observe the dark side of the moon, much to their mutual consternation. See, Maj. Moore and Col. Briteis used to be an item . . . . During these set-up scenes it seems like you're in for one of those dry Gog type of flicks, but hang in there, things start to pick up once the space flight gets underway. For some reason they scream and sweat profusely on takeoff (?!), and they all wear easily the silliest uniforms ever seen, comprised of tee shirts, short shorts, big honking belt buckles, and demure felt aviators' caps, which look cute on Ms. Martell but laughable on everyone else. Once they arrive at the space station we get a docking-with-the-space-wheel sequence, crazily angled sets, some (intentionally?) hilarious scenes of crewmembers matter-of-factly walking on ceilings and sitting on walls, and "please don't walk on the walls" signs posted in the corridors. (These scenes are strangely prescient of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey; could this be one of the dozens of SF flicks he screened while preparing his masterpiece?). Bill, Col. Briteis, and the fake Dr. Wernher take off from the station on the observation mission, Bill suspects Dr. Wernher's true identity (he's unfamiliar with the Brooklyn Dodgers!), they're eventually forced to ditch their craft on the Moon, and Bill and Wernher go EVA to set up a communications relay. Throughout all this we get lots of nicely realized spaceship and moonscape sequences, conceptually on par or better than anything in a comparably-budgeted movie, forgiving a few laughably obvious gaffes. I also love how it appears that people on the ship's view screen seem to be simply sitting behind a hole in the wall, and late-night TV junkies will fondly nostalgia-trip on the B&W "target" test pattern they occasionally display. It all climaxes (spoiler alert) with an incredible only-in-the-50s "family values" denouement wherein the downed craft is proclaimed Moonbase #1; the now-clinching Bill and Briteis are "ordered" to get married by Dr. Bellows, er, General Greene since they'll be cohabiting on the Moon until a rescue mission can be mounted; the president of the United States turns out to be a woman (!!); and Maj. Moore jumps Col. Briteis just as the closing titles fill the screen. While not as patently ludicrous as Cat Women, Fire Maidens, or Queen of Outer Space, Project Moonbase is similarly bent in its own unique way, and easily as entertaining (the 63 minutes fly by). Fans of cheap B&W 50s space epics cannot fail to be entertained. Highly recommended.
This is another in Image's generally outstanding Wade Williams Collection and doesn't fail to impress. For a movie of its poverty-stricken pedigree the print is spectacular, with excellent black level, contrast, and brightness; rich gray values and crisp shadow/highlight detail; and virtually no damage save some very light speckling and spotting. As near to pristine (as claimed on the case) as could possibly be expected. The only extras are 12 chapter stops and a lightly speckled and lined but otherwise very nice looking trailer. A bare-bones yet essential addition to the DVD library of any 1950s SF aficionado.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun to watch, but only because it is fantastically bad.
Review: This is quite possibly the worst screenplay ever; loose ends abound. It plays like a dream which jumps from one plot element to the next and never returns. Add to this the ho-hum acting, and you'd expect a really rotten movie. However, it is worth watching at least once for its visual effects which were quite good for the early 1950's. Between the silliness of the script and the interesting space effects, I'd recommend this movie for anyone who ever intentionally watched 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' and enjoyed it.
Rating:
Summary: Fun to watch, but only because it is fantastically bad.
Review: This is quite possibly the worst screenplay ever; loose ends abound. It plays like a dream which jumps from one plot element to the next and never returns. Add to this the ho-hum acting, and you'd expect a really rotten movie. However, it is worth watching at least once for its visual effects which were quite good for the early 1950's. Between the silliness of the script and the interesting space effects, I'd recommend this movie for anyone who ever intentionally watched 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' and enjoyed it.
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