Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon

1967
5.2| 1h35m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 13 July 1967 Released
Producted By: Jules Verne Films Ltd
Country: United Kingdom
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

Phineas T. Barnum and friends finance the first flight to the moon but find the task a little above them. They attempt to blast their rocket into orbit from a massive gun barrel built into the side of a Welsh mountain, but money troubles, spies and saboteurs ensure that the plan is doomed before it starts...

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Director

Don Sharp

Production Companies

Jules Verne Films Ltd

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Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon Audience Reviews

Karry Best movie of this year hands down!
UnowPriceless hyped garbage
Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Neil Welch A lot of people in Victorian dress fanny about while proposing to build and send a rocket to the moon.This film should be sued under the Trades Descriptions Act for several reasons.One, the title sells it as Vernian science fiction: it isn't. Sending a rocket to the moon is the furthest thing from its tiny little mind.Two, it is presented as a comedy: it isn't. That would require the script to be funny, an area in which it fails woefully.I award it points for good period detail, and a great cast who do the best the can with the poor material they have been given, with the exceptions of Troy Donahue and Daliah (not Deliah) Lavi, who both manage to be worse than the script. No mean feat.
merklekranz There is nothing wrong with 'Blast Off", if you are willing to travel back to Victorian England, and enjoy the era. The era of scientific wonder and adventure, is depicted quite nicely. What is not depicted quite nicely is any kind of cohesive story. Vascillating between science fiction, farce, and romance, gradually scrambles the story to the point of bewilderment. While things start off with master showman P.T. Barnum and his miniature sidekick Tom Thumb trying to stage one of their spectacular "events", the movie eventually deteriorates into slapstick. "Blast Off" does have a few moments of dark comedy intertwined with all the nonsense. "Don't they usually give medals after the return trip?" - MERK
theowinthrop In the 1960s there was a new phenomenon in movie comedies: the comedy that included every known comic in the business, usually in some mad plot. America gave us IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD,THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!,and THE GREAT RACE. Britain gave us THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES and MONTE CARLO OR BUST. Both of those films dealt with speed contests (the 1910 London to Paris air contest, and the first Monte Carlo rally). Both had several comic actors in them (Terry-Thomas, Gert Frobe, Tony Hancock, Dudley Moore and Peter Cooke, Tony Curtis, Alberto Sordi). Then, in 1967, came THOSE FANTASTIC, FEARLESS, FLYING FOOLS (also known as ROCKET TO THE MOON). Like the other two films from England, it was a period piece, set in the 1870s. But the story is basically a transposed version of Jules Verne's FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON. The original novel was set in Florida (oddly enough near modern day Cape Kennedy)after the American Civil War. In ROCKET TO THE MOON P.T. Barnum plans to build a "Columbiad" cannon inside a mountain in Wales, and have the moon capsule piloted by General Tom Thumb. Instead it becomes a British national issue, and a committee is formed headed by Dennis Price (the Duke of Barset - another literary borrowing, only from Anthony Trollope). Unfortunately Terry-Thomas and his business partner Lionel Jeffries are also involved in the committee, and they both see a chance to make money on this. Jeffries is the original capsule builder, but Barnum points out that Jeffries design only enables the capsule to go to the moon period. "Hold it laddy," intones Jeffries, "I was told to design a capsule to get a traveller to the moon...nobody said a word about getting him back." Jeffries is replaced. Subsequently Price discovers that Terry-Thomas has been gambling away the committee's money, and he is fired. Facing financial ruin, both men decide to sabotage the project. Gert Frobe, the inventor of the new explosive to use to send the vehicle to the moon, is a totally mad German scientist. His best moment in the film is a whimsical one. He has designed vocal semaphore devices that you speak through. This enables the two people who are communicating not to be heard and understood by anyone else, for the machines break down the words to syllables that are hard to understand. The other person, using the other semaphore (but winding it backwards)is supposed to reattach the syllables into an understandable set of words. Unfortunately, as Frobe discovers, the device does not quite work. "I can't understand a word he's saying.", a doubtful Frobe says.Actually Burl Ives and Terry Thomas have choice moments too. Ives accidentally stumbles on the site where some of Frobe's explosive is being tested, and desperately tries to break the fuse with a rock and his cane. Terry Thomas has designed an early automobile that runs on "gas" - meaning "neon" from street-lamps. Jeffries says that the whole nature of the vehicle is immoral - it runs on stolen gas! "That's not the point!", says Terry-Thomas, "It's very economical!"It is not a bad film, and can be a little enjoyable in its whimsy.
Wilbur-10 This is a shoddy effort which seems to have been cobbled together to ride on the back of 'Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines' (1965) and the like.Proceedings begin with a long prologue introducing the Victorian age of invention and adventure, which leads us on to the P.T. Barnum character whose latest plan is to send a man to the moon.The story unfolds like a third-rate childrens pantomime with lots of sight-gags and silent comedy exaggeration. Caricatures abound with clear labels as to who should be hissed and who should be cheered by any audience member still awake.Even allowing for any post-production difficulties which the assortment of alternative names the film goes under would suggest, the final effort is insulting to the intelligence and all age groups will be bored by the tedium it offers.Even Troy Donahue doesn't add a spark to the dismal affair, his dashing hero character coming off like a poor man's Doug McClure without the charisma or acting ability. An inferior McClure clone would normally be a contradiction in terms, which only goes to show just how low the bottom of the barrel is which 'Rocket to the Moon' scrapes.BEST SCENE - the closing credits had me cheering from the rooftops.