'FIRST MEN IN THE MOON'.........LOST IN THE LENS PITS OF LUNA!

First Men In The Moon (1964)........we borrowed the headline for this post from one of the taglines from the movie's poster......although we always think "lost in the lens pits of luna" still stands as a good description of the BQ's state of mind since early childhood.....

            So much we love about this movie.....where to begin. Not only one of the most fanciful, thrilling and humorous of the Ray Harryhausen special effects spectacles, but as an added bonus for  lifelong Anglophiles like us.....it's oh so very British.....

            Some purists carped about this, but we got a kick out of master screenwriter Nigel Kneale and co-writer Jan Read framing the H.G.Wells novel as a flashback.......after a 1964 moon landing crew discovers they weren't the first to arrive. (And we still can marvel at how closely the film's 1964 depiction of a detached module landing on the lunar surface mirrors the actual real event five years later.....)

              Once the movie goes back to 1899, we fall head over heels for the picture postcard country cottages and Lionel Jeffries' relentlessly eccentric Prof. Cavor.  No British character actor ever worked harder to be lovable and exasperating at the same time as Jeffries........this role is the epitome of his cinematic work......(at times, so frenzied and apoplectic that he can only spit out two words at a time....."I'll explain.....I'll explain....")

              When the film finally gets to the moon, it's a visual feast of wonders. Ray Harryhausen's lunar world may be the stuff of fantasy, but in every shot, it's gorgeous to behold......(including those advertised lens pits the actors go tumbling through....)

               And befitting the only Harryhausen film shot in wide screen Panavision, the supreme wizard of special effects animates a suitably wide screen monster, a giant, roaring caterpillar with jumbo Toys-R-Us red eyes.....

                Ultimately, in the middle of the incident-filled final third of the movie, Jeffries' Cavor becomes something of a tragic hero, a lone empathetic humanist left by himself to comprehend an utterly alien, insectoid  society.  It's just a shame that the movie, which took its own sweet time getting him to the moon, didn't stay with him for an extra scene or two at the end......

                 That's enough quibbling......back to the goodies......Laurie Johnson's thunderously ominous main title music, deftly duplicating the heft of a Bernard Herrmann score......the surprise cameo by Peter Finch as an bumbling official......and a brief wonderful comic bit by the iconic Miles Malleson.

                 For a highly recommended BQ getaway, nothing beats an H.G Wells/Ray Harryhausen trip to the moon......4 stars (****).....and just as the posters and the film's opening credits promise.....it's all photographed in glorious...Luna-Color!