Frau im Mond (1929)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Fritz Lang

Writers:

Fritz Lang (writer)
Hermann Oberth (technical material)

Release Date:

6 February 1931 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Sci-Fi

Plot:

A scientist discovers that there's gold on the moon, he builds a rocket to fly there, but there's too...

Plot Keywords:

Moon | Rocket | Gold | Dark Side Of The Moon | Count Down

Cast

Willy Fritsch	...	Wolf Helius
Gerda Maurus	...	Stud. astr. Friede Velten
Klaus Pohl	...	Professor Georg Manfeldt
Fritz Rasp	...	Der Mann, der sich derzeit Walt Turner nennt
Gustl Gstettenbaur	...	Gustav (as Gustl Stark-Gstettenbaur)
Gustav von Wangenheim	...	Ingenieur Hans Windegger
Tilla Durieux	...	Fünf Gehirne und Scheckbücher
Margarete Kupfer	...	Frau Hippolt, Haushälterin bei Helius
Alexa von Porembsky	...	Eine Veilchenverkäuferin
Gerhard Dammann	...	Der Werkmeister der Helius-Flugwerften (as Dammann)
Heinrich Gotho	...	Der Mieter vom II. Stock (as Gotho)
Alfred Loretto	...	Zwei eindeutige Existenzen (as Loretto)
Max Maximilian	...	Grotjan, Chauffeur bei Helius (as Maximilian)
Edgar Pauly	...	Zwei eindeutige Existenzen (as Pauly)
Karl Platen	...	Der Mann am Mikrophon

Also Known As:

By Rocket to the Moon (USA)
Girl in the Moon (UK)
Woman in the Moon (USA)

Runtime:

156 min | 200 min (2000 restoration) | Spain:104 min | Spain:162 min (DVD edition) | USA:95 min | West Germany:91 min (edited version) (1970)

Country:

Germany

Language:

German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

Germany:(Banned) (1933-1945) | Spain:T | West Germany:6

Company:

Fritz Lang-Film

Trivia:

This film shows the first countdown to launch of a rocket. Not just the first one in a movie, but the first ever: it was invented as a dramatic device for the movie. Also depicted for the first time are the use of liquid rocket fuel, a rocket with two stages, and zero gravity in space.

Goofs:

Continuity: The inter-title dialog refers to rocket ship H23, yet the photo and subsequent references are to rocket ship H32

Quotes:

[Opening intertitle]
The Author: "Never" does not exist for the human mind... only "Not yet."

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Disneyland: Man in Space (#1.20)" (1955)

Soundtrack:

Heimlich singt für uns die Liebe

There's a nice little film wandering around…somewhere

It's about 40 years since the last manned flight left the moon, and 40 years before that "Woman in the Moon" hit the silver screen. So we can admire the prescience of Willy and Werner in their multi-stage rocket and their depiction of zero gravity. But I struggled with the most non-ergometric controls ever engineered, the atmosphere of the moon, the presence of bubbling springs of water, and a divining rod(!?) used to find gold. The film also gets into trouble with its many and varied subplots—the two-men-in-love-with-the-same-woman subplot, the speculators-cornering-the-gold-market subplot, the evil-spy-network subplot, the cute-kid-stowaway subplot… It makes for a long film (my DVD comes in at 149 minutes) and a not very interesting one. The expressionist acting style wears after a while, and the slow-moving plot doesn't help matters. I loved the rocket launch (done by Oskar Fischenger, whose short animation films you should check out), and am able to put up with a fair amount of hokum in the name of entertainment. But this isn't one of Lang's best efforts.