12 to the Moon (1960)

An international team embarks on an expedition to the moon in an uncommonly spacious rocketship. There they encounter a faceless alien intelligence who conclude that the human race is too ... See full summary »

Director:

David Bradley

Writers:

Fred Gebhardt (story), DeWitt Bodeen (screenplay)

Stars:

Ken Clark, Michi Kobi, Tom Conway

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Ken Clark	...	Capt. John Anderson
Michi Kobi	...	Dr. Hideko Murata
Tom Conway	...	Dr. Feodor Orloff
Anthony Dexter	...	Dr. Luis Vargas (as Tony Dexter)
John Wengraf	...	Dr. Erich Heinrich
Robert Montgomery Jr.	...	Roddy Murdock (as Bob Montgomery Jr.)
Phillip Baird	...	Dr. William Rochester
Richard Weber	...	Dr. David Ruskin
Muzaffer Tema	...	Dr. Selim Hamid (as Tema Bey)
Roger Til	...	Dr. Etienne Martel
Cory Devlin	...	Dr. Asmara Markonen
Anna-Lisa	...	Dr. Sigrid Bomark
Francis X. Bushman	...	Secretary General of the International Space Order

Storyline

An international team embarks on an expedition to the moon in an uncommonly spacious rocketship. There they encounter a faceless alien intelligence who conclude that the human race is too immature and dangerous and must be destroyed.

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Plot Keywords:

moon | alien | the moon | helmet | space ship | 

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Taglines:

Ride the Excitement Orbit to the Moon with the First Space Explorers!

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Genres:

Sci-Fi

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

June 1960 (USA)

Box Office

Budget:

$150,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Pictures Corporation, Luna Productions Inc.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

74 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Despite the overall low budget nature of this film, the producers obtained the services of the highly regarded cinematographer John Alton. This became one of two features shot by Alton during the final year of his active career. This did not indicate a decline in Alton's professional reputation; the other film shot that year was the far more upscale Elmer Gantry.

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Goofs

Clothing can be glimpsed on the woman taking a "shower" on the rocketship.

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Crazy Credits

The "starring" cast credits are shown against a background of stars. Each name seems to zoom outward from the center of the screen, like meteors in a shower; but as each one appears it stops and remains onscreen until all 12 names are visible simultaneously. Ken Clark's name is the first shown, followed in order by Michi Kobi, Tom Conway, Tony Dexter, John Wengraf, Bob Montgomery Jr., Phillip Baird, Richard Weber, Tema Bey, Roger Til, Cory Devlin, and "and Anna-Lisa"; but when they have all settled in their places, the first row of names has Clark, Baird, Dexter, Til, Conway; the second row has Devlin, Bey, Montgomery, Wengraf; and the third row has Kobi, Anna-Lisa, Weber. Francis X. Bushman's name appears on a second screen as a "guest star".

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Connections

Featured in Mystery Science Theatre 3000: 12 to the Moon (1994)

User Reviews

The moon IS made of green--er--grey cheese!

Could any space flick be worse than The Angry Red Planet? Yes, it could. The script for the disaster at hand is so dopey and disjointed that it could have been scrawled out in crayon by a classroom of third-graders, each child submitting a short scene that teacher then patched together, helter-skelter. As for the actors, some of them are without doubt competent. They've exhibited this in other movies. But, here, with such dipsticky dialogue, no one could ever know. It makes it easy to understand why Tom Conway turned to drink and died broke. The story starts with a big strike against it: twelve characters with little to distinguish most of them. There are nine white guys, two women--Swedish and Japanese--and a Nigerian man whose accent never sounds West African and sometimes slips into Southern American. The hatch is scarcely secured when the inter-ethnic squabbling and recriminations start. Didn't these people get acquainted before blasting off in a rocket? From the amorous behavior of the females with two of the males, one would think so. But maybe there's something in the air--or lack of it. There must be some air, even on the moon, since the spacesuits don't have visors. The ship itself, with its bare-bones instrumentation and lack of even a beep or buzz, must be of such advanced technology that it all but runs itself. But, no, that can't be right. The teen math whiz has to use paper and pen to calculate a path through a meteor shower. The medical personnel has to struggle with wrap-around blood pressure cuffs--which they obviously don't know how to use. The only recorder on board--oh, forget it. There are, in addition to the dozen humans, two cats and two monkeys in plastic cases, two parakeets in a traditional cage, and one spaniel on a leash. The boy genius tells them they've been brought along to see if they'll mate on the moon. In the doggie's case, the answer is probably no. One silly circumstance follows another, but maybe the most asinine is that involving a screen-scrolled message from the Moonmen. Although it's somehow known that they communicate only telepathically, they have chosen to relay a series of repetitious, somewhat hieroglyphic-looking symbols. One crew member decides that the writing looks Chinese (it doesn't) so the Japanese woman is told to translate. She does, without a hitch. Now, who but a very young child could make such an assumption?