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Lordy save us from true believers

At this moment TCM is blessing Saturday morning viewers who don't care for cartoons or warmed-over news, with Byron Haskin's From the Earth to the Moon (1958). Last time I'd seen this I was a kid on The Late Show (back when the Late Show meant local movies & not David Letterman cracking wise).

I'd forgotten what a turkey this sucker was, as Joe Cotten invents 'Power X' just after the Civil War and uses it to power a moon rocket. (Its design looks swiped from Melies). Haskin did far better work for George Pal (War of the Worlds, anyone? The Power?) not to mention a half dozen episodes of the 1960's Outer Limits, but it's stiff city here, with head-on camera set-ups, cheez-o-rama spfx & dialog that sounds like it was cut 'n pasted straight out of Jules Verne's century+ old novel.

Biggest insult is the film's swiping of Louis and Bebe Barron's Forbidden Planet 'electronic tonalities' for wallpaper soundefx. (It must be a sci-fi movie with all those weird sounds, wowsers!) However, biggest surprise is [SPOILER TIME, as if anyone cares about a 50 year old obscure flick] --

urbane George Sanders plays a religious zealot who sabotages the mission because he believes space travel is against God's will. Let's go to IMDB-land where we discover that in 1955 Haskin also directed George Pal's Conquest of Space - where one of the crew sabotages the mission because he believes space travel is against God's will. Coincidence, eh wot?

Boy, I'd like to see a mainstream film come out today that posits raving a religious fundamentalist as a crazed menace to everyone in his orbit (pun intended.) I mean, Huckabee Hound is running for the GOP nomination on a 'the bible is literal objective fact' platform... Oh wait a second - according to the reviews, Darabont/King's The Mist has exactly such a character running amok. My apologies to you, gentle reader.

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Joe Strike has written about animation for numerous publications. He is the author of Furry Nation: The True Story of America's Most Misunderstood Subculture.