Destination Moon – 1950
August 21, 2009
It’s pretty amazing what you can buy on Amazon for $3. Destination Moon is one of those great finds. It’s one of the first space exploration movies that took into consideration the prospect, technology, and problems of space travel (Fritz Lang’s “Frau Im Mond” also attempted this in 1929 although little was know about feasible space travel.) The film was produced by George Pál, who later produced “When Worlds Collide”, “The War of the Worlds”, and “The Time Machine”. The film won the Academy Award for best visual effects in 1950!
I even found some great stills in the LIFE photography archive! The vision of space suits in the future is AWESOME!
The Invisible Agent 
Loved it as a kid, and nostalgic for it now. I remember being fascinated as a kid by the face-stretch sequence, thinking ‘how’d they do that!?’
Well, it deserved the Oscar then.
You missed the reason that anybody still talks about this today, which is that Robert Heinlein was heavily involved with it, which is why it diverges from the standard sci-fi movies of the time with regard to technical considerations.