This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

One of the best films i have seen

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Given what we now know about the moon (and knew in 1964), a 'true' film version of Wells' "First Men in the Moon" would be a complete fantasy and likely seem ridiculous to most viewers, with men in tweeds and waistcoats wandering around on a plant-covered lunar surface. While the film keeps the story in the Victorian age, some changes were made to make the images more 'realistic' to mid-20th century viewers, such as 'space suits" (modified diving suits) and references to lunar oxygen-manufacturing technology (so the actors are not always talking from a helmet). The film opens with a 'modern' moon landing, during which a tattered Union flag and a letter claiming the moon in the name of H.R.H. Queen Victoria is found. The letter leads investigators to an old man (Bedford) who recounts how he, his fiancée and a scatterbrained inventor named Cavor traveled to the moon in 1899, and what they encountered there. The first third of the movie is tedious: slapstick humour in Cavor's lab, the introduction of the obligatory female (Bedford's fiancée, whose primary purpose is to be threatened or to have things explained to), an irrelevant backstory concerning Bedford's finances, etc. , but things improve when the Cavorite coated sphere bursts though the roof and heads to the Moon. The special effects are a mixed bag. The opening moon-landing is visually well done but the 'realism' is ruined (IMO) by the sound effects, which would not be heard in the vacuum of space or on the lunar surface. Ray Harryhausen's stop motion work on the 'moon-calfs' and on the Selenites is very good (unfortunately, the few animated Selenites serve to emphasise the less effective 'man-in-a-costume' nature of the rest of their kin). Some of the moon surface scenes are excellent (resembling Chesley Bonestell's classic 'space art'), but the images of the Selenites' underground city are less convincing. Much of the film is played for laugh's (especially Cavor's eccentricities, which are usually punctuated with goofy trombone riffs) and the humour has not aged well. The ending is very different from the book (although similar to another of Well's seminal works of science fiction) and seems to trivialize what is in fact a serious concern in interplanetary exploration. Watchable but dated in a number of ways and likely a disappointment to most H.G. Well's fans.

Not widely reviewed because it is currently only shown in the USA in two places: The free movie channel owned by Sony-Columbia and also on TCM. One of my favorite all-time enjoyably cheesy Dynamation-Charles H. Schneer productions! Very corny by today's standards, with primitive yet effective stop-motion animated monsters by "The Master" Ray Harryhausen. Starts out very slow. Indeed, it is almost half way through the film by the time we finally blast off (or float off) to the moon. It stars one of my favorite comic British actors, Lionel Jeffries, who is probably better-known to American audiences for his role in "Chitty Chitty Bang! Bang!" The "Selenites" (moon people) are very creepy and the "mooing" over-sized moon cow-caterpillar on the rampage is my favorite bug-eyed monster! The moonscape set is very fake-looking and this just adds to the fun of this old movie! Another fault is that the moon people in rubber suits detract from their "Dynamation" counterparts. I also bet you can see the "fly" wires on the "astronauts"! Sony Home Entertainment re-released it in Feb. 2017 on DVD and Blu-Ray and once again it is already in short supply! No one there realizes what a popular title it is! Thus, it is (again) almost impossible to buy this title at a reasonable price ($40 for a Blu-Ray is outrageous!)

FMITM can't be compared to Ray Harryhausen's best films like Jason And The Argonauts or Mysterious Island, but this version of H.G. Wells' ingenious novel, while simplifying much of the story, is an engaging little sci-fi fantasy in the main: the sort of fantasy movie they used to make before Star Wars came out! It concerns, of course, Lionel Jeffries' eccentric Professor Cavor and his anti-gravity substance Cavorite. Falling in with Edward Judd's rascally Bedford and his accidentally along for the ride fiancée Kate (Martha Hyer), Cavor undertakes a trip to the moon, discovering an alien race of insects named The Selenites, who seem to behave perfectly reasonably towards the invaders considering numbers of them are pushed into caverns or shot!Indeed, the irony of this is surely unintended: we are meant to look upon the intrepid adventurers as heroes! Most of the time the Selenites are played by child actors in insect costumes, slightly reminiscent of screen-writer Nigel Kneale's Martians from Quatermass; however the leader-insects are superbly rendered by Harryhausen's stop-motion genius.In truth, the performances of the actors are irritating, particularly - and surprisingly given his talent - Jeffries. But the movie looks good, provides Disney-style entertainment, and never outstays it's welcome. It's a good family movie, with enough cheese to cover the surface of the moon!

Once Ray Harryhausen hit his stride with Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, he practically never looked back. First Men In The Moon was a bit of a hiccup.It's not an unsuccessful movie as such, but it's not terribly successful as a vehicle for Harryhausen's particular artistry, and this is because there isn't a great deal of opportunity for the type of effects sequence in which he specialised.It is an adaptation of HG Wells' story about an eccentric inventor who invents an anti-gravity substance which he paints on a sphere which becomes the vehicle for his moon trip, framed with a non-Wells (then-)contemporary sequence. Lionel Jeffries plays inventor Cavor very well: it is not his fault that the character, as written, is profoundly irritating. Edward Judd has more luck (but not much) as impetuous everyman Bedford, and Martha Hyer is called upon to stay there where it's safe a lot.Set design is terrific, physical effects are fine, but Harryhausen's work seems a little lacklustre, perhaps due to the technical difficulties encountered in readying effects for the widescreen format used: there are even moments when you notice sub-par registration of different elements in an effects shot.Not a failure, but not wonderful either.