Stowaway to the Moon
Stowaway to the Moon
NR | 10 January 1975 (USA)
Stowaway to the Moon Trailers

E.J. Mackernutt, Jr., an 11-year-old boy who has always been fascinated by space and astronauts, sneaks into Cape Kennedy and becomes a stowaway on a spaceship scheduled for a lunar landing. After he is discovered, NASA at first cancels the landing, but E.J. and the astronauts convince them to go forward with it. Problems arise when one of the astronauts is incapacitated by illness and the other two are stranded on the moon's surface, but E.J. is able to command the space capsule and save the day.

Reviews
Baseshment

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

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Matrixiole

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

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BelSports

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

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Lidia Draper

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

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jefffisher65-708-541158

Stowaway to the Moon is a film I can recall from my childhood when I was also a dedicated real-life space flight follower, and can recall the final moon flights fairly well. Anybody else ever have the Science Club booklet, Apoloo-to-the-Mooon Map with those paste-down stickers, and/or maybe even the model kit of Apollo Eleven on the Mooon? Anywyay, I doubt today's kids would be interested, non-digital, you see.Anyhow, I only saw this film once on a rare television showing since the 1970s, but the handful of reviews here sums it pretty well. I suspect the movie was meant to be entertaining as much as anything else, and perhaps the rushed ending was due to the low made-for-TV film budgets as much as anything else. It was good to see Lloyd Bridges and John Carradine, of course as well as real-life moonwalker Cahrles Conrad in a small role. I wish somebody would bring this out on disc for nostalgia's sake.

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agb8369

I remembered this as a kid like some others. IF this movie was an after school special catering to kids, my perspective would be different, but it was not when released in 1975.1. Even pre-terrorist days, launch sites were locked down tight. Especially then with a war still in its wake. No kid is going to sneak aboard.2. There is not as much space as depicted in the capsule. They are tight, just as the capsule the kid is shown in at the beginning of the movie.3. The guard entrances when the dad cam in would not have been so lax.I could go on all evening on this flick since it is clueless and lazy with effort. Based on the insanely rushed ending, they somebody must have gotten how bad this was and cut the budget- hence the abrupt and nonsense ending. Even as a kid all those years ago I thought the kid was dreaming, up until the end. Due to the odd demeanor of the adults and the lack of logic, I thought the movie was intended to be the kid dreaming and it then would have made sense. Reason being, the movie literally seems like a dream of an eleven year old.From a kids perspective, the movie would be a 7/10, since THEN it would make sense.

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TVholic

It's been so many years since I last saw this. Sort of a children's version of "Marooned" or an earlier, better version of "Spacecamp."Young EJ is an intelligent, young boy with an obsessive interest in the space program. So he hatches a plan to sneak past the launch support crew and surveillance cameras during the launch preparations for the "Camelot" moon mission, managing to get himself into the Apollo space capsule. Once they're en route to the Moon, he's discovered. His presence causes problems and strains the resources of a spacecraft meticulously designed to hold only three men, but he also helps solve other problems that arise and so gains the respect, friendship and admiration of the astronauts.Child actor Michael Link did a fine job in the titular role. EJ was written as highly intelligent but not a precocious smart aleck like so many child characters today. A young nerd, as it were. Most of the adults were fine as well, including veterans Lloyd Bridges and John Carradine. Note that all the scenes at "Houston" were actually filmed in one of the Kennedy Space Center firing rooms (launch control center) in Florida.It was the daydream of many a young boy and certainly some young girls (paging Dr. Sally Ride) in the years immediately following the Apollo missions to be an astronaut. "Stowaway" took that a step further with a dream of going into space without having to grow up (and grow old) first. But show this movie to most kids today and they would be likely to not only find the special effects lacking (which is not all that important) but the space program dull and uninspiring.. How times have changed. No longer does the nation cluster around TVs, holding its collective breath throughout each mission People have become jaded to space, even though the shuttle only goes up every few months at most -- no more often than the Moon missions did. If JFK could see the level of disinterest today, he would cry. Shows and movies about the space program (as opposed to space operas, alien invasions and the like) are rarities today. Only a few come to mind from the last two decades. The Right Stuff, Apollo 13, From the Earth to the Moon, Spacecamp, Space Cowboys. Alas, the last two were targeted at diametrically opposite age groups. All of us would benefit if some of the early wonder were instilled in generations now and yet to come.

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miller-movies

Lloyd Bridges and John Carradine are the only big name actors in this TV movie, but the remainder of the cast do fairly well. This is a film about a NASA Moon mission, with a boy who stows away in the trash compartment. While moderately simplistic, it does a good job of showing what an actual mission was all about. Michael Link stars as the title character. Do not expect massive FX, tho there is some good footage from the Apollo missions. Astronaut Charles Conrad provides some nice insight as a news reporter. Shown on Fox Movie Channel on June 5th... it might be repeated. 7.

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