WOMAN IN THE MOON (1929)
(a.k.a. FRAU IM MOND)
Article #323 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 2-1-2002
Posting date: 6-18-2002

A trip to the moon is financed by people who believe gold is to be found there that will help them corner the gold market.

This is lesser Fritz Lang, but nonetheless I consider it an important film in the history of science fiction; the plot is fairly disposable, but the detail that went into the science fiction aspects of the story is quite impressive. I suspect this movie may have had an influence on some of the early space flight movies of the fifties; at one point or another I saw traces of DESTINATION MOON, ROCKETSHIP X-M and CONQUEST OF SPACE. This wasn’t the first trip to the moon (Melies’ did that), but it was the first one I know of that actually tried to be somewhat scientifically accurate, and despite some obvious flaws (atmosphere on the moon), it’s quite impressive. It certainly is the first movie to use the countdown in a rocket launch, and that seems to be what it is most remembered for anymore, but there’s really a lot of other interesting things about it.