BEYOND THE MOON (1956)
(a.k.a. BEYOND THE CURTAIN OF SPACE)
Article #405 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-24-2002
Posting date: 9-17-2002

Rocky Jones takes on a mission to rescue a scientist from an enemy planet.

It is always well to remember when watching any of the Rocky Jones movies is that they are actually episodes of a TV series strung together. Fortunately, the show was somewhat serialistic in nature, though it abjured cliffhangers in favor of having a running storyline that took a few episodes to come to full conclusion, while each episode worked as a whole in its own context. If you carefully watch these movies, you will be able to tell where each episode begins and ends, and the overall experience is more enjoyable if viewed in that context.

I expected to be quite bored by this one, but was happily surprised. The special effects are quaint, some of the dialogue is horrible, but the episodes are quite well put together in terms of story, and it actually makes for entertaining space opera, not as manic as a theatrical serial, but much more satisfying from a story perspective. I enjoyed this one, and am looking forward to seeing some of the others.