MISSILE TO THE MOON In Color / Layton Film Productions Inc. - 1958

Welcome to the last 2011 Halloween Countdown post with Tabonga!.. Tonite we have a big bag full of colorized eye candy to hand out, here at The Dungeon!

This poster is a fine example of kitsch art, and, the lobby card proudly adorns our MMM splash panel! The movie is a remake of CAT-WOMEN OF THE MOON.

The music's by Nicholas Carras, who only had 23 composing credits, but, just the same, worked on these fine flicks... FEMALE JUNGLE, JUNGLE HELL, SHE DEMONS, DRAGSTRIP RIOT, FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER, HIGH SCHOOL CAESAR, DATE BAIT, HONEYMOON OF TERROR, DR. SEX, GIRL IN GOLD BOOTS, THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES, THE DOLL SQUAD and OMEGA SYNDROME.

Lettuce bring in our fuzzy lil' Dungeon helper and button pusher, that 7-eyed freek, Ralphie The Tarantula!.. Howdy there, Ralphie! He's here to start our Eariffic Soundclip for the last day of our countdown, so, push the big red 'GO' button near the granite slab, now, Ralphie! Here's... MISSILE TO THE MOON!

Richard Travis plays Steve Dayton, assistant in a project to send a 'missile' to the Moon. Here, he 'splains to the General about how his boss can get that hunk of metal out there to the Moon and back, all in one piece! Richard got his start in 1940 as a constable in KING OF THE ROYAL MOUNTED.

Here's a pair for you! That's Gary Clarke as Lon and Tommy Cook as Gary, escaped convicts. Gary had just played the Teenage Werewolf in HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER and Tommy had also been around, like Richard, since 1940! Check out the product placement.

The expedition is led by Dirk Green, Lon and Gary comprise his makeshift crew. Dirk is played by Michael (THE PHANTOM FROM 10,000 LEAGUES) Whalen.

On the way to the Moon, they encounter a meteor field. They used a V-2 missile for this shot!

After a few hits by some rocks, a big heavy battery breaks loose and smacks Dirk in the noggin when he tries to put it back in place... You know, it makes you wonder, if Dirk were so danged smart, why in the Hell would he put those batteries way up there??

I never really noticed that masonite rocketship exterior before!.. YOW!!

No movie taking place on the Moon would be complete without a few rubbery rock monsters roaming around! There were also rock monsters in HERCULES AGAINST THE MOON MEN. MTTM was filmed at Red Rock Canyon in California.

They ditch the creatures by ducking into a cave, where, they encounter a mysterious cloaked figure who knocks them out with a gas bomb.

When they wake up, they're surrounded by a bevy of beautiful, turquoise-skinned Moon Girls!!

Looks like the boys gots a bad case of the Moon Fever!

Alpha sets her eye on Steve and is able to hypnotize him into obeying her. Nina Bara plays Alpha, Nina made her name in her role as the exotic Miss Tonga in the 1951 SPACE PATROL TV series.

It's time for Alpha to take her palce as the new Lido of the Moon. They use the term Lido in QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE, too. Weird, Lido always sounded like a person couldn't pronounce the word 'leader' to me.

Looks a little different in color, don't it?!

Steve's girlfriend, June, is being held by Tabonga's dream girl, Miss Sanita Pelkey! Sanita was also Amelia in THE GHOST OF DRAGSTRIP HOLLOW.

A little funhouse bondage followed by a giant spider surprise!! The screams you hear in the soundclip are actually screams by Allison Hayes taken from ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN, and, you also hear those same screams in FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER and SHE DEMONS, two other films directed by Richard Cunha!

Hey, man!.. Why you shoot me in the ass?!!

Stop the dancing!

This was always one of my favorite parts, where the Moon Girl brings down the house, only to get beaned by a big hunk of styrafoam!

Faw down, go boom!..

Now I lay me down to sleep...

Greedy Gary gets his just Halloween desserts and becomes a big toasted Vanilla Flambé!

Good, now we can get the Hell back to Earth, just in time to go Trick Or Treating!.. HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERBLOODY!!!

THE MOUSE ON THE MOON - Ron Grainer - "Moonwise I'm Sure" (1963)

Among everything else, we've got a lot of great comedy films to showcase in the upcoming months, and so, just to get everybody in a good mood for the end of summer, we're going to do nothing but side-splitting horror comedy films for the next two weeks, starting with tonight's feature. It's the sequel to the riotous and very popular "The Mouse That Roared," the equally zany, but also spacey, "The Mouse On The Moon."

If the man of the hour, Ron Grainer had done nothing more than compose the themes to the British TV shows, "Dr Who" and "The Prisoner," he probably could have retired!

Not one to rest on his laurels, this child prodigy would never have been satisfied with just those major accomplishments, and he went on to be one of the most beloved composers in British TV history!

They make great vino in the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, there's only one problem, it's explosive!!

"Blithe Spirit" Margaret Rutherford is amazing in her portrayal of the Grand Duchess, Gloriana XIII. Margaret is probably remembered mostly as Miss Jane Marple, a role written by Agatha Christie, that Margaret would reprise a couple of times in her career. In fact, she was so perfect in the role that Agatha Christie dedicated her 1963 novel, "The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side" to Margaret!

So just exactly is going on here anyway? "The Mouse In The Moon" is a farcical flick about the 1960's Space Race, you gotta remember, this is way back even before John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and the United States and Russia were at each other's throats, so in this mouse tale, the small country of Grand Fenwick uses the keen competition between the two countries to get money donated to them for their own space program, but in reality they just want to fix up the plumbing in the royal palace!

These two photos show the missile that the USSR donated to the cause!!

The "Mouse" series was written by remarkable Irish author Leonard Wibberley. Three more entries, "The Mouse On Wall Street," "The Mouse That Saved The West," and "Beware The Mouse" were never made into films!!

June Ritchie had the role of Cynthia.....

....And Bernard Cribbins was the unlikely astronaut Vincent Mountjoy! Bernard's next role in a film would be "Carry On Jack" as Midshipman Albert Poop-Decker! Besides 94 acting credits, Bernard made quite a career out of playing himself, which he managed to do quite nicely in about 41 different TV shows!

The occasionally brilliant Terry-Thomas pops in as UK Spy Maurice Spender! You probably don't know that his real name was Thomas Terry Hoar Stevens!!

Director Richard Lester would end up directing two movies by The Beatles, "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!"

In the musical segment included, the band is torn back and forth between whether to hail the Russians or the Americans, and it makes for a pretty funny musical bit!

With the help of David Kossoff as Professor Kokintz Vincent Mountjoy is eventually on his way to the moon!!

Both the Russians and the Americans watch the proceeding attentively!

Grand Fenwick is the first to land on the moon!

A lot of people think that if Peter Sellers would have been in this second "Mouse" movie that it would have been a lot better, and more popular. Personally, I don't think it would have mattered, and Bernard Cribbins does a fine job as Vincent! Here he gazes wistfully at the Russian and American spaceships getting ready to land on the moon too!

The Americans and the Russians land at the same time in a tie for second place! More than the lack of star Peter Sellers, probably the real kiss of death for this flick was it's political commentary about the financial futility of the Space Race and the idiocy of politics in general! Remember, it would still be another six years before we actually did go to the moon!

It translates as "TOGETHERNESS - MOONWISE" - "Th, Th, Th, Th, That's All Folks!"