First Men In The Moon
The film begins with a team of United Nations astronauts planning an upcoming moon mission. The astronauts are both confused and intrigued by a man (Edward Judd) who claims he, his fiancée and a scientist journeyed…
Source: YouTube Movies
About the Movie
The film opens in the present day: a United Nations expedition has just landed on the Moon, expecting to plant the first flag — and instead finds a British flag and a note claiming the Moon for Queen Victoria, dated 1899. Back on Earth, investigators track down the note’s author, elderly Arnold Bedford, who tells the story.
In 1899, Bedford (Edward Judd) and eccentric inventor Joseph Cavor (Lionel Jeffries) coat a spherical capsule in Cavorite, a substance Cavor has invented that shields gravity, and blast off for the Moon with Bedford’s fiancée Kate in tow. They land, explore in diving-suit spacesuits, and discover the Moon is hollow and inhabited by the Selenites — an insect-like civilization living in vast caverns below the surface. First contact goes the way it usually does: wonder curdles into capture, escape, and a frantic race back to the sphere.
Why This Movie Matters to Sci-Fi
First Men in the Moon is one of the key H. G. Wells adaptations and a flagship of British science-fiction cinema, made special by Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion Selenites and effects. Coming five years before Apollo 11, it let audiences of the space race rehearse the Moon landing through Victorian eyes — and its framing device, modern astronauts finding evidence of an earlier voyage, is a reminder of how long humanity dreamed the landing before it could build it. It also stands for the charming, ingenious era when a British inventor in a sphere covered in shutters could carry a whole moon voyage on invention and nerve.
Where to Watch
Watch the full film FREE on YouTube (free with ads, from YouTube Movies): Watch the full film FREE on YouTube.
