EDITOR’S NOTE: Missile to the Moon was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, May 9, 1970 at 11:30 p.m., Saturday, April 24, 1971 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, September 2, 1972 at 1:00 a.m.
Missile to the Moon is an even lower-budget remake — is that possible? — of the low-budget 1953 film Cat-Women of the Moon.
That movie had 3D, but this one has much younger men in the heroic roles and an army of international beauty-contest winners playing the moon maidens. But the dreaded moon spider? Yep. That’s the very same prop from the original film. It was originally built for the movie Tarantula, so here’s to Hollywood for being green years before anyone knew what recycling was.
This film was shot in the Vasquez Rocks, where cheap films often show what the moon or an alien planet looks like. A red gel over the camera lens was an attempt to make the sky look different, yet the script offered no science. How do people explode into flames when there’s no oxygen, after all?
Anyways, two escaped convicts named Gary (Tommy Cook, who is also in High School Hellcats and would go on to write and produce Rollercoaster) and Lon (Gary Clarke, TV’s The Virginian) stow away on a rocketship that Dirk Green is piloting back to his home satellite, the moon. He’s soon killed by a meteor storm, of course.
Also on board are hunky Steve Dayton and his fiancée June (Cathy Downs, The Amazing Colossal Man), who obviously have no idea what they’re getting into. They all soon find themselves up against an underground empire of gorgeous moon women and their evil ruler, Lido (K. T. Stevens, who also shows up in They’re Playing With Fire).
Rock men. Giant spiders. Nina Bara, who was on TV’s Space Patrol. Leslie Parrish, who would go on to pretty much invent C-SPAN and remains an environmental activist. Laurie Mitchell, who plays a very similar role in Queen of Outer Space opposite Zsa Zsa Gabor. Marianne Gaba, the Playboy Playmate of the Month for September 1959, who also plays a robot in Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine. These are the menaces and maidens that our convicts must face on…the moon!
This was directed by Richard E. Cunha, whose Frankenstein’s Daughter made the other half of the double bill that this movie appeared on. H.E. Barrie wrote it, and he was also behind She Demons and Girl in Room 13 (two other Cunha films), along with Vincent Fotre, who wrote Baron Blood.
I have a weakness for movies where female societies have taken over the moon. I blame, of course, Amazon Women on the Moon.
