Project Moonbase (1953) – Review

Back in 2019 when then-President Trump signed a $738 billion defence spending bill he officially created what is now known as the Space Force, making it the sixth branch of the U.S. Armed Services – one assumes he didn’t know that the Air Force has had a military space program since 1945 – but Trump was not the first to label such agency “Space Force” because back in 1953 science fiction legend Robert Heinlein co-wrote with produce Jack Seaman a film called Project Moonbase in which members of the “Space Force” dealt with not only the dangers of space but that of communism as well.

Set in the distant year of 1970 Project Moonbase tells the story of man’s first attempted orbit of the moon and in this speculative piece of science fiction Robert Heinlein gives us a rather 50s view of the future, a time when men were men and women got the coffee. The opening crawl explains to us that in 1954 due to the prevalence of atom bombs and inter-continental rockets it had become necessary for the United States to establish a Space Station that would act like a “Military guardian of the sky” and we learn that in 1966 the first orbital flight was performed by Colonel Briteis (Donna Martell) and then by 1970 the Space Station had been built and soon “Free men were reaching for the Moon to consolidate the safety of the Free World.”

Historical Note: The first orbital flight was in 1961 by Russian astronaut Yuri Gargin but in 1966 the Americans were the first to orbit the Moon, so I’ll give the film credit for being somewhat close on that predicted timeline.

As a film Project Moonbase wasn’t simply a science fiction story that explored man’s desire to venture into space but also a pointed warning about the “Red Menace” though not about aliens from the red planet Mars but of communists and their plot to stop America’s colonization of the Moon and their further domination of space. A group of Russian fifth columnists are tasked with coming up with a plan to destroy the American Space Station within the next two months, a plan that involves finding a person that is being sent to the Space Station who they can replace before launch with one of their own, lucky for them it turns out that Doctor Wernher (Larry Johns) is being sent to orbit the Moon to survey landing sites for future lunar missions and they just so happen to have an agent who is a perfect double.

“Quick, get me the Bureau of Plot Convenience.”

Meanwhile, over at USAF SPACOM, we learn from General Greene (Hayden Rorke) that Space Force is planning a one-shot loop-around the Moon to take photos of the dark side and be a proof-of-concept that it can be done in the future with bigger and fuller rockets, the commander of this mission was to be Major Bill Moore (Ross Ford) but at the last minute word from Washington bumps him to co-pilot in favour of Colonel Briteis. Needless to say, this doesn’t sit well with Moore because not only is Briteis a woman but she’s already bumped him once before back in ’66 with first Earth orbit, apparently, her being 90 lbs vs Moore’s 180 was the deciding factor, and even Greene isn’t all that thrilled and both these jagoffs continue to denigrate Briteis, such as repeatedly calling her “Bright Eyes” against her wishes and stating that her promotion in rank was more political rather than earned. Things get even tenser when Colonel Briteis arrives and is just as upset to learn that Moore is to be her co-pilot “The big lug hates me, he’s jealous of me” to which Greene responds “Shut up BrightEYES, and listen to me! Major Moore is the best pilot we’ve got, better than you are!” and then he threatens to spank her.

This movie’s about space exploration, right?

Women have had a rather sordid history when it comes to science fiction as they were either getting coffee for the men or screaming in terror from whatever bug-eyed alien that was the menace of the day, but with Project Moonbase, we not only have a woman in command but later we learn that the President of the United States is a woman (Ernestine Barrier), something America is still waiting to happen, sadly, that is as progressive as this movie gets as Donna Martell portrays her character like a 15-year old girl and not a seasoned officer in the military, a performance that goes from acting pissy to mooning over the man in the course of the movie’s short run-time. But as terrible as Martell’s character is in this movie the men on display are far worse and the sexism is cranked up to eleven with the aforementioned spanking threat being beyond absurd, and when Greene goes off on Briteis it becomes cringe-inducing, especially when he points out that Moore deserves the job more than she does which leads to this glorious rant.

“If he weighed 90 pounds instead of 180, he’d be a Colonel and a public hero and you’d still be a Captain, but you got the orbiting flight, you got the ticker-tape parade and all the rest. Ever since then you’ve been too big for your britches. Get me?” he then proceeds to tell her “You’re not a superwoman, you’re a spoiled brat! Anymore guff out of you and I’ll turn you over my knee and spank you.”

“Now, how about you make me some cookies?”

I would have love to hear what women of the 50s thought of such callous depictions of the fairer sex, looking back at it now it’s hard to believe that this was even remotely acceptable, yet somehow this attitude not only existed but remained prevalent in science fiction movies for years to come. Now, it should also be noted that this was initially intended as a pilot film for a TV series to be called “Ring Around the Moon” but due to the sudden popularity of science-fiction movies producer Jack Seaman opted to turn this thing into a feature film, adding just enough footage to qualify it as one, but this was done without the knowledge of writer Robert A. Heinlein and he disowned the end result. But why would Heinlein care about this, could it be that he’d hope a long-running series would be a better vehicle to propagate his rampant sexism? Heinlein was the sort of man who would praise the superiority of women while inadvertently revealing that deep down he thought they were clearly inferior to men and needed to be controlled.

“My Futuroscope tells me I have a long wait for equality and respect.”

At just barely an hour with that all-encompassing sexist banter filling up the script there isn’t a lot of time for that whole Russia saboteur plot line – he’s easily exposed by Moore for being an imposter despite Briteis claiming Bill has gone “Space Happy” with his suspicions – and after a brief fight, the fake Wernher is apprehended but not before Briteis accidentally hits the boosters, which saves their lives, but leaves the ship critically low on fuel. Briteis freaks out a bit here, stating “Bill, I muffed it!” despite her actions saving them all, and when she gets upset she apologizes “Sorry for going female on you, Major” and with that thousands of women throw their remotes at the television set.

“I may have saved the day but I still feel like a traitor to my sex.”

This movie was intended to portray space travel in a “realistic” manner and where our society could be going in the future but as the bulk of the film’s running time deals with the Red Scare and overt sexism there really wasn’t much room for actual science and what we do get is often just as silly and wrongheaded as other contemporary science fictions films that were full of giant space spiders and alien invasions. Explanations of gravity and warp speed litter the script but the depictions of such things were not only hampered by the budget but the writer’s lack of basic understandings of science. For example, aboard the Space Station, the crew must wear magnetic boots to walk around due to the lack of gravity, clearly, the idea of a spinning space station hadn’t happened yet, and we get such fun signs posted stating “Don’t walk on the walls” yet walking on the ceiling was clearly allowed.

The Topsy-Turvy world of Project Moonbase.

Stray Observations:

• General Greene states that the space station’s hull is made of titanium but that would make the use of magnetic shoes needed to walk around in no gravity useless due to the low ferrous quality of Titanium.
• The G forces of the rocket launch causes the male crew members to scream and sweat profusely while Colonel Briteis illustrates that women simply do not perspire at all.
• The Russian imposter is replacing a photographer born in Brooklyn but they didn’t bother to teach him anything about photography or Brooklyn and thus he’s exposed by not knowing who the Dodgers were, which makes him a pretty poor imposter.
• The film ends with our two “heroes” getting married but one must assume that Bill gets promoted to Brigadier General because a wife certainly couldn’t outrank her husband.

“I now pronounce you Space Husband and Space Bride.”

The truly sad thing is that the blatant misogyny found in Project Moonbase wasn’t at all that rare and though this is one of the worst examples its themes run rampant across the genre, and I would say that this public attitude most likely have had a rather negative effect on women when it came to joining the military or agencies like NASA, how could a young girl dream of going into space with this kind of thing as an example? Robert Heinlein was the worst kind of liberal as his views on the equality of the sexes was couched in some of the worst pieces of sexism brought to book or screen, sure, Heinlein is responsible for some great works of science fiction and such viewpoints could be said were simply “A product of the time” but this sort of ideology remained in his writings clear into the 80s so that doesn’t wash. If taken as a goofy science fiction film from the 50s Project Moonbase does have some charm but as a glimpse into the future, it’s a bloody nightmare.

Where is Duck Dodgers and his Eager Young Space Cadet?