Woman in the Moon(aka Die Frau in Mond, Fritz Lang, 1929) It's the 52nd anniversary of the first Moon Landing by humans (and yes, it did happen and it happened five more times—which brings up the question "why would you fake it six times?"), but movie-makers had been imagining such a scenario for almost as long as there have been movies. There is, of course, A Trip to the Moon, made in 1902 by Georges Méliès, but another one—at least the one that survives—is Fritz Lang's fanciful adaptation of his then-wife's novel "Die Frau in Mond" which was produced two years after his landmark work, Metropolis.
The story tells of an industrialist, Wolf Helius (Willy Fritsch), who visits a scientist, Professor George Manfedt (Klaus Pohl), living in decrepitude after being laughed out of academia by his vision of traveling to the Moon. Manfredt speculates that there is valuable mineral deposits on the Moon, including gold, which would make such a journey economically advantageous—no need for any sort of political one-ups-manship to stimulate such a reckless adventure. Helius begins plans for such a journey. But, there are complications.
A cadre of rival industrialists have been following Manfredt's work, and they dispatch a spy (Fritz Rasp), using the name "Walter Turner", to gain access to the plans. They rob Helius, gaining access to the research, and demand to be part of it, or else they will make attempts to sabotage the project. With so much at stake, Helius agrees to their demands and the man named "Turner" is allowed to accompany the flight.
Also on board will be Helius' two assistants, engineer Hans Windegger (Gustav von Wangenheim) and Friede Velten (Gerda Maurus)—for whom the moon-ship, Friede, is named. The two have recently announced their engagement, a proposal that Helius privately disapproves of, as he is also in love with Frieda. The ship is launched, but, unbeknownst to the vital but conflicted crew, there is a stowaway on board, the youngster Gustav (Gustl Gstettenbaur), who is an avid collection of pulp science fiction magazines.
Now, look. The thing about science fiction, however the media it is presented in, is that it is actually "Prescience"-fiction—a leap of imagination that takes a look at the world and pre-cognitions what it will be in the future. This is always a bit problematic, for there is more than a chance, as we advance through the years, with ever more diverse discoveries and technologies, that the imagineer will get as much wrong as they can get right. When the year 2001 arrived, it was ruefully noted that the movie 2001: a Space Odyssey—as strenuously researched as it was—was wildly off the mark. Not only were there no manned flights to Jupiter, but we were decades from its achieving its vision of Pan-Am shuttles routinely flitting into space (and, in fact, by 2001, Pan-American had gone out of business!). It did get I-pads right, though...
So, one can look at The Woman in the Moon and chortle with the advantage of hindsight about there being gold, or water (found with a divining rod?), or a breathable atmosphere on the Moon, or that the gravity might be equal to Earth's, or that such a primitive craft could make it there.*
But, look at what they got right: The flight would have to be achieved with a multi-stage rocket; the launch vehicle is constructed in an industrial building and then tracked to a launch-pad; they get "G"-forces right, putting the passengers in horizontal beds; although technically wrong, when the rockets are shut off, the crew experience micro-gravity—at one point, the engineer flicks a bottle so he can drink the floating water "bubbles" as has been so often demonstrated on space-flights—using foot-straps to negotiate around the craft; it's the first instance of a "countdown" to launch (a minor point, but still...).
It's eerily prescient. And one is struck by such scenes as the crew reacting visibly to their first "Earth-set."
Or maybe not so prescient. Maybe, it's cause and effect. Scientists Hermann Oberth and Willy Ley were advisers to the film, and it was very popular at the German VfR, which counted among its members a young student named Wernher von Braun.
Director Fritz Lang lived long enough to see the first Moon landing in 1969. For real, this time.
* Uh-huh. One of the conspiracy theories I "love" is that we couldn't have gone to the Moon in the 1960's because the technology was so primitive back in those days. By today's standards, sure, but, also, these days out more intricate technologies are much more fragile—go ahead, drop your I-phone, which has more computing power than the Apollo computers had bolted into their control panels. What is true is that, today, we might have the technology to fake a moon landing—but we didn't in the time they occurred.
Spite Marriage(Edward Sedgwick, Buster Keaton, 1929) Buster Keaton's second film for M-G-M was supposed to be a full sound film, but was made silent—sound (and a weakening of Keaton's control in the production) would come with his next film Free and Easy. Ingenue Trilby Drew (the very game Dorothy Sebastian) is the toast of Broadway in her latest play "Carolina" but off-stage she's being shadowed by a diminutive well-tailored suitor. He's there at functions for her on the edges of crowds, a horse-ride in the park has him waiting by the road unsteadily simultaneously trying to tip his hat and keep control of his horse. He is Elmer (Buster Keaton), a "presser" at a local cleaners, borrowing the fine clothes of his clientele to make a good impression and then sticking them back on the hanger for pick-up, pocketing the fee rather than putting it in the cash register, so that he can live in the manner to which his beloved is accustomed.
That includes going to every evening performance of "Carolina" where he sits in the front row and pines and applauds every entrance and exit...even taking advantage of a case of mistaken identity to appear as an extra, just to be that much closer to her. Trilby finds Elmer a nuisance (he is, after all, a stalker), but when her co-star begins stepping out with another woman, Trilby finds him useful. He is, after all, always within arm's reach.
Just to stick the knife in a little deeper, she decides to marry the overwhelmed and overawed Elmer. But, it can't come to any good, and after two unconsummated wedding nights, Trilby's manager tells Elmer that he must leave so that Trilby can save face, sue for divorce and salvage her career. Elmer, heart-broken, decides to leave and, circumstances being what they are in a Keaton comedy, he finds himself on the very same private yacht that Trilby is on to get away from the publicity.
Keaton, a girl, and a boat. Never a good combination if you want a restful sea cruise. Some of it might seem familiar if you've seen The Navigator, but there's a funny sequence when Keaton is below in the engine room, when a porthole opens and water starts gushing in.
It is interesting to watch this last silent film of Keaton's. You get the impression he's slowing down a little—not in his speed, he still runs like a bat out of Hell. It seems like the chances he takes are a bit more careful, like he was being pressured from M-G-M to do a little less stunt-work to protect their investment (he was 34 at the time of Spite Marriage). I wanted to talk about this in the post on Free and Easy (which will be someday), but it's more appropriate to talk about this now. This is probably the last film where Keaton seems like a young man, naive and inviting of the audience's sympathy and support. He seems like a moon-calf, a young innocent far less sophisticated than the world of sharps and authority figures who will pursue, take advantage of, and, at times, overwhelm him. And it's because he has no voice. With his next film, he will protest his treatment in his low gravelly, basso voice, which makes him seem older, but not wiser, and so his protestations have a whiny, helpless quality, which the deeper voice works against. Keaton's characters will seem less innocent and more pathetic, inviting audience scorn, rather than sympathy (this will become especially true with Free and Easy, showing that M-G-M had absolutely no idea what to do with him, once they sought to "improve" him, and tried to make him fit the mold of the day. Or what they thought was the mold of the day—a cookie-cutter template to improve returns. What works is for Keaton to be mute, his "stone-face" betraying little emotion, until he up and hits somebody in the face, which shocks and provokes a laugh. With the silent movie format, he is surprising, which is the essence of comedy; if he tells you how he's feeling, his character comes across as a complainer and a grouchy complainer at that. No, Keaton is better and more effective silent, and Spite Marriage will be the last full-length example of just how effective that formula could be.
