Moon Zero-Two
A space salvage expert and his partner become involved with a group of criminals intent on hijacking a small asteroid made of sapphire and crashing it into the moon for later recovery. The only place that they can bring the asteroid down without drawing attention to themselves is a far side mining claim. But first they must dispose of the miner. Little known to them, however, is the fact that the miners sister has hired the same salvage team to help her locate her missing brother.
The world's first Space Western, brought to us by the world's greatest purveyor of classic horror films, Hammer. I think somebody at Hammer wanted a change from Dracula, but they couldn't decide what to do; Hammer's first attempt at science fiction, and their first western, finally coming up with what is arguably a remarkably original film and a parsons egg with a lot of neat touches rubbing shoulders with the ghastly music score.
The general plot would not have felt out of place if our drifting hero spacemen came into town on their old nags, shook the dust from their stetsons and demanded a finger of rye at the saloon. Actually they do it with helmets instead and the knackered old horse looks like an extended version of Armstrong's lunar lander from the same year. We also get the required dancing girls, gun fight and bar room brawl.
Which is the first neat feature. The film was set in the not to distant future and it is only politics that has prevented the colonisation of the moon, quite possibly with structures not unlike those they depict.
Not a huge leap of faith to see the idea of miners invading the place to mark out claims for their future wealth either, or periodically invading the nearest station for their booze and titilation.
They get another plus for the fact that they remember that there is almost no sound in space, beyond the percussive shockwave from a gun and that guns effects on people after they have been shot. Pity so many later Sci-fi forgets this.
Effects are, as expected from Hammer, limited, cheap and sometimes downright corny, like the previously mentioned bar room brawl. Then it is difficult to pretend to fight in 1/6 gravity without actually having it (Good marks for effort though). And the moon buggy was very obviously manufactured by Tonka down to the labels.
Styles are classic 60's visions of the future, from PVC to a mixture of the beehive hairdo's from Star Trek, the purple wig things they used for UFO and uniforms for Space 1999.
A space salvage expert and his partner become involved with a group of criminals intent on hijacking a small asteroid made of sapphire and crashing it into the moon for later recovery. The only place that they can bring the asteroid down without drawing attention to themselves is a far side mining claim. But first they must dispose of the miner. Little known to them, however, is the fact that the miners sister has hired the same salvage team to help her locate her missing brother.
The world's first Space Western, brought to us by the world's greatest purveyor of classic horror films, Hammer. I think somebody at Hammer wanted a change from Dracula, but they couldn't decide what to do; Hammer's first attempt at science fiction, and their first western, finally coming up with what is arguably a remarkably original film and a parsons egg with a lot of neat touches rubbing shoulders with the ghastly music score.
The general plot would not have felt out of place if our drifting hero spacemen came into town on their old nags, shook the dust from their stetsons and demanded a finger of rye at the saloon. Actually they do it with helmets instead and the knackered old horse looks like an extended version of Armstrong's lunar lander from the same year. We also get the required dancing girls, gun fight and bar room brawl.
Which is the first neat feature. The film was set in the not to distant future and it is only politics that has prevented the colonisation of the moon, quite possibly with structures not unlike those they depict.
Not a huge leap of faith to see the idea of miners invading the place to mark out claims for their future wealth either, or periodically invading the nearest station for their booze and titilation.
They get another plus for the fact that they remember that there is almost no sound in space, beyond the percussive shockwave from a gun and that guns effects on people after they have been shot. Pity so many later Sci-fi forgets this.
Effects are, as expected from Hammer, limited, cheap and sometimes downright corny, like the previously mentioned bar room brawl. Then it is difficult to pretend to fight in 1/6 gravity without actually having it (Good marks for effort though). And the moon buggy was very obviously manufactured by Tonka down to the labels.
Styles are classic 60's visions of the future, from PVC to a mixture of the beehive hairdo's from Star Trek, the purple wig things they used for UFO and uniforms for Space 1999.
