BY ADRIAN SMITH
William
Blood (Kenneth More) is a man with an incredible immune system and without worries.
He spends most of his time working as a human guinea pig for government departments
such as the Common Cold and Flu Research Agency. There he frustrates the men in
white coats by stubbornly refusing to catch a cold. He never gets ill, and his
secret is that he has no emotional attachments. “The minute you get into a
relationship with a woman, your guard is down and the coughing will start!â€
News of this remarkable constitution gets to the scientists at N.A.A.R.S.T.I.,
the National Atomic Research Station and Technological Institute, who are
preparing to send the first maned rocket to the moon. They have previously sent
up dogs and monkeys, but owing to public complaints about cruelty to animals,
they have decided it would be far better to send a human. However, it is far
too risky to send one of their trained astronauts. After all, training is
expensive. Far better to send William Blood instead in the first rocket, and
provided he gets there in one piece, they will then send up the real
astronauts. This sounds like a fool-proof plan, but what is not accounted for
is a distraction, in the shapely form of stripper Polly (Shirley Anne Field),
who has fallen in love with him.
Once
Blood begins his astronaut training he has to face the other jealous astronauts
lead by a young Charles Gray, who are furious that they won’t be the first on
the moon after all their preparations. However, he does have the project leader
Dr. Davidson (Michael Horden) on his side, and he goes through a rigorous
raining regime featuring extreme temperatures and G-force simulators to prepare
him for the adventure ahead.
Man in the Moon is a
delightful film with a sparkling and witty script written by Bryan Forbes and
Michael Relph. Basil Dearden’s direction is inventive and makes use of some
excellent location work at RAF Denham alongside impressive sets built at
Pinewood Studios. It is a perfect encapsulation of an England on the cusp of
great change. Blood, whizzing around in an open-topped Messerschmitt
bubble-car, is the epitome of modern man, whilst those in charge at
N.A.A.R.S.T.I. he meets are still wearing tweed and smoking pipes. His thinking
is progressive, as he has no qualms about seducing a beautiful woman whilst still
actively berating the institution of marriage. The Britain of Man in the Moon has one foot in the war
years, the other in the Atomic Age, with an endearing performance by Kenneth
More at the centre of it all.
In
his forty-year career, Basil Dearden made dozens of film, many of which are now
considered classics. With notable hits including Violent Playground (1958), The
Blue Lamp (1950) and The League of
Gentlemen (1960), he clearly had an affinity for film noir-style crime
dramas, and it is perhaps easy to forget that one of his early hits was
actually the early Ealing comedy The
Goose Steps Out (1942) starring Will Hay. Dearden made many films for
Ealing Studios, even contributing to the classic supernatural portmanteau Dead of Night (1945). His last film was the
supernatural mystery The Man Who Haunted
Himself (1970), frequently cited by Roger Moore as the best film he ever
made. Sadly, Dearden died in a car crash shortly after completing the film, the
accident occurring in the very spot where months earlier they had shot Roger
Moore’s character’s car crash for that film.
Man in the Moon is another release in Network Distributing’s ‘The British Film’
collection, and as such comes with little bonus material, limited to an
original trailer, image gallery and press book. Despite this reservation it is
still a superb release. The main reason for watching is to see an excellent
transfer from original elements, and like all the films in their collection, Man in the Moon is a forgotten
but entertaining gem.
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