July 19, 2026
Frau im Mond (The Girl in the Moon) 1929
Frau im Mond is a weird ride.
A bizarre mixture of ahead of its time hard science and absolute woo, it tacks a 1950s space opera onto the back of a noir espionage thriller with cyberpunk and populist propaganda overtones.
The special effects, while obviously dated, are actually superior technically and viscerally to many much later films.
Fritz Lang has a legendary filmography, both German and American, though, aside from Metropolis (1927) and a few of his Westerns, I am shamefully unfamiliar with most of it. However, I do note some similarities in style and pacing, particularly the nagging notion that one is watching two films simultaneously.
Like Metropolis, the film is based on a novel by prolific German writer Thea von Harbou (who was also the screenwriter) and her take on sci-fi is quite interesting.
This is not strictly an effects film and the special effects (if one disregards matte paintings) take up at most 2 minutes at most of a 3 hour film, but they are very effective.
The effects were done with the consultation of Hermann Oberth, a rocket scientist of great renown who later mentored a certain Werner Von Braun and a cadre of others who are best known for mischief perpetrated around Peenemünde and the triumphant glory they later sent from Cape Canaveral. His own contributions to spaceflight include the multi stage rocket, Oberth Effect (a gravity assist technique), and pioneering analysis into the math of ion drives. The rocket in this film is a multistage affair and has a remarkable degree of verisimilitude despite some...poor ergonomics.
The film has as its antagonists a group of international bankers and a particular individual who looks astonishingly like a certain genocidal Austrian after a shaving accident. This was only 4 years before darkness descended upon Germany, and I do wonder if Lang (who had to quickly flee Germany after the National Socialists took Power) intended the character to be a expy.
While I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, the ending is...odd. I will say no more but the levels of "WHAT!" are high.
Also: One of the conceits of the film is that the protagonists are trying to prove a disgraced scientist's theory (that the far side of the moon has a breathable atmosphere) so it is not as hard a hard sci fi film as I had been led to believe.
My only complaint about the film is that I have the distinct impression that several title cards were omitted from the English translation, however Lang's excellent direction and the skill of the actors mean that the film does not suffer for it.
I quite enjoyed the film and recommend it, the VOD of last night's broadcast is available for a time here https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2823457224 (the actual film begins at about the 15 minute mark).
I'm leaving it up despite there being an audio issue early in the broadcast It's a silent film so it does not really matter.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
02:37 PM
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