THE LOST MISSILE (1958)
Tagline: You won't believe your eyes - but you'll never forget what they see!
(Sci-Fi, Stock Footage, Alien Missile) [G]
Note: This movie wasn’t given an MPAA rating, but I would say it falls into the category of G.
There must be at least two million children in New York. I wonder how many will get out alive.
In this one, an object that scientists discover is basically an alien missile or ship that is burning at a million degrees headed toward earth. A rocket is sent up to intercept it but ends up diverting it into an orbit around earth destroying everything in its path. Can science fix its mistake in time to save the world? Also – a couple of the scientists want to get married, but one decides getting married can wait.
Oh man, first off it seems like about 80% of this movie is straight-up stock footage. In the movie's defense, the first director sadly died on the first day of shooting. His son took over and may not have been very inspired to finish the film? Or perhaps he was just inexperienced. In any regard this movie is so unintentionally funny it’s oddly fun to watch. Yes, that is pretty crazy for a movie with this much destruction, but yeah. It’s all pretty comical. Lester Wm. Berke ended up only directing this one movie and an episode of Quincy M.E. He was a production manager on THE KARATE KID PART III though, so that’s pretty cool.
The main actress in this movie is Ellen Parker who plays Joan Wood. Parker isn’t exactly horrible in this movie, but there are some parts where both her and male lead Robert Loggia are both doing some serious overacting. I don’t recognize any of Parker’s films, but Robert Loggia is basically a Hollywood legend known for everything from INDEPENDENCE DAY to SCARFACE. We also get a bit of Phillip Pine who played Dr. Joe Freed in this but is probably better known for THE PHANTOM FROM 10,000 LEAGUES.
Overall I couldn’t stop laughing for a lot of this movie. The effects are pretty bad overall, but some of the rocket designs are actually pretty cool. Where it gets funny is when anyone is driving. The road behind them looks like a freakin maniac filmed it and everything is going at 100 miles per hour. There are some pretty bad lines in this movie that are meant to be serious but come across as comedy. We do get a small love story in this but it’s mostly filled with strife and interrupted by pending doom.
Ultimately I can say that THE LOST MISSILE is watchable, but everything is so under-explained, that it feels like there wasn’t even really a plot formed when they started filming. Everything just feels very thrown together and hastily crammed between stock footage. We even get an extremely bizarre scene where a gang of hoodlums breaks down and needs a car, so they end up stealing our hero’s jeep that has a warhead on it designed to save the world.
I have to give this thing a 2 out of 7. While it is watchable, it’s not very interesting in the final analysis and there are far better “rocket” based movies out there.
GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF WILLIAM BERKE PRODUCTIONS INC. AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.
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