Woman in the Moon

The entrepreneur Wolf Helius and Professor Manfeldt, ridiculed for years, build a rocket to reach the Moon. Manfeldt's claim is that there is gold on the far side. A criminal gang hears of the plan and gets its own man onto the crew. The journey succeeds, but on the way back there is not enough oxygen for everyone. Fritz Lang directed. Thea von Harbou adapted the screenplay from her own 1928 novel. It opened on 15 October 1929, at the end of the silent era. The scientific advisers were Hermann Oberth and Willy Ley, which is the real reason the film is still cited. Much of what is on screen later became actual practice: the multi-stage rocket, water on the pad to absorb heat and noise at launch, the crew lying flat during acceleration, straps holding them to the floor in weightlessness. The most lasting item is a dramatic invention: the countdown before launch. This film is cited as the first occurrence of counting down to zero, now used everywhere. Lang put it in for suspense, not for science. It was banned in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945 for its resemblance to the V-2 rocket programme. The first successful V-2 launch at Peenemunde carried the film's logo on the rocket. Who it is for: anyone curious about the origins of science fiction and Lang's silent period. Who it is not for: viewers wanting pace. It runs close to three hours and the rocket does not lift off until halfway through.