Probably the first film to deal realistically with the possibilities of space travel, The Woman in the Moon (Frau im Mond) is a landmark in the field of filmed science-fiction.  Produced by famed German director Fritz Lang three years after his epic Metropolis, the film was made with unprecedented attention to detail and science that had never been a concern in the Méliès-style fantasies that had defined the field up unto this time.

     Professor Hermann Oberth, who later worked on the Nazi V-2 and, still later, for George Pal on Destination Moon, provided technical input.

     The plot begins as Professor Manfeldt goes before a meeting of important science guys and expounds upon his theory that the Moon is rich in gold and that a manned rocket could fly there to mine it.  He is laughed off the stage.

     Years later, young Helius consults with the Professor and tells him that he has pulled together the funding to make the Moon trip.  Also going on the trip will be Windegger and his fiance Friede (formerly Helius' fiance), and Turner, a representative of the financial backers.

     The mission is quickly mounted and very well visualized by Lang.  From the historic countdown,  the movement of the rocket to its launch point, the launch of the rocket submerged in a pool of water to the impressive special effects of the rocket in flight, the entire launch sequence is a highpoint of the film. Interestingly, this older film actually does something most later films would not--it shows a rocket that is a multiple-stage affair.  It also is on more solid ground with the rocket concept than H.G. Wells himself would be years later with THINGS TO COME, where the first space mission was launched with the primitive 'rocket gun' approach.

     The flight to Luna is equally interesting, as the characters deal with the stock situations that they were still doing in films thirty years later-- dealing with the lack of gravity, life in space, the approach to the Moon.  The whole film is quite successful and interesting through these points--

     --but unfortunately comes to a screeching halt following the landing on the Moon.  By asserting a shirtsleeve, breathable atmosphere on the lunar surface, the film takes a lamentable turn toward the concepts of the Melies fantasies. In short order, the Professor has run off on a mad search for his gold, pursued by the American financial agent Turner, while Weidegger tries to dig the rocket free for the return blast off.

     The film is actually interesting up until the moment the adventurers set out onto the face of the moon.  With the assertion that there is a breathable lunar atmosphere, scientific accuracy is pushed beyond the boundary and the movie descends into silent melodrama.  The film culminates in the romantic subplot, which seems to betray the promise of the film's fundamental premise in the possibilities of space flight. Most of the blame must go to the script by Thea von Harbou, Lang's wife, who was also responsible for the overly sentimental and romantic script for Metropolis.