Moon Zero Two

Moon Zero Two (1969)

The first moon "western"...

On the Moon in the year 2021, a former-astronaut-turned-salvager helps a millionaire space industrialist capture a 6000-ton sapphire asteroid, while also assisting a woman in finding her missing miner/prospector brother

Date of release
1969-10-26
TMDB
4.9 / 10 (41)
Runtime
1h 41m
Genres
Science Fiction
Director
Roy Ward Baker

Casting

Interesting facts

Moon Zero Two is a 1969 British science fiction film from Hammer Films, directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring James Olson, Catherine Schell, Warren Mitchell, and Adrienne Corri. The screenplay was by Michael Carreras from an original story by Gavin Lyall, Frank Hardman, and Martin Davison.

Production

Moon Zero Two was written by Michael Carreras, based on a story by Martin Davison, Frank Hardman and Gavin Lyall. Lyall's widow, Katharine Whitehorn, wrote retrospectively in her 2007 autobiography, Selective Memory: "It was about—or supposed to be about—space travel when it had got to the beat-up-old-Dakota stage of grubby reality.… The people who made it were dazzled by Kubrick's 2001 and couldn't resist trying to make it glossy and improbably…

The score was by Philip Martell and American jazz musician Don Ellis, his first film score. The title song was performed by Julie Driscoll. Spencer Reeve was the film editor and Carl Toms was costume designer. Special visual effects for the film were created by a team headed by visual effects artist Les Bowie, who worked on numerous Hammer productions and other British-made science fiction features.

Production began on 8 March 1969, focusing on the special effects. Live-action filming began on 31 March at the Associated British Studios. Dance group the Go-Jos appeared in the film. Ori Levy described wearing the moonsuits as "sheer hell", receiving blisters from chafing and back problems from the air conditioner installed to keep him cool.

Among the futuristic set decorations are several examples of the famous "Ball Chair" created in 1966 by Finnish designer Eero Aarnio. A dialogue reference to Neil Armstrong becoming the first man on the Moon was inserted, and a lunar monument erected on the landing site was added to the production. The film was released three months after the Apollo 11 Moon landing.

In a 1992 interview with Starlog, Roy Ward Baker was negative towards the film, lamenting its budget for hindering plot possibilities and what he saw as the miscasting of James Olson in the lead role. Baker was also critical of producer and writer Michael Carreras' roles with the film; while being fine with his producing, he thought Carreras overstretched himself with his positions. Baker said: "Moon Zero Two was a bad picture.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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