The Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese - Day 17- the Lost Missile

The Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese – Day 17 – The Lost Missile.

In the 50’s one of the things used to cut costs in movie making was the use of stock footage. Other than Ed Wood nobody seems to have used as much stock footage as 1958’s The Lost Missile. Seriously the only thing missing is the giant octopus.

The story is that somehow from somewhere a missile approaches earth. The Russians shoot at it and while not destroying it set it going in a 5 mile high orbit about the earth – that’s kind of bad what makes it worse is that the missile is generating a five mile wide swath of heat of a million degrees which needless to say is very very bad.

There is some narration. And then we cut to New York City where our main characters are working on some kind of super missile (it was all the rage just then) code named Job – a three stage thing a ma bob super rocket that will deliver an H-bomb to the Kremlin’s doorstep. At work at this weapon for peace are David, his assistant and now fiancé Joan and a very excitable Doctor Joe whose wife is going to have a baby and sweats a lot than you usually see in these films.

David and Joan are taking a lunch hour to get married – it seems that this isn’t the first time they have tired this and per Joan either it happens to day or it doesn’t happen at all. David seems almost relived when sweaty Joe comes in to say something is up but Joan is insistent and she and David go off.

But they don’t get married because in the jewelry store buying the ring (I mean talk about last minute and I thought that this wasn’t the first time they tried this) David ends up hopping from one foot to the other like a kid who needs to go to the bathroom and then Joan just loses her patience and back they go to the lab.

At the lab things are in a fine kettle – we are treated to a lot of stock footage (in all the film we are treated to a lot of stock footage) there are lights going on and folks are waking about like they are on the starship enterprise during a red alert (oh yes there is ponderous narration all over this film) David meets up with Joe who says something big is up then when the marriage comes up David kind of smirks and both of them spend a little time tut tut-ting over Joan who doesn’t want to understand how important it is that we build this god damn death machine. The standoff between Russia and the US and the fear it generated made us all crazy in ways that I having grown up with it probably can’t really recognize but I think that Joan is showing one hell of lot more faith in the future of mankind and civilization than these two smirking jackasses are.

Which brings me to one of the things that really bothers me about this movie which is its and I can't use any other word is misogyny – its attitude towards woman and its portrayal of them are horrible even by the standards prevalent at the time. In addition to presenting Joan as a bitch – Sweaty Joe’s wife is going to have a baby and she won’t go to the hospital without Joe – you get the sense that she can’t tie her shoes without Joe. Her mother who is about 20 years too old to be her mother unless she’s the last of 10 kids just frets even as the wife has summer stock acting level contractions. Seriously even if he daughter doesn’t have the sense that god gave a rabbit at least her damn mother would be saying ‘Joe will meet us at the hospital – you are getting in a cab right now.”

But that doesn’t’ happen.

Sweaty Joe frets about going to his wife or staying at the jog which seems to draw the ire of David. No soft emotions for David. Indeed the actor seems rather annoyed at what’s happening.

And what’s happening is that the missile is making a bee line for New York (passing over Ottawa before that) and will be there in about 60 minutes. The film did try sort of set everything in real time but it doesn’t quite work.

David figures out a plan that “Just Might Work!” ™ and does scientific things. Civil defense is thrown into action (there is one really goofy moment where a folk singer in the television studio is handed a bulletin that the governor of New York will be speaking and he just about loses it on camera – seriously if I had seen that on TV I would be commending my soul to god right then and there) The governor of New York declares martial law. He seems pleased by this.

The men (and its mostly men) swing into action putting on civilian defense helmets – women are portrayed as useless gossips or as overly emotional (as part of the martial law plan as many white children as possible are evacuated – well all the stock footage shows are white kids so I’m guessing that was the plan) there’s another scene where a woman doesn’t want her son to go but is shamed to allowing it by the classes teacher (also a woman but I’m assuming unmarried as all teachers where then) who tells her not to be too emotional she’s scaring the children. Seriously the film really doesn’t like women. I’m guessing it didn’t get out much as a young film and is now old and bitter. Or something happened in college. I don’t know.

Meantime in the subplots – Ottawa also in the path of the missile does similar things to New York and one assumes cancels the hockey game for that evening. Stock footage is unable to shoot down the missile which is show in two special effects shots over and over and over again giving one the impression they used stock footage for that as well. And Sweaty Joes wife ends in a basement up lying on bed moaning in pain while her mother and few other folks fret. A woman and her young daughter are there as well and when sweaty Joe’s wife moans again the daughter asks what’s going on – She’s having a baby her mother says but I swear her expression was “she is suffering for the sin of eve who led Adam astray in the garden” or by this time the anti-women thing was getting to me.

Ottawa and a cute family making a snowman are destroyed.

Sweaty Joe has a revelation as David and Joan (who hasn’t had a damn thing to do since about 20 minutes into the movie) and some soldier types are heading off to Job with a small Plutonium warhead – he’s figured out that the missile is interplanetary. David blows him off and he and Joan head for the rocket base.

Sweaty Joe arrives at the basement just after his wife has had a baby. A son! A Son! A SON! Of course she did and the delivery too about 3 minutes (this is where the whole real time attempt utterly collapsed – women do not have babies in three minutes. I begin to wonder did the writer of this thing even know women as in any? Talk to them or was it Hey get me a sandwich while you’re up? I have to wonder watching this thing.

We then cut – for reasons I can’t imagine – to black couple in evening clothes - he’s sitting at a piano and she looks like an entertainer – their radio tell them that the Job missile (wasn’t this supposed to be a secret project a few minutes ago?) will be launched at the lost missile (oh yes the film never explains why it’s lost). I had a couple of reactions or several One – this is more stock footage and either they didn’t tell the black folks to take shelter or their fallout shelter is a heck of lot nicer than the one sweaty Joe and his wife are in.

And because things are bad enough – the motorcade to the rocket base (two jeeps – low budget film I know just sheesh) goes awry one jeep crashes and then guys in leather jackets highjack the jeep with the bomb on it – they then open the box with the plutonium in it and die instantly. (it doesn’t work like that but well just let it go). David and Joan are picked up by a passing stranger in a sports car – what he was doing or going is never explained as he just drives off once they get to the jeep – David – telling Joan to stay away all the while – drives the plutonium to the missile loads the rocket’s warhead and then dies. Joan sorry he just wasn’t that into you. Joan just stands there while the missile is lunched and this time the lost missile is blown up – I guess they figured they worry about the fall out later.

The all clear sounds and stock footage New York (including pigeons) return to their normal run of the mill tasks.

This film annoyed me on several levels – one David was a really unlikeable tool most of the time when he wasn’t being a dick – the women characters were made to be harpies or idiots and the use of stock footage was mind numbing – air plane fans can spend the time identifying the types of planes shown if they do desire.

Enjoy with something made from chicken stock.