From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.fandom

In 1929, Fritz Lang's silent movie _Frau im Mond_ (_Woman in the Moon_)
came out. It depicts a trip to the Moon which gets an amazing amount
right, considering it was released 40 years before Apollo 11. It
includes a countdown, a multi-stage rocket, G-force stress,
retro-rockets for landing, and more.

I've written a blog post discussing the points it got right, along with
a few errors and some translation problems.

https://garymcgath.com/wp/fritz-lang-woman-in-the-moon/

Also, I've posted this part of the film, with my accompaniment, on
YouTube. I'm less impressed with the rest of it, and 2 3/4 hours of
music was more than I wanted to do. The part in the video is about 40
minutes long, from 50 minutes before launch to opening the hatch on the
lunar surface.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVSXSEGXV2c

If you want to see the whole movie, which is now in the public domain,
it's easy to find on YouTube.
--
Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

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From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.fandom

On Mon, 23 Jun 2025 11:44:14 -0400, Gary McGath wrote:

In 1929, Fritz Lang's silent movie _Frau im Mond_ (_Woman in the Moon_)
came out. It depicts a trip to the Moon which gets an amazing amount
right, considering it was released 40 years before Apollo 11. It
includes a countdown, a multi-stage rocket, G-force stress,
retro-rockets for landing, and more.

I've written a blog post discussing the points it got right, along with
a few errors and some translation problems.

https://garymcgath.com/wp/fritz-lang-woman-in-the-moon/

Also, I've posted this part of the film, with my accompaniment, on
YouTube. I'm less impressed with the rest of it, and 2 3/4 hours of
music was more than I wanted to do. The part in the video is about 40
minutes long, from 50 minutes before launch to opening the hatch on the
lunar surface.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVSXSEGXV2c

If you want to see the whole movie, which is now in the public domain,
it's easy to find on YouTube.

For those who want to compare McGath's version of the music
with the original, his excerpt begins at about 1:22:00 into the
original. His take on it is wonderfully Schubertian.

The movie was unknown to me, so I was intrigued at the similarities
of the launch scene to the Apollo program. In addition to those
mentioned by McGrath in his blog post, Walter Cronkite is
anticipated in the person of the avuncular commentator standing
before microphones.

I figured that Apollo-era journalists must have been aware of the
movie and that there would be at least a feature or two about it
to be found in the newspaper archives. Alas, the search algorithm
is too sloppy to distinguish "The Girl in the Moon" -- the title
as released in the U.S. -- from many other combinations of girl and
moon.

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