fritz lang made many famous films in america but i'll always prefer the fantastical silent epics he made in pre-war germany with his then-wife (and future national socialist) thea von harbou as screenwriter. lang's last silent, 'frau im mond,' is often heralded as the first scientifically plausible sci-fi film. unfairly overshadowed by the flashier 'metropolis,' it's an eminently enjoyable melodrama clearly inspired by comics and pulp fiction adventure tales, which lang collected. the outsized characters include an entrepreneur and his assistant, both in love with the female scientist who insists on accompanying them on their trip, a half-mad professor whose theories about moongold inspired the project, the devious henchman for a gang of international capitalists out to hijack the mission,…

A charming, heart-stopping, and finally hauntingly beautiful ode to the starry-eyed fantasies and unbound ambitions of man… as well as an austere study of science’s terribly risky yet sadly necessary relationship with the evil of greed. Besides being a jaw-dropping adventure, especially with the first countdown to launch, Woman in the Moon also works as a character study that delves into the mind of a scientist, who's stubborn in his ambition yet, at heart, perhaps doing what he does for a hopelessly unrequited love.

All the characters are fantastic and memorable; I just loved being around them all. (Well, perhaps with the minor exception of a small child that just had to be put in this film, but one that…

A really hard one to review as there is no denying that it was more of a slog than Metropolis, Spies or Dr Mabuse, the unveiling and launch of the rocket seems to happen in real time, spectacular, scientifically detailed real time but still real time. But it was still enjoyable with a lot of real highlights, including that rocket launch, which shares so much with familiar real life 60s space race images that you get quite taken aback when you remember when this was made.

It's an intriguing piece of science fiction, there is a lot of time spent on pressure and the dangers of space travel, and the plot revolves around them having enough oxygen for the crew…

Fritz Lang's only other science fiction film other than the world renowned Metropolis is the underseen and long forgotten Woman in the Moon, considered by many as the first attempt at realism in the depiction of space travel.

At nearly three hours in length, Lang's passion for documentary style detail is allowed to run wild over the course of this epic. Partly pulp fiction and partly in the domain of believability, it eerily predicts many aspects of the moon landings that would become a reality forty years later, such as the countdown before liftoff and jettisoning unneeded weight after takeoff, however it rapidly departs from credibility the minute the moon is reached e.g. the first priority upon landing is to…

The forward-thinking and prescient exploration of the Earth’s moon as depicted in Fritz Lang’s final silent film is fascinating in how it parallels much of what we saw 40 years later when the Apollo 11 mission launched from Cape Canaveral and became the first expedition to put a man on the moon. From the launch itself to the zero gravity interactions, it’s amazing to see just how much real science went into the conception of this future-oriented work of science fiction. At the same time, it is equally fascinating to look at the constructed and more absurd inventions for the journey to the lunar surface. I most humorously enjoyed the conceit of leather straps dangling all over the spaceship to…

Woman in the Moon is a historic achievement, a grand scale exhibition of space travel that was the first to stick rigorously to true rocket science, revealing to the public the innovative means by which humans would eventually reach the moon. It's also one of Lang's most openly pulpy melodramas -- Lang goes so far as to literally include a stack of pulp magazines featuring a serial hero who adventures on the moon.

This movie has got some rave reviews, and I get it. Once it gets going it's a blend of pulp adventure with associated high peril, detailed hard science, melodrama in the forms of greed and a love triangle and familiar Lang elements such as shadowy crime conspiracy…