Nude on the moon

Those of you that read the Six Degrees segment of last weeks Time Machine know that somewhere in between Walter Murphy's A Fifth Of Beethoven and Terry Jacks' Seasons In The Sun, we hit what I described as the most retarded movie concept of all time- a movie called Nude On The Moon.

Now you know me, I'm not just going to say something is stupid without checking it out to be sure.  So, this afternoon I watched Nude On The Moon.

I did not slander it, my friends.

Our main characters are three:  Jeff, the young, dedicated scientist, whose passion for science negates his passion for women; the Professor, an attempt at a wise, fatherly figure that looks more like the male lead in the cheesiest of pornos (which they actually have a little fun with later);  and the secretary Cathy, played by a woman only known as Marietta (and I don't blame her there), who is madly in love with Jeff who barely notices her.  Our plot:  Jeff and Prof are designing a rocket ship that will make them the first to the moon and back (film was released in 1961), and Jeff gets the exciting news that his Uncle Jed, a rich furrier, has died and left him 3 million dollars after taxes.  Insert your Clampett joke here.  At any rate, Jeff has determined that they are going to use the money to finish the ship, rather than wait for government funding, despite Prof's protests that he should use it and retire and find a wife.  (Mind you, by this point, Prof has already figured out the love angle and is trying to help young Cathy out.)

We mercifully contract "six months of work" into a couple of scenes each of Prof fiddling with a junior chemistry set and and Jeff taking readings from what appears to be a modified ham radio set.  Finally the day comes and Jeff and the Prof drive thru Miami to the launch site, passing the marquee of a movie theatre where the Prof went the night before (to see Hiding In The Sun, another nudist camp movie by director Doris Wishman).  Anyhow, they get to the place and gaze up at their "beautiful" ship (which we never really see from the outside) before climbing a set of painting scaffolds linked together to board their craft.

Now, mind you, as they take off they are wearing nothing more than the lab suits they've worn the whole movie.  After giving last instructions to each other over microphones (despite sitting right next to each other), there follows a few seconds of simulated g-forces ( that looks more like two guys trying to shit with their pants still up), and voila!we're in space.  Then comes a couple of peeks at the earth (or a play-doh model thereof) and suddenly they're in a patch of space where asteroids start swirling around them and they fall asleep.  They wake up when the amazing craft lands by itself on a green moonscape.

However as they emerge, they are not only dressed in spacesuits ( a welders helmet painted gloss white, a tube hooked to a scuba breather, leading to a tiny oxygen tank tied to their lower backs, brightly colored tights with Flash Gordon-style tinfoil accouterments on the torso and shorts), but are arriving on a world that suddenly looks very earthlike (not surprising since the whole moon-scene is filmed at the Coral Castle in Homestead, Florida).  There they find the gold nuggets (which Prof wants to take home despite the fact that "they will put us over weight and may cost us our lives", to "finance future projects") and eventually the camp of the nude race of the moon.

Except for two guys, this population turns out to be topless women.  About three of them show butt-crack too, to simulate nudity I guess.  At this point they flip up their visor (but they still can't stay long because their oxygen will run out, far be it from them to figure out they really don't need it) and begin to "observe", until each is separately seized by the two guys.  They are each then taken to a blonde chick with a magic wand, who taps them on the head.  They are then under her spell, and she leads them to some pit of no escape.  At this point the queen, who if you were watching the movie you guessed before leaving earth was played by Cathy the receptionist, summons everyone to the "great council".

Here she tells everyone "telepathically" (in a whispering voice more suited to telling ghost stories) that she believes them to be friends, who "come seeking knowledge of the heavens" and orders them released.  Then they spend the rest of the movie watching the day-to-day hijinks of a city full of nude women, taking pictures with an ancient box camera and writing notes on a pad.  (one of the girls here decided to make fun of Prof's cheesy porno mustache by putting a leaf under her nose and making faces, one of the few laughs not generated by mind-numbing stupidity.) 

Of course Jeff starts to fall in love with the queen, leading him to "communicate with her" to the theme song which I incorrectly reported as I'm Mooning For You.  It was, in fact, an equally insipid song called Moon Doll, and was written by one Judy J. Kuschner, Wishman's niece and much later writer of Wishman's horror flick A Night To Dismember with Samantha Fox.  In fact, anyone in this flick who had another credit at all had one for either another in the nudie series or some d-horror flick.

Anyway, the time comes to go, and Jeff doesn't want to leave.  Despite feeling the same, the queen knows he can't survive there (though I'm not quite sure why), and taps him with the magic wand once again so Prof can lead him back to the ship (which is now back on the green-cheese moon) and take off with the girls all waving goodbye.  Of course, they soon discover that camera, gold nuggets, and note pad have all been left behind.  Which is a shame, because after an afternoon of taking pictures of nude women and jotting down notes, the Prof says at one point, "Jeff, we're getting some really good data here!"  Indeed.

Next scene, we are back on earth, and the Prof is calling Jeff from "the field", where he says that government inspectors looking over the ship "don't believe it could even get off the ground".  His dreams crushed.  Jeff falls into despair, until Cathy enters the room.  She just stands there, and Jeff stares at her in a way like in the old Bugs Bunny cartoons, where Bugs would stare at Fudd and see a giant carrot;  sure enough, a few seconds of back-and forth and Cathy "turns" into the queen (although where the queen had her hair down, the "vision" has it up a la Cathy).  Jeff takes her in his arms and says, "It's a miracle... I thought I lost you forever, but here you are on earth."  Cue up a couple lines of Moon Doll.  The End.

To sum it up, if you just like to look at boobies, you'll love the second half.  If you demand a little more physical interaction in your porn, don't bother, you'll only get frustrated.  If you were hoping for an interesting sci-fi flick with boobies, set your bar waaaaay low and you might be okay.  If you want a soaring romance and gripping plot, go back to your Jackie Collins novellette.  Me? Even I have standards in stupidity, and this wandered away from them almost from the start, when the Prof picks up the phone and waits for Jeff to talk (He says, "Professor!" rather mildly to which Prof replies, "Jeff!  Don't get so excited!"), and continuing continuously thereon.