Fritz Lang's Die Frau im Mond 1929

Lang made The Woman in the Moon in 1929, just as sound was coming in for movies.  Lang rejected adding a soundtrack to the film that he had made as his last silent film.  For a long time there was only a severely cut version of this film available, 95 minutes of the original 169 (it has been said that Lang made his silent films long enough to keep them from being shown on double bills).  The film is full of fascinating details and is essentially in three parts:  the melodrama leading up to the rocket launch, the journey  itself, the time spent on the moon.

The first part is the most "Langian,"  with a cabal of ruthless businessmen trying to prevent scientist Wolf Helius (played by Willy Fritsch) going to the moon without their representative,  American Walt Turner, a master of disguise and ruthlessness who resembles Hitler (who was gaining popular support in the twenties by denouncing the treaty of Versailles).  They drug Helius,, steal his plans and threaten to blow up his rocket unless he takes Turner along.  He reluctantly agrees. On the trip are Freide Velten (Gerda Maurus), with whom Helius is in love, and Velten's fiancé Hans Windegger (Gustav van Wagenheim).  Also on the crew is the old professor who has done the research necessary to make the trip possible, George Manfeldt (Klaus Pohl) and a boy stowaway, Gustav (Gustl Stark-Gstennenbauer).  In other words, there was someone, more or less, for whom each member of the audience could root, as was often the case in films of the classical era.

The next part of the film is the launch and the trip to the moon, shown in serious scientific ways (Lang had a  number of consultants, including rocket scientist Willy Ley), such as weightlessness, technical problems, and how to land safely.  When they get to the moon the feuding starts as they begin to look for the gold and find it, after discovering they can breathe in the moon's "atmosphere."  Turner fights for the gold, pulls a gun and is shot by Helius in a struggle, with one of Turner's shots hitting the air supply on the ship, meaning not everyone can return.  Helius draws the short straw and stays, joined by Velten, who secretly leaves the ship before it blasts off.  Helius and Velten embrace, certain that someone will eventually arrive to rescue them.

Lang was intrigued by all the details of space travel and is even given credit for inventing the countdown before the launch.  The scenario was written by Lang and Thea von Harbou --Lang's wife at the time --who published a novel version of it before the film was made. Lang fled Germany in 1933 after he ;divorced von Harbou, who stayed in Germany and worked in the film industry during the Nazi regime.