Instant Favorite.

Awesome Movie

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

What movie did you guys watch? Quick rule of thumb, if the movie starts out with a deadly serious-voiced narrator and he continues to appear throughout the flick in order to tell the audience what's going on because there's no way in hell that they'd be able to follow it without him....you're not watching a classic, unless what you're talking about is a classic piece of crap! Another clue that a movie is a big waste of time and money is if it requires tons of stock footage just to drag the time out so it can qualify as a feature length presentation. The only padding trick this pile of dreck lacks is a visit to a nightclub where an attractive lady eats up another 5 minutes belting out a peppy show tune. Dreadfully under-budgeted and saddled with lackluster direction, the movie features brief clips of some poorly conceived and executed "special" effects sandwiched between long, drawn-out episodes of "drama" that would have been laughably bad on a daytime soap opera. The acting comes in two flavors: deadpan and overblown. Maybe the reason that all the sci-fi geeks like this flick is because it features an appearance of that beloved science fiction stereotype; the scientist that wants the deaths to continue in the vain hope that they can communicate with the alien menace!! What fun! Near as I can figure the moral of this movie is that all the selfish women out there should stop bitching that their scientist husbands and boyfriends are too busy working 7 days a week building lots of nukes to be by their side for the birth of their child or marry them! C'mon ladies! The ending is unintentionally hilarious as our scientist hero drives a rod of deadly plutonium through the panicked streets of New York City in order to deliver it in time to their new super duper Job rocket, the only rocket able to get close enough to the alien missle to blow it up. One would get the impression that the transportation of dangerous radioactive material through am major metropolitan area is routine. Believe me, it's not. It has never been allowed, ever. Now, mind you, they have already established that helicopters are transporting all the eggheads out of NYC in order to protect their brilliant skulls, but nobody thinks to fly the plutonium to its destination. Ludicrous. So, wouldn't you know that while our hero speeds along the highway with his deadly cargo he runs smack dab into that other beloved stereotype of 50's movies; the gang of hot rod delinquents, complete with greased back hair and switch blade knives. The gang steals the jeep and the box containing the deadly rod. When the hero catches up with the jeep the box is open and the gang has vanished. Exposing himself to lethal doses of radiation our hero drives to his destination and manages to arm the Job just before he gives up the ghost. I was wishing that everybody involved with this bore-fest could have been stuffed into the jeep with him! Avoid this one unless you need a cure for insomnia.

This cheaply made science fiction disaster film is so low budget that it goes from poverty row reputation to blue light special. Mostly indoor scenery with cheaply filmed shots of possible animated rockets represent an alien attack. Obvious stock footage looks like a bad newsreel or school made documentary. Few efforts to make this a human drama where a scientist's fiancé breaks up with him because she thinks that he values science more than her, while a pregnant wife of an army officer struggles to get in touch with her husband. But in spite of how badly made this is, there is something moderately endearing about it, made with such innocence that you can't totally hate it. How many future film makers must have seen this as kids and been inspired to make better versions of the same story could be interview questions because elements of plot do developments of this are used in every disaster film that I've seen over the past 20 years. Some scenes are pretty shocking, literally as one panic stricken character finds while trying to escape down a New York City subway track. Acting is mostly amateurish and the pacing at times is painfully lethargic. This doesn't seem like a theatrical film, but obviously got some big screen release even though it probably looked ten times poorer than it does on television. Narration makes me call this Plan Six from Outer Space.

The Lost Missile relies on stock footage (you see the same B-66 take off at least 3 times in the "maximum defense" montage) and EXTREMELY limited animation/rotoscoping, but if you can get past that, the story is surprisingly good right up until the "this is the MacGuffin that will save us, so we'll ship it without a proper military escort" plot device near the end (the same stupidity as seen in the War of the Worlds).Oddly, the science behind the story isn't all that flaky. By its nature, a starship is a de facto weapon of mass destruction. If it were knocked into an exceptionally low orbit (as happens in the first five minutes), whatever protects the ship from interstellar gas, dust, and radiation (assume it's a whopping STRONG magnetic field) would raise holy ned with the atmosphere as it plows through — the killer heat from the missile isn't simply the heat of reentry, it's a byproduct of the stardrive. We learn very little about The Lost Missile (mostly just the incredible destruction its unplanned ball-of-twine orbit would do). Lee Gordon (Producer) didn't even pay for a model of the missile; instead, Lester Wm. Berke (Director) used and reused and re-reused (etc., etc.) the same pitifully few drawings of the interloper (in order of frequency: one shot from the side passing left-to-right, one shot 30° off face-on, one shot from above — used in conjunction with the most destructive wake you will probably ever see done for $100 or less).Some striking features: the LACK of a monster — The Lost Missile is deadly beyond belief (unless it's stopped, it will kill everybody on Earth, but it wasn't intentional); the heavy-handed, but necessary actions of the Civil Defense wardens; the way the secretaries bypass military restrictions via the old girl's network; the relentless music that conveys the unstoppable nature of the threat; and the "happy" ending (SPOILER: we survive) that isn't happy — it shows the cold equations of human sacrifice.I would have LOVED to have seen Mystery Science Theater 3000's take on The Lost Missile.

This had all the makings of a very good film -- good actors (Robert Loggia, Ellen Parker), a good plot (mysterious missile from space threatens to burn up the planet) and lots of stock footage (if the Air Force had film of jets firing rockets, it was used). Unfortunately, it is ruined by too much melodrama and an impossible time-line.The movie concerns a missile from space that is attacked by the Soviets and inadvertently diverted into a low atmospheric orbit. At under five miles and at a speed in excess of 4,000 miles, it emits an exhaust of a million degrees, burning up everything on the ground, including glaciers, Distant Early Warning (DEW) line bases and Eskimos.Every attempt at destroying the missile fails.The first flaws in this film appear early on. While we don't expect much from low-budget films, some things can't be forgotten -- like a little research. For instance, both the Soviets and the US fire anti-ballistic missiles that home in on the missile with unerring accuracy. However, the first successful ABM tests weren't done until March of 1961 by the Russians.There is too much melodrama. Dr. Loring (Loggia) and his assistant Joan Woods (Ellen Parker) play their romance with about as much wood as a log cabin. Parker's character cries and boo-hoos at Loggia's sacrifice like she was at a screen test. Loggia is about as heroic as a bored businessman. A scientist (Phillip Pine) hams it up so much he makes William Shatner look like a thespian. A bus driver continually spits out end-of-the-world crap in scene after scene. The only good actor is the film narrator, played by veteran character actor Lawrence Dobkins ("Naked City").All of this could be overlooked if it wasn't for the time-line. After the missile's info is sent to DC, the Pentagon brings in a group of scientists. A general (Larry Kerr) announces that the missile will hit New York City in 63 minutes. After this, there are discussions by scientists and there is a deadly lull as word is sought from ambassadors to see if the missile is an attack from the Russians and if a response is necessary.The film shows the military being fully scrambled. Civil Defense people leave work and go to their stations. Eight million people scramble to fallout shelters while school buses pick up millions of kids (and we get to see the whitest New York City I've ever seen, though watching 50's sci-fi films made it seems like this was the standard). The press is kept in the dark for tens of minutes. Then, incredibly, a man at the Pentagon announces that the missile will hit Ottawa, Canada in 51 minutes! All of the aforementioned action happened in 12 minutes! Then, to add fuel to the fire, Loggia somehow thinks of a way to stop the alien missile. He slowly produces a caseload of plutonium, loads it in a jeep and takes it from DC to a distant missile base to put it atop a missile. Along the way, he is knocked off the road by a wild driver, breaks down and then is carjacked. He finally gets the plutonium back and drives to the base to arm the missile. Again, all this in the same 63-minute time frame.The movie also irks the viewer by making it seem as if Ottawa might be saved, only to show men, women and children get roasted. The missile is then said to have five minutes to reach New York. Loggia is still driving to the base (4 more miles to go). He gets to the base and arms the missile, a two-minute countdown is then announced. All within five minutes. The boroughs of New York should have been at least scorched.By the way, the missile is destroyed if you haven't guessed. The ABM warhead destroys it with a massive plutonium-based nuclear blast. Five seconds later, the blast dissipates and all is clear. Yeah, they caused a nuclear blast equivalent to 100 Hiroshimas on the outskirts of New York City and nothing happens.The film had all the elements necessary to be a good B film, but wasted them. Loggia played his character so lamely you didn't care that he sacrificed himself in the end. You didn't care about the other characters, not even the smarmy scientist played by Pine. The tension that should have moved the film along just wasn't physically possible in the time-line allowed (it still wouldn't be today, not even with Jack Bauer).This film is very difficult to find. As far as I know, it hasn't been re-issued on any medium and for good reason. I don't know if the film meant to be or if it was standard practice, but there's a scene where the government sends all of the best scientists, military men and businessmen into deep shelters, saying they're too valuable to lose. There isn't a single woman or minority in the bunch. Hari Rhodes is the only black man in the film and he gets a brief bit playing a piano. It was worse than "27 Days" where an alien gives five Earthlings the chance to either save or destroy the planet and he doesn't include any blacks or Hispanics.I saw this on a special Sci-fi night on Turner Classic Movies and I don't expect it to show up again. If you do find a copy of this somewhere, you might want to put it up on Amazon.com.