Cookies on FilmShelves
We use essential cookies to keep the site working. With your permission we also use analytics cookies (so we can fix what's broken) and advertising cookies (so the ads you see are more relevant). Read our privacy policy.
You'll still see ads on the free tier — rejecting just means they won't be personalised.

Part of the Vintage Classics collection Based on an original work by the great pre-science-fiction author Jules Verne, Rocket to the Moon is directed by Don Sharp (The Thirty Nine Steps, 1978) and features an all- star ensemble cast of classic film actors including Burl Ives (Cat On A Hit Tin Roof), Troy Donahue (A Summer Place), Graham Stark (The Return of the Pink Panther), Gert Fröbe (Goldfinger), Hermione Gingold (The Music Man), Lionel Jeffries (Chitty, Chitty Bang Bang), Dennis Price (Kind Hearts and Coronets) and the inimitable Terry Thomas (School For Scoundrels). In Victorian England, the race to build, invent and discover is at its peak, but results in many embarrassing and dangerous failures. Phineas T. Barnum’s (Burl Ives) – creator of “The Greatest Show on Earth” is in London with his star, Tom Thumb (Jimmy Clitheroe) when they are invited to a scientific lecture by Professor Von Bulow (Gert Fröbe), who plans to send a projectile to the Moon using a powerful new explosive he has invented. Barnum sets about finding the money to build a giant cannon to fire the projectile, carrying a reluctant Tom Thumb, however the spaceship designed by Sir Charles Dillworthy (Lionel Jeffries) proves useless since it does not have the capacity to return to earth. Barnum then meets another balloonist, Gaylord Sullivan (Troy Donohue), whose craft appears more promising, that is until a pair of crooks (including Terry-Thomas) start plotting to sabotage the ambitious moonship expedition…

Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon (1967)
119 min
Phineas T. Barnum and friends finance the first flight to the moon but find the task a little above them. They attempt to blast their rocket into orbit from a massive gun barrel built into the side of a Welsh mountain, but money troubles, spies and saboteurs ensure that the plan is doomed before it starts...