Cosmic Journey
About Cosmic Journey
In 1946 Professor Pavel Sedikh, played by Sergei Komarov, plans the first crewed flight to the moon, and Professor Karin calls him too old and unstable. Sedikh goes anyway, with Marina and with the boy Andryusha, who comes along uninvited. On the moon they find a damaged oxygen tank, and a boulder pins Sedikh. They free him and bring the ship back to Moscow.
Cast & crew
More about Cosmic Journey
Vasili Zhuravlyov directed for Mosfilm, with Boris Shumyatsky producing. The script, by Aleksandr Filimonov and Zhuravlyov, was prepared with Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and draws loosely on Tsiolkovsky's novel Beyond the Earth. It was conceived in 1930, shot in 1934, and released on 21 January 1936, four months after Tsiolkovsky's death.
Themes
Look
Aleksandr Galperin photographed the ship and the moon miniatures.
Technique
The film shows weightlessness on the way to the moon, one of the first pictures to stage a crewed flight that way.
Music
Silent, with Russian intertitles. Valentin Kruchinin is the credited composer.
Preservation
Withdrawn soon after the January 1936 release, it circulated again from the 1980s.
Notes
- Ksenia Moskalenko plays Marina. Vassili Gaponenko plays Andryusha. Vasili Kovrigin plays Karin.
- Sergei Stolyarov is in the cast.
- A cat sent ahead as a test animal is still alive when the crew reaches the moon.
- Soviet censors pulled it after a short run in early 1936. It was barely seen again until the 1980s.
- Senses of Cinema dates the shoot through 1934.
Scenes
- Karin tells the institute Sedikh is unfit to fly.
- A boulder traps Sedikh on the lunar surface.
- The ship returns to Moscow.
Influenced by
- Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's novel Beyond the Earth
