Outstanding special effects from stop-motion magician Ray Harryhausen add further lustre to director Nathan Juran's colourfully engaging tale, adapted from the HG Wells novel, about a Victorian lunar expedition. Lionel Jeffries is splendid as the eccentric Professor Cavor, who uses his antigravity paint invention to achieve lift-off in this light-hearted adventure. Jeffries, Edward Judd and Martha Hyer are then captured by insectoid creatures and menaced by a Moon caterpillar in this highly enjoyable flight of sheer fantasy.

The world is delighted when a spacecraft containing a crew made up of the world's astronauts lands on the moon, but are shocked when the astronauts discover an old British flag and a document declaring that the moon is taken for Queen Victoria proving that the astronauts were not the first men on the moon.