“The Woman In The Moon” Spoiler

in which I spoil an old movie that nobody wants to watch

One of the great things about silent films is that they’re not very interesting to watch. Unless you’re looking at a Soviet montage film or one of Buster Keaton’s action comedies, the plodding pace, static camera, and usually terrible cheapo score slapped on by the DVD company will put the most hardened cineaste to sleep in under 30 minutes. But for whatever dumb fetishistic fake nostalgia reasons I still find them really engaging, even the really bad ones.

Another thing I find really engaging is going to movie spoiler websites and reading about romantic comedies I would never watch. A few years ago I read the spoiler for Crazy, Stupid, Love and was haunted by it for weeks. The version of Crazy, Stupid, Love that exists in my head is goddamned beautiful.

So the other day I watched a lesser Fritz Lang silent called The Woman In The Moon, which was really silly in some ways that I found fun to explain to people. It is highly unlikely that you will ever watch this movie, so I’d like to provide you a service — I will describe the plot for this film, and you can mentally apply state of the art effects, competent contemporary acting and staging, and innovative camerawork to a ridiculous story without a bunch of 90-year-old German Expressionist conventions getting in the way. Taking the time to write all this down may be the biggest waste of time I have ever engaged in,

or it may haunt you for weeks.

—

A Handsome Man goes to visit his friend, A Nutty Old Professor. On his way up the stairs to Professor’s apartment, Handsome runs into A Shitty Guy, who Professor is throwing out of the building. The Professor tells Shitty that he sucks and should go away. Handsome asks Professor what that was all about, and Professor tells Handsome that Shitty has been harassing him about his research (more on that later).

Handsome sits down for dinner with Professor, and they start talking about space stuff. Through a flashback we learn that Professor was kicked out of the academy long ago for his unpopular theories about there being a lot of gold on the moon. Handsome informs Professor that he is actually planning a trip to the moon, but asks the Professor to keep quiet about it because Handsome hasn’t yet informed anyone that he is planning to fly to the moon in 1929. Professor is excited by the news but cautions that Shitty may be on to Handsome’s plans, so Handsome should watch his back. Professor also entrusts Handsome with a manuscript that contains all of Professor’s very valid theories about moon gold.

While Handsome is on the way home, he considers whether he should attend the engagement party for His Best Friend, who is going to marry A Pretty Woman Who Always Wears Neckties, with whom Handsome is also in love. Handsome decides not to go because he is too heartbroken, but while he is traveling home Some Bad Dudes sneak into his apartment and steal his space plans. Also A Sneaky Flower Girl steals the Professor’s manuscript out of Handsome’s car.

Handsome gets home and discovers his plans have been stolen. He frantically calls Friend, who has the only other copy of the space plans. Friend and Neckties come over and Handsome reveals his moon plans to them. Friend rushes back to his office to get his copy of the space plans from a secret compartment in his drawer (spoiler: those were stolen too). While Friend is gone, Neckties tells Handsome she is hurt that he didn’t tell her and Friend that he was planning to go to the moon.

Suddenly Shitty shows up. He explains that he coordinated the stealing of the plans on behalf of Some Wealthy Plutocrats, who want to get some of the moon gold Professor wrote about. Shitty delivers Handsome an ultimatum: do the mission under the control of the Plutocrats, or they will blow up his spaceship. Handsome reluctantly agrees.

The mission day arrives; Handsome, Friend, Neckties, Professor and Shitty head to the launch site and prepare for takeoff. The rocket is submerged in water before launch, because otherwise it won’t be able to stand up or something. The crew climbs into the spaceship on a rope ladder and strap themselves into little cots for safety, Handsome reaching over from his cot to pull a single small lever — blastoff!

The pressures of the high speed overcome the crew, who are all knocked unconscious except for Handsome, who has to pull the lever all the way down to achieve optimal moon-reaching speed. Once optimal speed is reached, the crew slowly awakens, looking out the window at the magic of space. Neckties, exploring the ship, discovers a stowaway — A Random Tween who wanted to hang out. Everyone gets a good chuckle out of Tween’s rascally behavior.

The crew hangs out until landing on the moon. Friend starts picking up a weird vibe between Handsome and Neckties, and subsequently acts like a dick to everyone. Upon landing, Professor climbs down the rope ladder to look for moon gold, discovering that the moon has a breathable atmosphere (nice!) He runs over to some caves and finds some gold, along with what appears to be a decomposing corpse. He starts hugging the corpse and running around carrying it, falling into a pit and dying.

Shitty remembers that he’s supposed to be the bad guy and tries to kill everyone so he can take off alone in the ship. There is a gunfight, because everyone brought guns to the moon that they carry with them at all times, and Shitty is killed, but not before shooting the ship’s oxygen tanks. The crew realizes they only have enough oxygen left for three people to make the return trip and must leave one crew member behind. Handsome and Friend draw straws and Friend loses, but Handsome has a secret plan — he drugs Friend and Neckties so he can send them off and stay behind. After giving Tween a brief tutorial on how to launch a spaceship, he leaves the ship and waves goodbye to his friends.

He returns to his makeshift moon camp, depressed about being alone on the moon, only to find Neckties waiting for him at the camp! Neckties is The Woman In The Moon! (from the title) She decided to ditch Friend, possibly because he was kind of a dick, and she and Handsome make out. The movie fades to black and ends at this point, but I believe it is heavily implied that they are going to have sex on the moon.