“Forgotten Hollywood”- The Day the Earth Stood Still…
Manny P. here…
“`On Saturday, July 20th, we will be commemorating the Apollo 11 moon-landing event. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took those small steps for man and giant leaps for mankind, while Michael Collins flew above, waiting for his shipmates to return. For four days, earthlings were glued to their television sets as they watched the entire mission unfold.
“`The drama of the excursion lay in the potential pitfalls that could have left both astronauts stranded on the moon, or all three astronauts disintegrated as they returned to earth. Walter Cronkite was one of the revered storytellers who chronicled the journey on television.
“`The entire journey would begin in 1961 as President John F Kennedy made a promise to our nation that we would achieve this goal by the end of the decade, and with the selection of the Mercury 7 astronauts; pilots with the right stuff. We had tragedy along the way, including the assassination of Kennedy, and a blaze inside the Apollo 1 launch module during a test run that claimed three astronauts: Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Ed White.
“`The notion of a trip to the moon has always captured the imagination of cinema. In 1902, a pioneering French adventure movie called Le Voyage dans la Lune and directed by Georges Méliès, visualized the inspired writings of Jules Verne.
“`Other space exploration films of the 1950s and 1960s (including 2001: A Space Odyssey) were considered enjoyable fiction. By the time The Right Stuff went into production in 1983, audiences were actually experiencing a nostalgic look at recent history. In honor of the fiftieth anniversary, Apollo 11 was released; a tawdry look at the life of Neil Armstrong. I prefer the superior documentaries that have been shown over the last few days on PBS and other cable stations leading up to this celebratory moment in time.
“`On Saturday, I will reflect on June 20th, 1969. I was eleven and proud to be alive during this remembrance in our collective history of when fifty years ago… the Eagle landed.
Until next time> “never forget”
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 18th, 2019 at 11:27 pm and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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