This 1935 Soviet sci-fi flick imagines the first crewed mission to the Moon led by maverick rocket scientist Professor Sedikh (Sergei Komarov), in the face of opposition from his rival Professor Karin (Vasili Kovrigin), who thinks Sedikh is too old to survive spaceflight. Wait until he hears about William Shatner…

Optimistically set in 1946 (15 years before the Soviets would actually achieve human spaceflight), the hour-long movie resembles a live-action version of A Grand Day Out, only with a more heavily rationed approach to cheese. Defying his bureaucratic rival, Sedikh takes off along with a child (Vassili Gaponenko) who has snuck on board to add a youthful vision of the future, and a woman (Ksenia Moskalenko) because that future does still require a girl to clean the spaceship.

A curious piece of space-race propaganda debris, Cosmic Voyage was made as a silent film in order to allow wide distribution across the Soviet Union, and co-written by renowned scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky to ensure realism. The result is a pioneering space picture that features some of the earliest screen depictions of weightlessness and moonwalking, almost 50 years before Michael Jackson.

Ironically the movie was pulled by party officials for not adhering to the principles of “socialist realism” in its stop-motion sequences, and the animator’s name purged from the credits. But while some of the effects are understandably dated (the Americans probably breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of Russian astronauts swinging around on wires), others are quite awe-inspiring, particularly when we first see the spacecraft in a slow panning shot complete with miniature cars to give an impressive sense of scale.

The excitement builds when the plucky crew lands on the Moon, even if the story lacks some of the intrigue set up in its conspiratorial opening. But viewed in an age when spaceflight has been consumed by narcissistic billionaires, and the art of propaganda destroyed by AI, Cosmic Voyage‘s practical effects, adventurous spirit and fun characters make it one of the more charming products of the Stalin era.

My band Temporal Comet will be playing a live soundtrack to this film on Halloween, so grab your tickets and prepare your slutty Sputnik costumes.