The Space Movie

synopsis

Tony Palmer's 1979 documentary "The Space Movie" -- featuring a soundtrack by Mike Oldfield -- was distributed to theaters via Night Flight's founder Stuart Shapiro's International Harmony company in 1980. It was initially created to celebrate the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's achievements with the Apollo 11 mission. It also celebrates the numerous missions preceding Americans first landing on the moon (Mercury/Atlas, Gemini/Titan, Saturn) which, in turn, also inspired NASA's subsequent Apollo missions, which ended in 1972. Produced by Virgin Records's Richard Branson and Simon Draper, "The Space Movie"'s origins as a documentary project can actually be traced back to filmmaker Tony Palmer, whose 1977 documentary series for the BBC, "All You Need Is Love: The Story of Popular Music," had impressed everyone who watched it. Palmer was sought out and commissioned by London Weekend Television and Virgin Films to compile NASA's footage for a UK/US simultaneously-televised television program commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. We're very happy to be able to offer up this vintage look at NASA's accomplishments on the weekend of the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Apollo Lunar Module Eagle landing on the moon and Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin taking mankind's important first steps on its surface.