Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

ffs1942 Haven't seen this movie in half a century, but would love to see it again. I was just at the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas. I learned of a Project Pluto in the late 50's, early 60's. Project Pluto behaved much like "The Lost Missile". This was aproposed cruise missile that would have flown at mach 3 at 1000 ft,dropping lots of nuclear weapons and destroying everything it passed over with its terrific sonic boom and the radiation from its atomic ramjet. After dropping its bombs, it could continue cruising over enemy territory indefinitely, irradiating and smashing everything. Fascinating! LOOK IT UP!

ChiefRocko I remember seeing this a few times as a kid during those Saturday afternoon monster movie shows. I have to say that THIS one always stuck with me. Not that it's that good or well made - it's NOT - but the premise. Blazing death coming at you at 4K mph? How could you run? How could you shelter? Basically you couldn't. THAT is the brilliance of this film - it creeps you out.Part of what sets this gem apart is that unlike most "happy happy joy joy" American films of the time, this one shows people who don't stand a chance actually dying. Kids, women, people in shelters - there's no last minute helo rescue or a sudden rainstorm that saves families cowering in alleyways... they're doomed and they stay doomed.Well worth a watch - and compared to a LOT of films of that era, this one is actually interesting and different.Keep an eye out: when the nervous scientist's pregnant wife is taking shelter in her bldg's basement, there's an angry bald guy complaining... every person in the room with me watching had the same reaction: "hey, that's the bald guy from the basement in Night of the Living Dead!" One thing - you would NOT want to be standing near Robert Loggia when a lot of heat builds up. Not going to say his acting is wooden, but if you look REALLY hard, in the background is a bunch of Amish guys chasing him so they can build a barn out of him. The man's a deciduous forest worth of wood.Of course this film would've been PRIME for Mystery Science Theater 3000... but then, every film ever made would be better getting riffed by Mike and the Bots. Perhaps Rifftrax can take care of this glaring omission!

Enrique Sanchez I was expecting a truly hokey kind of 50s mess. I had discovered it on a list of great undiscovered 50s science fiction movies. What luck! I was pleasantly surprised with the effort. One can say that some of the direction of the acting could have been better. But I take movies from the 50s with a grain of salt. So many great ideas were relegated to the B-Studios. But I will remove from my summary opinion these minor and understandable chinks in the armor.LOST MISSILE is a near-great film if not right UP THERE with the best of the genre. We were informed at the outset that the armed forces were very cooperative with this effort, which would explain the wonderful "stock" footage of military operations and maneuvers. This did NOT bother me one bit, in fact, it added to the authentic feel of the story. I also thoroughly enjoyed the city, town footage of Ottawa and New York City in the 50s. I have come to expect these in movies from those days. Of course, stock footage has been forbidden in recent times because of its apparent lack of integrity to film-making. I see it as a wonderful way to see things as they really are or were.I did enjoy the way the alien missile reminded me of Kubrick's superb black comedy sci-fi, "DR. STRANGELOVE", which came six years after this. So it appears that it might have had some future influence in the genre.This film should be seen by all sci-fi buffs - it is fun and it contains some thrilling moments in the best 50s style they could conjure up in those days. There was a fascinating story, with one very fine actor: ROBERT LOGGIA. The ending was a mix of upbeat, downbeat and it did not wrap things up as neatly as Hollywood would have wanted in its heyday.What's not to like? Well, if you're expecting CGI and slick, you've come to the wrong place for that watermark. That sort of film filled with technical wizardry did not enter into the canon until a Kubrick's masterpiece "2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY"...Sit back, enjoy it, it's free on this website. You won't soon forget it.

tangent-cc This had all the makings of a very good film -- good actors (Robert Loggia, Ellen Parker), a good plot (mysterious missile from space threatens to burn up the planet) and lots of stock footage (if the Air Force had film of jets firing rockets, it was used). Unfortunately, it is ruined by too much melodrama and an impossible time-line.The movie concerns a missile from space that is attacked by the Soviets and inadvertently diverted into a low atmospheric orbit. At under five miles and at a speed in excess of 4,000 miles, it emits an exhaust of a million degrees, burning up everything on the ground, including glaciers, Distant Early Warning (DEW) line bases and Eskimos.Every attempt at destroying the missile fails.The first flaws in this film appear early on. While we don't expect much from low-budget films, some things can't be forgotten -- like a little research. For instance, both the Soviets and the US fire anti-ballistic missiles that home in on the missile with unerring accuracy. However, the first successful ABM tests weren't done until March of 1961 by the Russians.There is too much melodrama. Dr. Loring (Loggia) and his assistant Joan Woods (Ellen Parker) play their romance with about as much wood as a log cabin. Parker's character cries and boo-hoos at Loggia's sacrifice like she was at a screen test. Loggia is about as heroic as a bored businessman. A scientist (Phillip Pine) hams it up so much he makes William Shatner look like a thespian. A bus driver continually spits out end-of-the-world crap in scene after scene. The only good actor is the film narrator, played by veteran character actor Lawrence Dobkins ("Naked City").All of this could be overlooked if it wasn't for the time-line. After the missile's info is sent to DC, the Pentagon brings in a group of scientists. A general (Larry Kerr) announces that the missile will hit New York City in 63 minutes. After this, there are discussions by scientists and there is a deadly lull as word is sought from ambassadors to see if the missile is an attack from the Russians and if a response is necessary.The film shows the military being fully scrambled. Civil Defense people leave work and go to their stations. Eight million people scramble to fallout shelters while school buses pick up millions of kids (and we get to see the whitest New York City I've ever seen, though watching 50's sci-fi films made it seems like this was the standard). The press is kept in the dark for tens of minutes. Then, incredibly, a man at the Pentagon announces that the missile will hit Ottawa, Canada in 51 minutes! All of the aforementioned action happened in 12 minutes! Then, to add fuel to the fire, Loggia somehow thinks of a way to stop the alien missile. He slowly produces a caseload of plutonium, loads it in a jeep and takes it from DC to a distant missile base to put it atop a missile. Along the way, he is knocked off the road by a wild driver, breaks down and then is carjacked. He finally gets the plutonium back and drives to the base to arm the missile. Again, all this in the same 63-minute time frame.The movie also irks the viewer by making it seem as if Ottawa might be saved, only to show men, women and children get roasted. The missile is then said to have five minutes to reach New York. Loggia is still driving to the base (4 more miles to go). He gets to the base and arms the missile, a two-minute countdown is then announced. All within five minutes. The boroughs of New York should have been at least scorched.By the way, the missile is destroyed if you haven't guessed. The ABM warhead destroys it with a massive plutonium-based nuclear blast. Five seconds later, the blast dissipates and all is clear. Yeah, they caused a nuclear blast equivalent to 100 Hiroshimas on the outskirts of New York City and nothing happens.The film had all the elements necessary to be a good B film, but wasted them. Loggia played his character so lamely you didn't care that he sacrificed himself in the end. You didn't care about the other characters, not even the smarmy scientist played by Pine. The tension that should have moved the film along just wasn't physically possible in the time-line allowed (it still wouldn't be today, not even with Jack Bauer).This film is very difficult to find. As far as I know, it hasn't been re-issued on any medium and for good reason. I don't know if the film meant to be or if it was standard practice, but there's a scene where the government sends all of the best scientists, military men and businessmen into deep shelters, saying they're too valuable to lose. There isn't a single woman or minority in the bunch. Hari Rhodes is the only black man in the film and he gets a brief bit playing a piano. It was worse than "27 Days" where an alien gives five Earthlings the chance to either save or destroy the planet and he doesn't include any blacks or Hispanics.I saw this on a special Sci-fi night on Turner Classic Movies and I don't expect it to show up again. If you do find a copy of this somewhere, you might want to put it up on Amazon.com.