As the director of many films for the Disney Studios, both comedic and dramatic, James Neilson never livened up; his name in the credits usually means a picture with a steady, sometimes leaden pace. "Moon Pilot" is no exception, and one can only imagine family audiences from 1962 dozing through the movie's more sluggish sections. Tom Tryon was a good casting choice for the part of an Air Force captain chosen to orbit around the moon, yet his hot-tempered superiors on the ground (Edmond O'Brien and the usually-reliable Brian Keith) do nothing but bark at him and at each other. Dany Saval twinkles like a manic pixie playing a flirtatious young woman who may be a spy--maybe not. For the Disney faithful, there's also a monkey clowning around. Production values solid, theme song "Seven Moons" very sweet, though this is still an awfully slow rocket-ride into space. *1/2 from ****

Bearing in mind that this was a made-for-TV-movie, Moon Pilot isn't bad. Disney didn't blow their budget on it, but the production and effects were serviceable if spare. The actors try to inject as much into their bland dialogue as they can, but the writing isn't Disney's cleverest.

The genuine highlight of the film is the parade of loony beatnik girls toward the end of the movie, as the military tries to identify their astronaut's supposed space-chick -- Very funny. Dany Saval is adorable. To the best of my knowledge, I've never seen her before. She shows off to advantage the cute outfits designed for her. What a doll.

While the technical aspects of this "space age" comedy from the early 1960's are understandably dated, the major problem with watching "Moon Pilot" now lies in its slow pacing. Virtually every scene runs longer than it should and the conversations within each scene are too often marked by needless pauses and languid delivery. The result is a 70-minute story that's been s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d into a 98-minute movie.

Tom Tryon seems an unusual choice for the title role. His dark, brooding, sexually-ambiguous looks would qualify him to play "Heathcliff" but "Moon Pilot" is virtually his only foray into farcical comedy. However, his innately serious quality helps him to anchor the movie more securely than would a Dick Van Dyke or a Dean Jones, but he really doesn't shine in this kind of material. His image as a juicy slab of "beefcake" remains intact, however, since even this family-oriented Disney comedy finds an excuse to strip him down to his boxer shorts in order to display his hairy chest in two separate scenes.