Absolutely the worst movie.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

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!

Undeniably tense and frightening, an extremely low budget film that is a clever combination of fantastic Air Force and Civil Defense stock footage with effective, chilling special effects. This is quite an achievement of creativity overcoming limited resources.The movie is a sleeper. It is underrated and ignored. But you could bill this with Dr. Strangelove (1964), and Fail-Safe (1964), and screened with the right attitude it would fit in quite nicely as an example of a Primitive Art entry in the Doomsday genre. This is a heart pounding picture that pulsates with despair and a drumbeat of dread that is missing from most of it's fun and fanciful 1950's Sci-Fi/Horror cousins. This is a dead serious scenario that is creepy and its pseudo-documentary style will have you diving under your desk as the radiated missile makes it's way around the Earth destroying everything in its path.There is also an enormous amount of some rarely seen stock footage that has got to be of interest for military history buffs. It lends an eerie atmosphere of atomic paranoia that persisted in the early days of the cold war that dissipated somewhat after the Cuban Missile Crisis.On a lighter note. There is ONE scene that cannot be forgiven and is a minor flaw in this otherwise attention to detail scare-fest. It cannot be imagined that a Woman would go into labor and give childbirth without her or someone else removing her earrings. Maybe this was left in to give this otherwise incredibly intense movie some levity in a wink, wink, nod, nod kind of way that says this is just fiction. Let's give these filmmakers the benefit of the doubt. They deserve it for this fine effort.

The story idea behind THE LOST MISSILE isn't bad at all, but unfortunately the story does get a bit dull towards the middle and the overuse of stock footage as well as poor special effects sink this film to the sub-par level.The film begins with a missile heading towards the Earth. In a panic because it's about to strike the Earth, the Soviets manage to deflect the object. This isn't necessarily good, however, as this seemingly unmanned craft has a vapor trail that destroys everything in its path AND the ship is now in a low orbit over the planet. In other words, with each pass it makes, a swath of death follows--one that could potentially kill us all!! So, it's up to the good scientists of the US (led by a very young and hardly recognizable Robert Loggia) to formulate and plan to save us--and especially save New York that is in its immediate flight path! Unfortunately, they aren't able to save Ottawa (I've never been there, so I can't say whether or not this is a big loss) but thanks to good old American know-how, they are able to eventually destroy this harbinger of destruction!! So, as you can see, the story idea isn't bad and rather original. But, so many old clips of fighter planes and guys manning radar scopes gets a bit old and it seemed like padding. Overall, a decent but hardly inspired film that extreme fans of the genre may like--all others, see it at your own risk.

I saw this film when it first came out. I found the idea frightening in a way since we humans don't know what is REALLY out there. Life most certainly is out there and at all levels of development. This movie is about an alien rocket that got away from its "owners" and heads out into the galaxy. We never see the alien owners, but the story is centered around earth's scientists and astronomers seeing the object approaching earth at a fantastic speed and about to hit the earth. The German government decided to launch rockets up into space just as the missile approaches and inadvertantly knocks it into earth orbit at a very low altitude. As the missile passes over land and sea the one million degree heat and shockwave it creates as it passes obliterates and burns to cinders all in its path. There are some really notable and scary scenes showing this effect. It took a nuclear device to destroy the missile.If you get a chance to view this film it will be worthwhile.