An over-ambitious very low-budget film with a Cold War-era message and an over-reliance on Air Force and Civil Defense stock footage
Directed by Lester Wm. Berke
Produced by William A. Berke, Lee Gordon
Screenplay by John McPartland, Jerome Bixby
Story by Lester Wm. Berke
Music by Gerald Fried
Cinematography: Kenneth Peach
Edited by Everett Sutherland
Production company: William Berke Productions, Inc.
Distributed by United Artists
Running time: 70 minutes
Cast
Ellen Parker as Joan Woods
Phillip Pine as Dr. Joe Freed
Larry Kerr as General Barr
Marilee Earle as Ella Freed
Kitty Kelly as Mama
Lawrence Dobkin as Narrator (voice)
I would recommend that you watch The Lost Missile and follow it up with two classic films with similar themes, Dr. Strangelove [1964] and Fail-Safe [1964]. However, before you begin watching The Lost Missile I would suggest by way of introduction that you check out the following chilling information concerning “Project Pluto.”
Reality Catches Up With Fiction
Project Pluto was a US government program to develop nuclear powered ramjet engines for use in cruise missiles. Two experimental engines were tested at the United States Department of Energy Nevada Test Site in 1961 and 1964. Project Pluto seemed to operate much like "The Lost Missile": a cruise missile (supersonic low altitude missile) that would fly at Mach 3 at 1000 feet, dropping multiple nuclear weapons and destroying everything it passed over by means of a sonic boom and the radiation from its atomic ramjet.
Project Pluto (SLAM)
The lost Missile Trailer