Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968)

Introduction:

Last time the 100 Sci-fi Classics gave us “Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet”. This time there are women involved. Ok, but last time the woman had a beehive and looked sedated. What? We get Mamie Van Doren this time? Sign me up!

Summary:

A rocket expedition to Venus ends up crash landing. Little hope is given for Dr. Kern (Georgi Tejkh), Allen Sherman (Yuri Sarantsev) and the robot named John (John Bix). Still a rescue expedition is sent out to find them comprised of Andre (Gennadi Vernov), Hans (Georgi Zhzhyonov) and Commander Lockhart (Vladimir Yemelyanov). Little do they know that the inhabitants of the planet are women who worship a strange reptilian god. They are lead by Moana (Mamie Van Doren) and she doesn’t like Earthlings much. Can our heros survive the “Voyage to Planet of Prehistoric Women”.

Good Points:

• Is filled with all kinds of adventures
• The special effects range from “not bad” to mind-bendingly goofy
• Mamie and the girls wear “interesting” outfits

Bad Points

• Some of the characters are aggressively annoying
• A confusing dub script renders logic useless at times
• Rendered even more dull by the new sequences with the ladies

Overall:

Ouch, did this one hurt. Ok, it’s basically reused footage from “Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet” but edited even worse than before. New footage with a half naked Mamie and girls adds visual interest, but makes the movie plod even slower than it originally did. All the fun of the previous film is sucked away leaving a husk of a film. Need a Mamie Van Doren fix – don’t bother with this.

Scores (out of 5)

Visuals: 3

Sound: 2

Acting: 2

Music: 2

Script: 2

Direction: 1

Entertainment: 2

Total: 2

In Depth

You know I really don’t have much to add. Check out my review of “Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet”. I’ll wait till you read that over.

Ok, now that you know what that film was like imagine the movie cut up with a chainsaw. Then imagine someone adding a horrible voice over providing inane narration. Then imagine a long opening montage about space travel over models of spacecraft done just to pad the film. Finally imagine Mamie and her girls wandering around a rocky beach looking bored, high or bemused.

Having watched this so close to the previous film, I found this extremely boring. Maybe if a few months had passed, I would have enjoyed it a bit more, so I gave it better scores than I really felt. The Russian portions of the film are still pretty impressive, but the editing really butchers this one. I say avoid it.