Lively, entertaining reviews of, and essays on, old and newer films and everything relating to them, written by professional author William Schoell.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

VOYAGE TO THE PLANET OF PREHISTORIC WOMEN

VOYAGE TO THE PLANET OF PREHISTORIC WOMEN (1968). Director: Derek Thomas. American sequences directed by Peter Bogdanovich, who also narrates and is the voice of Andre. 

Having already made one new movie out of a Russian space epic -- Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet -- AIP used most of the same footage from the foreign film, added new scenes with Mamie Van Doren and other starlets, and came up with this awful mess. This could be considered a sequel were it not for the fact that Prehistoric Planet takes place in 2020 and this in 1998! "Marsha" -- who was Faith Domergue in the first film [she and Basil Rathbone do not appear in this] -- has now become the name used for Earth Control, probably to explain why the dubbed astronauts exploring Venus keep asking for "Marsha." This reuses all of the monster and robot sequences in Prehistoric Planet, but adds scenes of Mamie and her flock worshiping a pternadon God. When this flying reptile is destroyed by the astronauts, Mamie vows their destruction -- but she and the astronauts never actually meet. They wind up worshiping the remains of the robot instead. Pretty bad. Even the women aren't that sexy. 

Verdict: Bottom of the barrel. *.

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