Women of the Prehistoric Planet

And it's a real pity that it was in the first national, Comedy Channel (pre-Comedy Central) season of MST3K (before Josh Weinstein left to work on THE SIMPSONS, and before Mike Nelson signed on as a utility actor), so it presumably won't be reissued on home video in their version, while my off-cable VHS tape is on its last legs. The cast makes the film, as several have noted here, as does the twist ending you know M. Shyamalan is waiting to spring on us again any film now...I won't reveal it, but its probably the oldest cliché in bad written SF, so ridiculously hack that even the usually shameless film industry hasn't bothered with it much over the decades.

However, quite aside from seeing Stuart Margolin beginning his long, deft, typecast career, and Robert Ito with surely no inkling of his similarly long television career to come, for this viewer, the female cast, led in this regard by Irene Tsu and Merry Anders, is remarkably lovely. Arthur C. Pierce, truly an undersung contributor to the Whacked tradition of film-making, provided us with so much in his few mid-'60s features. It's a pity we haven't given him more attention...or, perhaps, not. But these are wonderfully weird (not least in their utter lack of realization of how schlock they are), and often hard to find, films.

Somewhere in space, where no one can hear you scream, the Cosmos 1 is heading off to somewhere else. The crew have been on this 6 month mission. They are an advanced space faring race with their futuristic lockers and guitar-looking radar wall screen and the tendency to do space/time conversion formulas. Somewhere else another space vessel, Cosmos 3, has problems. The ship and crew are being held hostage by Centaurians (think of Klingons without the brown paint and sash, but all Asian) and because of it they crash onto a "prehistoric" planet.

The commander of Cosmos 1, Admiral King (played by the walking corpse of the late Wendell Corey), disobeys orders and goes on a rescue mission to Solaris.

3 months later .....

Cosmos 1 arrives at the planet, where 18 years have gone by. A rescue party is sent down, lead by Commander "I don't like Centaurians" Scott with Dr. Farrell (played by the incomparable John Agar), Lt."Why won't he shut up" Bradley, Stuart Margolin as the Chief and some nobody who's expendable (think of the red shirt security officers from the original Star Trek series). At the same time, Linda (Irene Tsu) escapes to the planet to stretch her legs.

On the "prehistoric" planet below, they find the crash site and the lone survivor; a Centaurian named Tang (Robert Ito). The rest of the movie is just a "stew" containing paper machete sets, stock footage of an iguana, a rubber iguana on fire, a sock-like jumping tree snake, a hopping spider plush toy, animal cruelty towards a chimpanzee (Teeko), stock footage, the admiral's slurred confused alcoholic rants and a trio of cavemen brutes. We top this with scenes upon scenes of the lecherous, chauvinistic, sexual harassing, karate practicing Lt. Bradley (who never shuts up). Visualize the Watney Smith character from Outlaw of Gor .... CABOT !!

Though the budget of the movie (and by proxy the intelligence of the write/director) was low, the movie still manages to be infused with a thought provoking plot about race relations, cultural differences, not being understood, being different, going through turmoil and finding a resolution. As a rule, you probably won't need more than 5 or 6 shots of SoCo to be able to see this.

You will probably recognize some of the actors. They had long and fulfilling careers, but you would not have bet on that after seeing this movie. Riveting performances like "crossing the log when we could go around or jump over the liquid" scene and Irene Tsu's unforgettable banana scene. This scene is both erotic, inappropriate and confusing (the skin of the banana ,and by proxy the banana itself, is bite-proof, yet not peel proof). Robert Ito's "hopping" interpretation of Tang will haunt me for the rest of my days.

I highly recommend this movie if you are not alone, not on any sleep inducing medication nor in possession of a dissection kit and are watching the MST3k version of this movie. In my final thoughts I noticed a similarity between this movie and another MST alumni, The Clonus Horror. Now to a bit of SAT deja vu :

The Clonus Horror is to The Island as The Women of the Prehistoric Planet is to ….

a) Star Trek

b) Star Wars

c) None of the above

d) Battlestar Galactica

.... for those even remotely interested the answer will be in my next review.

-Celluloid Rehab

There's only one woman featured prominently in this movie...and she isn't from the prehistoric planet. What a rip-off!

There are a couple of hokey effects but you'll want to hit the fast-forward button to see them. The majority of this film, like so many bad sci-fi movies of the 50's and 60's, is extended walking sequences! No one ever imagined that a prehistoric planet would be this boring. Never did a film need process shots of alligators and lizards more. Or women, for that matter!

However, it is worth noting that this is the movie that started the popular "Hi-Keeba!!" catch phrase on MST3K.

There's also twist ending in this movie that the average viewer will be able to spot about 2 minutes into the film. John Agar's in this film, too. 'Nuff said.

One of the pleasures of watching cheap sixties sci-fi movies was that they did the future so much better in those days, as witness the snug ski pants and stylish hairstyles worn by the women in this glossy colour quickie with cardboard sets and hilarious monsters that must have cost several dollars and evokes Maria Montez rather than Stanley Kubrick.

It's pretty awful and the special effects may not be very special but it's always a pleasure to see the lovely Merry Anders while the discussion of the effects of time paradox display at least a rudimentary knowledge of science fiction concepts on someone's part.

There is only one way to watch this film...and that is with witty commentary.