Mars Needs Women

Went into this movie expecting Tommy Kirk to do a reprise of his Gogo the Teenage Martian role from 1964's 'Pajama Party'. Instead, we get Dop, a seriously serious 'medical missionary' from the dying red planet, who needs five voluptuous young earth women 'unmarried ... of good health ... and possessing the common indicators of fertility and reproduction'.

The boys from Mars had tried the usual method of standard alien abduction in the movie's opening scenes, snagging a tennis-playing ingenue, a woman taking a shower, and a girl in a restaurant waiting for her beau to get back from the cigarette machine. WE NEVER SEE THESE THREE WOMEN AGAIN. Dop explains this ominously but matter-of-factly to blustering Army Colonel Robert 'Bob' Page: "We have attempted to seize three women by transponder. We have been unsuccessful." Could be the problem was using a transPONDER instead of a transPORTER -- since transPONDERS receive radio signals, not flesh-and-blood females.

So the five Martians decide on the sensible, low-tech direct approach -- hypnosis and kidnapping. And Dop is nonplussed when Colonel Page considers this "an overt action of ... war!" The Martian fellow (successfully) transports himself back to his ship and prepares for their one-UFO invasion.

In the words of the nameless network news announcer " ... the most powerful nation on earth is humbled by five men in a space cylinder hurtling toward the approximate vicinity of ... Houston, Texas."

For the next few minutes, we get to watch exciting stock footage of the X-15 and fighter jets trying to intercept the Martian craft, while Colonel Bob and his aide stare blankly at a loudspeaker explaining all the action.

The aliens land secretly and cautiously debark from their saucer, armed with Ray-O-Vac flashlights and harpoon guns. No wonder they misused the transponder.

Their immediate invasion plans call for securing "earth apparel, an automobile, currency, and a city map" of Houston. Martian operative 'Fellow 3' successfully appropriates the needed currency and map by raiding the nearby Phillips 66 gas station.

The boys' criteria for appropriate female specimens is not unlike Dr. Bill Cortner's search for the perfect body on which to attach his fiancé's severed head in "The Brain That Wouldn't Die". They round up an airline stewardess, a buxom co-ed artist, a homecoming queen (who bears a haunting resemblance to Marilyn Quayle), a stripper (played by local Texas burlesque legend, Bubbles Cash), and Pulitzer Prize-winning geneticist Marjorie Bolen, who, as 'Fellow-2' puts it, "happens to be blessed physically, too -- anatomically-speaking."

Dr. Bolen is played by the 'physically-blessed' Yvonne Craig, who is more recognizable in her skin-tight Batgirl costume from the '60s Batman TV show. Dr. Bolen melts at the insightful DNA questions that Dop asks at her news conference. Soon the Pulitzer-Prizewinner and the Invader from Mars are holding hands at a planetarium, where Dop delivers a heartsick soliloquy about his dying planet.

This movie is ripe with inadvertently funny lines delivered in dead seriousness, like:

"Do not -- repeat -- DO NOT eat any of the earth food."

"You are now, for all practical purposes -- earth men."

"Our time is short ... considering that in the next 20 hours, each of us must survey, choose, examine the medical records of, and abduct a female meeting the exacting qualifications of Operation Sleep-Freeze."

"Dr. Marjorie Bolen turned out to be a stunning brunette, who found it hard to hide her charm behind her horn-rimmed spectacles."

"Tonight: 'Sex and Outer Space' -- A News Conference On Extra-Terrestrial Reproduction by Dr. Marjorie Bolen, One of America's Leading Authorities On Space Medicine, in the Coronado Suite, 10:00 P.M. Only Newsmen with proper press credentials admitted."

"The exotic dancer is secured."

'Mars Needs Women' owes a lot to other great cheesy movies, like the aforementioned 'Brain That Wouldn't', and especially 'Teenagers From Outer Space', and even anticipates 'Revenge of the Nerds', when the geek geneticist wins the day with LUV. Watch this, then chase it down with 'Pajama Party', for a real 60's spaceman/bodacious babe overdose. 4 of 10.

I'm not kidding. Don't believe for one second that Tommy Kirk and Yvonne Craig star in this waste of celluloid. The actual star (at least for the first 15 minutes) is a white air raid speaker broadcasting a blow-by-blow account of the incredible stock footage scenes!

The cameraman does his best to capture the emotions of the speaker, zooming in and out of the speaker during moments of high drama, captured for all time in glorious stock footage.

By the time Kirk and Craig show up, you'll miss the speaker and the stock footage. At least they were a more interesting couple. And remember..."don't eat the Earth food."

When I first heard that "Mars Needs Women," in the 1967 TV movie of the same name, I must confess that my initial reaction was "Big deal. Who doesn't? Get in line. The line starts here!" But after seeing how serious and high-minded the quintet of Martian abductors in this film was, how peaceful and desirous of screening their potential victims, how they use hypnosis rather than violence to achieve their ends and save their dying planet...well, I grew a bit more sympathetic. Rather than trying to pick up women for the fun of it, these Martian dudes (who look just like us, by the way, especially after they steal some suits and ties and remove their antennaed helmets) literally have a world at stake when they go out and try to get lucky. We watch the five as they each go after a stewardess, a homecoming queen, a painter, a stripper (played by the appropriately named "Bubbles" Cash), and a lady scientist who's an expert on space sex (!). (I suppose each of the gals is expected to get pregnant around 1 million times!) This last is played by Yvonne Craig, who, in the mid-'60s, was responsible for tightening the manly hydraulics of many baby boomer boys, in her role as TV's Batgirl. Anyway, this film tries to be serious, but the dialogue is so stilted, the editing so inept, the acting so wooden, the stock footage so excessive, the FX so lousy and the pacing so draggy that it can't be regarded as anything but camp, and something of a labor to sit through. Somehow, though, unsatisfactory as the whole thing is, part of me liked it and found it almost touching; probably the part of me that understands how difficult it can be to meet suitable women, and the part that remembers lusting over Yvonne way back when. One final thing: The sound on the DVD that I just watched is pretty bad; you may want to turn up the volume on your sound system ALL the way before going in. And having a few beers beforehand, too!

Supposedly the location is Houston the movie was all shot in the Dallas area. You get a couple skyline shots,a couple scenes at the old White Rock Lake Pump station-where the spaceship was hidden, The Athens Strip-actual name of Striptease Bar where Bubbles Cash performed in reality, Fair Park and even out at Collins Radio in Richardson where the big Radar Telescope dishes can be seen. There are also some scenes around Southern Methodist University (SMU).

It is a campy movie, really hiring an actual Striptease artist to play a stripper? So set back and laugh and try to spot bits and pieces of Dallas from almost fifty years ago!

Sometimes bad movies are just bad. Not campy. Not funny bad. Just awful. This is #1 with a bullet.

This is what I call a "Fast Forward Film", meaning you can put your VCR on fast forward for extended periods, and not miss anything important. Actually there isn't anything important or interesting in this entire flick. There's about five minutes of story, so to pad things out, someone will walk into a room, and then walk around the room, then pour themselves a drink, then walk around the room again, just to kill time.

If I can convince even one of you not to waste your time with this film, I can die a happy man.