Le donne del pianeta preistorico

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

Another one of those 1960s sci-fi movies whose poor production standards set your teeth on edge -- but in this case the cast is a hoot!

A space expedition comprised of the prolific John Agar, Wendell Corey ("Cyborg 2087"), Lyle Waggoner ("The Carol Burnette Show"), night club comedian Paul Gilbert (the comic relief), and Stuart Magolin (Angel from "The Rockford Files") lands on an alien world (a studio set), populated by dinosuars (stock-footage lizards) and prehistoric humanoids.

The astronauts provide assistance to two local inhabitants, a man and a woman who serve as a kind of Adam and Eve for this strange world -- which turns out to be Earth! This twist ending was done so often on the Twilight Zone it will never surprise anybody again.

The male humanoid's name is Tang and the female's is Linda ( . . . Linda?). Admittedly the story attempts to interject a few interesting elements; in addition to the roaring lizards, there's a carnivorous plant and a king-sized spider. Remember, I said they TRIED, okay?

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

The chance to comment on this film(?) finally made me register.

I saw this late at night and watched with delight, wondering just how bad it could get. That was thirty years ago, so if you're looking for accurate scene descriptions and dialogue quotes, don't expect them here. But here's my hazy, loving memories.

1. Wendell Corey, playing the captain of the space ship, half plastered and obviously paying off a bet with a one afternoon performance, standing in front of a blank wall with a porthole in it while someone on the other side waves a sparkler.

Corey: "Looksh like another meteor shtorm..."

2. The spaceship crashing in the swamp... The miniature they used must hve been about the size of a pencil stub, since it went "bloop" and tossed up one single drop of water which on that scale would have been considerably bigger than a bungalow.

3. The prehistoric woman herself, a dark, hirsute beauty, wearing a bearskin teddy and looking hopefully at the director for direction after each line of dialogue.

4. One set, obviously built while they still had twenty seven dollars to burn, that consisted of a cave full of giant toadstools and human skeletons. After sneaking around outside for what seems to be several days, a patrol from the spaceship enters.

The patrol leader's perplexed comment: "There's something suspicious about this place..."

That's where I lost it completely and rolled around on the floor.

Well, you had to be there.

Surprisingly intelligent 60s space movie.

The title suggests we are in for sexy girls in stone age clothing - wrong! We get a tiny bit of that but this flick was named this way to draw in the male cinema goers!

Instead we get a space movie with some well thought out ideas. The first 30 or 40 minutes of this movie is so well done. I have no problem with the studio sets that are meant to pass as an alien planet. The planet creatures could have been better.

I will say the first half of the flick is better than the second half. However, I had a very faded print and I feel it needs to be seen remastered before I can fully judge it.

I can say one thing, everyone involved was obviously trying to make this movie special. Give it a go.