Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women

Director Peter Bogdanovich had to start somewhere; following second unit work on Roger Corman's "The Wild Angels," Corman allowed the hardworking novice an opportunity to do a feature film utilizing the exact same Russian stock footage used by Curtis Harrington for his 1965 "Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet," a 1962 entry titled "Planeta bur" (Planet of Storms). It's no stretch to assume that the first-time director just didn't have his heart in his work, as all of his newly shot footage features a dozen bikini-clad models not required to speak, everything narrated by Bogdanovich himself. There is no integration between the alien mermaids and the Russian characters, so the whole thing just sits there, aimlessly meandering from one crisis to another. Granted, I had just viewed Curtis Harrington's work on his "Voyage," so all the Soviet footage was already familiar to me, but at least Harrington had Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue actually communicating with the Russian astronauts, their scenes already dubbed into English. The blame here simply lies with Roger Corman, who felt the need for another retread rather than something truly original. "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women" carries a 1967 copyright, and at least Corman was satisfied enough to grant Bogdanovich the freedom to do a feature starring Boris Karloff, who supposedly owed Roger two days work on a previous contract; we can all be grateful that the result was the superlative "Targets," shot in Dec 1967, an achievement that even "The Last Picture Show" couldn't top (some may feel free to disagree). Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater aired "Prehistoric Planet" only 3 times, "Prehistoric Women" 4 times (maybe it was the bikinis), all from July 1969 to July 1972.

"Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women" concerns a party of cosmonauts attempting to rescue another group on Venus. Along the way they encounter prehistoric monsters and other perils, and there is an intelligent robot. This part of the film is really an excellently made Russian sci-fi film called "Storm Planet", while the other part concerns a band of telepathic Venusian cave girls led by Mamie Van Doren, who worship a pterosaur named Tera and watch the struggles of the cosmonauts from afar; this other part was spliced in by P. Bogdonovitch (at R. Corman's behest? I'm not sure), and is ridiculous camp. I've seen two versions of this film (not including the Russian original), one without the Van Doren sequences. Although it is regarded as a psychotronic/cult/camp type of film, the classiness of the original manages to come through most of it, and the pacing benefits from the exclusion of a stereotypically sexist subplot involving a female crewmember's misplaced patriotic zeal.

Probably one of the more haunting experiences and viewings as a child I remember because often it was aired at alternative times by it's previous venture, "Voyage to a Prehistoric Planet". I remember feeling confused as to the differences, but by far, "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women" presents the better use of the original Russian footage. The closing scenes with the women surrounding their "new god" the lava-destroyed robot, "John", are simply eerie in contrast to the previous scenes from the 1962 Russian film. The voice-over dialog by Mamie Van Doren, while "hokey" in parts, sets the mood perfectly. To appreciate this film for what it is, one needs simply to view it ALONE...in the quiet dead of night. It gets under your skin and stays there. One of the more noteworthy and curious (in my opinion), albeit "lessor known" of Corman's "cut and paste" classics.

There's not too much going for this movie. It has a poor plot and poor acting. At the start of the movie, the special effects seem promising but even this quickly disappears and reverts to much lower standards. It seemed to me that the film is far behind the quality of special effects available in 1968. It seemed to be several years behind the times. The actual quality of the film is even poor. The so called prehistoric women did not in the least look prehistoric. To me they just looked very strange. I didn't find this movie to be very interesting and would go as far as calling it boring. I've seen a lot worse but this film is definitely near the bottom of my list and is one that I would not recommend.

This film is so awful it's brilliant.

The film is actually a re-edit of a Soviet science fiction film with extra footage of young American girls. Very low budget. The two sets of actors never actually meet.

All the voices are dubbed on afterwards. This covers up the fact that the astronauts are speaking Russian. The "Prehistoric women" communicate through thought waves, so none of them have to talk and act at the same time! I watched this on Sumo TV in the UK. The version I saw still had all the cinema adds spliced in. The adverts for ice cream, popcorn and hot chocolate were still there. There was also an advert for CocaCola.

The whole thing looks like someone had filmed the thing from the stalls on an old Cine camera. Picture blurred and fuzzy, colour almost bleached away.

Unfortunately none of the US actors ever went on to do anything of any significance. The leading lady, Mamie Van Doren, seems to have built her reputation around being a former Hollywood starlet who was supposed to be the next Marylin Monroe and spent five years dating Howard Hughes, from the age of 15! Directed by Peter Bogdanovich (Famous director and also Dr. Elliot Kupferberg in The Sopranos TV series)

Any prospective actor/producer/director should see some of this.