Cat-Women of the Moon

The purpose of this review is not to comment on the artistic quality (or lack thereof) of Cat Women of the Moon in 3-D, from Rhino Home Video. The laughable dialog and cheap production values of Cat Women of the Moon have already been adequately trashed by legions of others before me. I am an aficionado of 3-D movies and I want to comment on the quality of the 3-D effects in this video release of the film. I purchased the video specifically to see the 3-D, since this is one of the few 3-D movies from the nineteen fifties that I did not see during the original theatrical release.

To the best of my knowledge, this is one of only three full-length theatrical 3-D movies from the 1950's that are available on the home video market in the two-color anaglyphic format. The others are Robot Monster, the ultimate classic of bad taste, and The Mask, which only contained 3-D sequences. One might argue that a low budget film and technically inferior stereoscopic photography go hand in hand. This is a logical argument; however, I decided that I had to see this video myself before passing judgement. I expected to see poor 3-D in this video, but I expected to see some 3-D effect. The shock was that there is no viewable 3-D in this video at all! The title of the video should be changed to Cat Women of the Moon NOT in 3-D. This is the sort of presentation that will give you a headache. It is the type of shoddy product that has given 3-D a bad name.

The problem with this video is extreme vertical mis-registration of the left and right images. Stereoscopic viewing can tolerate some horizontal mis-alignment within the limits of eyestrain. However, significant vertical mis-alignment makes it impossible for the brain to fuse the two images. This is especially true in anaglyphic video presentations, where separation of the images is usually not strong. The result is that the 3-D images in this video, when viewed through the provided red and blue glasses, look like a normal 3-D movie when viewed without any glasses. I can't find a single scene where there is a viewable stereoscopic effect. In addition, many of the scenes are totally flat (2-D). In the flat scenes, the anaglyphic colors are not present, indicating that only one of the two views necessary for 3-D is presented. Normally, this would be negative comment; however, the flat scenes are the only tolerable parts of this video, considering that the anaglyphically encoded segments are completely worthless. I do not know if the original film contained these flat segments, or if some of the film has been lost. Considering that the flat and anaglyphic parts are randomly intermixed, I assume that parts of the two original films have either completely deteriorated, or been lost. The only sin that was not committed by those who converted this film to video is the lack of frame synchronization between the left and right views that sometimes plagues 3-D movies. However, considering the alignment problems present in this video, the consistent synchronization is small compensation.

In fairness to the original producers of the film, one cannot evaluate the stereoscopic photography of the film as it was shown in theaters by the quality of this video. According to Amazing 3-D, the excellent book on 3-D by Hal Morgan and Dan Symmes, Cat Women of the Moon was originally shown in theaters using polarized projection. This was probably done from two B&W films in separate, synchronized projectors, the standard technique at that time. To present the film as a video, the two film images had to be color encoded in red and blue/green, and then superimposed during photographic printing, or during the video transfer. It is possible for an excellent 3-D film to be ruined during the process of converting it to the anaglyphic format if care is not taken. The fault is either with Rhino home video, or some third party that made the anaglyphic conversion, and paid no attention to the vertical alignment during the conversion process. Rhino Home Video may argue that this is such a hokey film that it does not matter if the anaglyphic conversion was done properly. I say that no film should be advertised as being in 3-D if it is so poorly converted that there is absolutely no 3-D effect in the finished product. As far as I'm concerned, this is a case of outright and intentional false advertising.

Some people will argue that is it not possible to achieve true stereoscopic 3-D in home video. I can say from personal experience that it is entirely possible to achieve acceptable stereoscopic 3-D in video using the anaglyphic process. The Mask, also from Rhino Home Video proves this. Although the 3-D in The Mask video is not as good as I recall from seeing the film in a theater, it is passable as 3-D. In this case, Rhino did not have to do the anaglyphic conversion, because the original film already contained anaglyphic sequences. I have also seen several full-length B&W films on TV that have been successfully presented in the anaglyphic format. These films include The Mad Magician (with Vincent Price), Inferno, and It Came from Outer Space. As well as a short subject, Spooks, featuring the Three Stooges. These films reproduce in 3-D very well on a properly adjusted TV set, and are almost as good as the theatrical presentations. I don't understand why these technically superior conversions are not available on home video.

Obviously Sonny Tufts was really hitting the bottle when he appeared in this film. He was touted as a new star in the 40's but his messed up personal life really did him in and he was reduced to playing in Grade Z movies and barely getting by. In several scenes he loses his train of thought and because of the low budget the scenes were not re-shot. What a hoot but at the same time pathetic.

This is one of those little sci-fi films that were so popular in the 1950s, usually low budget and inept. But if you are a bad film buff, you can't help but love Cat Women. There are some good actors in this film.....Victor Jory (how far he had fallen!); the wonderful Marie Windsor who made any film in which she appeared worth watching; and Douglas Fowley who was a film staple for years. And then there were the Cat Woman, slinking around in leotards and dog collars.

I won't go into the "plot" but suffice to say it was the same as all the other films which involved lost civilizations on distant moons. It is such fun and if you love low budget films with ridiculous special effects, bad acting and dialogue that makes you cringe, see Cat Women of the Moon. It's a treat!!

Mission Commander Sonny Tufts and his crew of space explorers brave the perils of a hostile Moon. They are threatened by a giant Moon spider and captured by telepathic lunar Amazons in black tights. A love triangle develops between Sonny, one of the Moon women, and a fellow crew person (Marie Windsor).

Okay, so it's not a great movie, but it was originally filmed in 3-D, and the music is by Elmer Bernstein (who scored both `The Ten Commandments' and `Robot Monster'. What a career!).

The 1958 film `Missile to the Moon' is essentially a remake, complete with the giant spider. The only improvement it makes is to give the girls more colorful costumes.

Just for the record, the other films with all-girl alien worlds are `Queen of Outer Space', `A & C go to Mars', and `Fire Maidens from Outer Space'. The girls in `World Without End' are from Earth, and there are a few men, but they're wimpy compared to the astronauts who show up to romance them.

In the early part of his career, Victor Jory appeared in some great films, starring alongside the likes of James Cagney and Errol Flynn. He even had a prominent role in Gone With the Wind. His co-starring role in Cat-Women of the Moon represents a descent to the depths in a film that resembles an amateur high school production. He must have been desperate. This is about as bad as it gets with a horrendously unimaginative miniature rocket and a plot that makes you wonder why they bothered. The absolute highlight occurs midway through the film when the head Cat Women slaps one of the underlings. The slap misses by some margin despite the sound effect of hand making contact with flesh. This scene is so bad that it has been mimicked by comedy writers ever since. The original print has been remastered for some unknown reason. Whoever made the decision to do that wasted their time.

This film was originally released in full stereoscopic format in 1953, and a regular B/W print was released later under the title "Rocket to the Moon". The film is of historic interest as it was one of the first (perhaps the first) of many Sci-Fi movies about space travellers who encounter a "lost" civilization of nubile young women, not only in attractive dresses and perfect coiffures but also speaking perfect English. This theme was so successful that it has been repeatedly followed right up to today when everyone has a much more sophisticated understanding of the realities of space. Historically, it is interesting to compare this film with those of the same genre released more recently such as Femalien or the Emmanuelle in Space series. Over the two generations since Rocket to the Moon was released, films of this genre have gradually changed their intended appeal by becoming primarily skinflicks rather than Sci-Fi thrillers.

It is unfortunate that Hollywood quickly lost interest in the complexity of producing good stereoscopic films (which are most often now featured in specialist theatres such as the IMAX), and instead has followed what I feel has been a largely disasterous attempt to explore the potential of anthropomorphic lenses even though in the majority of cases these have no conceivable artistic contribution to make to the final product. Although produced for polarised projection, Catwomen of the Moon is one of the very few 3D films which has been made available on VHS tape in analglyphic (dual colour) stereographic format. It has also been released as a DVD, but in non-stereographic format. Whilst the analglyphic tape version will remain of interest to a most people interested in the history of the cinema, I find it very hard to understand the choice of this film for release as a regular DVD.

This film was not produced on such a low budget as some of its successors. The view of the rocket itself gives the impression that at a pinch this might be large enough for a small monkey, but for its period it makes a serious attempt to show the need for features such as spacesuits for the crew of the rocket. After their rocket lands on the dark side of the moon the astronauts find a deep cavern where air still exists and where these suits can be dispensed with. Scientific improbability returns when they travel back to the surface wearing casual sports clothes and encounter a fairly normal gravitational pull. More surprisingly (?), the cavern is occupied by giant spiders and a group of nubile catwomen who are threatened with extinction, not by the complete absence of any men but by the gradual loss of their air. Logically they therefore plan to steal the rocket and return to Earth in it. The whole plot is worked out in just over an hour (64 min) of quite easy watching; however the story (plot?) does not have the charm shown by the film Fire Maidens of Outer Space which appeared three years later. This is unfortunately not currently available in any home video format, although in my opinion it provides a more enjoyable example of movie nostalgia than the Catwomen.