Fire Maidens OF Outer Space

written, produced, and directed (already we're in trouble!) by Cy Roth, this is a film about empire building, megalomania, and a quest for vindication. By whom? By Cy Roth, that's by whom! Actually, this is a movie about five chain-smoking, er, "astronauts" who fly their V-2 rocket through some dangerous looking stock footage to the 13th moon of Jupiter where they discover: Atlantis(!), a bunch of pretty young girls running around in what look like tennis skirts, a laughably bad monster, and the sad realization that none of them should ever have quit their day jobs. This movie is so indescribably bad, so incredibly inept - the whole thing looks like it was shot in somebody's back yard - that it has to be seen to be believed. And through it all, the strains of Borodin's "Polovetsian Dance No. 2" aka "Stranger in Paradise" repeat and repeat and repeat like bad take-out. Take our word for it: see this movie once, and you will never again be able to listen to the aforementioned music without conjuring up visions of this awful, execrable film.

FIRE MAIDENS FROM OUTER SPACE concerns the British / US "Expedition 13" to an apparent thirteenth moon of Jupiter. Once the stock footage V-2 rocket takes off, the adventure begins.

After a meteor shower, the crew zips right along, having plenty of time for shaving and smoking cigarettes, before arriving in the vicinity of Jupiter. The whole trip seems to have taken about fifteen minutes (Earth time). Untold horrors await as they land on the mysterious satellite.

But first, more cigarettes, please!

Thankfully, this orb is exactly like Earth, complete with grassy plains and trees! Can the titular maidens be far off? Nope. Ugly mutants too! The order of the day: Shoot first, and let lust be your guide.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, "ground control" sits around in what looks like a public restroom with a desk in it.

FIRE MAIDENS is an utterly absurd, sci-fi cheeeze-log from those fabulous fifties. As expected, it's all about the beautiful maidens, who just happen to be serving wenches, as well as synchronized dancers! Alas, the rest of this film is so criminally dull, as to cause our souls to wither and die.

Bring on the mutants! Kill the boring earthlings! Kill! Kill! Then, have a cigarette...

If I had a dollar, no better make that five dollars in these inflationary days, for every time Cy Roth's name appeared on the screen during the opening credits for this film I'd have enough to make my own movie! A bunch of British astronauts take an exploratory trip to the 13th moon of Jupiter (a neat trick in itself since this was made in 1956 and Jupiter's 13th moon was not even discovered until the late 1970's!) and discover a race of mini-skirted sex kittens who are the descendants of the survivors of Atlantis who left Earth some 3000 years ago! There is only one man on the planet and he is quite old so the girls welcome the arrival of young, virile men. Now in real life the guys would probably dismantle the rocket and live happily ever after. But do they in this movie? NOOOOOOOOOOOO! They are veddy proper Englishmen and they just want to go home! ("I'm a happily married man." one of them even states with quite the stiff upper lip.) Oh, there is one other male on the planet, a weird mutant known as The Creature. This has got to be one of the most laughable monsters in movie history. A skinny guy in a black bodysuit with clearly visible zipper and an unmoving fright mask. Yow! Even Larry Buchanan's monsters weren't that bad! Susan Shaw and Jacqueline Curtis are the Fire Maidens who get the most screen time but in the crowd is Kim Parker who would go face-to-whatever with the FIEND WITHOUT A FACE in 1958. This movie used to run on late-late shows all the time. It desperately needs to be released on video for a new generation to see. Yes kids, once upon a time people actually paid 35 cents on Saturday afternoons to see stuff like this.

The total of Jupiter's known moons presently stands at 79. Number 13 was discovered in 1974 and named Leda, which presumably means that this film is set in the mid-1970s; although no Atlantean civilisation relocated from Earth was noticed by its discoverers and no manned spaceflight there has yet been attempted (possibly because it is only 6 miles across).

After emerging from the V2 in which they made their three-week trip from Earth, the crew wander about deepest Hertfordshire for a bit before returning to what appear to be standing sets from previous historical productions at Elstree Studios at Borehamwood. The memorable use of excerpts from Borodin's 'Prince Igor' (acknowledged in the credits) pre-dates the use of Strauss in '2001'; but 'Fire Maidens from Outer Space' also shares with Kubrick's film the presence of Maya Koumani. (Prominently featured in the opening credits and as one of the dancing Fire Maidens, Ms Koumani later gets some dialogue, whereupon she is identified by name as what sounds like 'Nyssa'. In '2001' she appears as Dr Stretyeneva, one of the Russian delegation that meets Dr.Floyd at Space Station V.)

Interestingly enough, although there isn't the usual woman among the five-man crew (which includes the reassuringly familiar faces of Paul Carpenter, Sydney Tafler & Harry Fowler) - presumably because there'll be plenty of them were they're going - two of the six senior staff shown gathered round the radio at Mission Control are women.

My one memory of this appalling movie is of the spaceship's captain extinguishing his cigarette to announce "gentlemen, it's time for us to synchronise our LONGINES watches with the LONGINES master clock." At which point, the screen is filled with a shot of a very large, very ordinary looking wall clock with a prominent LONGINES logo on its dial. The camera lingers....and lingers....meanwhile, the viewer makes a mental note "must buy Omega next time."