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.

Somebody else mentioned the shocking level of product placement for Longines watches (and we thought that placement was new in the movie "2001"). What nobody else here has touched on is that dreadful loooooonnnnngggg scene in the observatory in England near the start of the movie where the secretary spends about 20 minutes (well, almost) just walking down the long stairs to bring a report to the chief astronomer, and then spends almost as long going back up (including opening and shutting the safety gate on the stairs...) Yes, truly a movie in which the concept of editing was only a slogan!

The rest of the comments above by previous commentators say it all, but I must point out that in the early days of analogue ship controls, all piloting functions appear to be digital, carried out by switching the positions of just two levers (in binary sequence?) to do everything - take off, land, dodge meteors, change course, etc... Even better, when the crew report in after quite a long flight, we cut back to the control centre on Earth, and yes, nobody has moved from their pre-launch positions! (Were their shoes nailed to the floor?)

In Britain, we don't get to see MST3K, so I watched this as a late-night stinker, and loved it. I shared the movie with friends on tape, and still feel that it's amongst the funniest B movies I have ever seen, right down there with Plan 9, and without the excuse that it was made by Ed Wood Jr!

If you like Borodin's "Prince Igor," "Stranger in Paradise," or "Kismet," DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE, because you will never again be able to hear that music without dissolving into fits of uncontrollable laughter. Otherwise, go for it: it is every bit as bad as others have described and, in my humble opinion, makes "Plan Nine from Outer Space" look like a masterpiece.

This movie was shown repeatedly on TV between 1957 and the early 60s. Anyone who saw it in the 50s remembers the soundtrack and the hot Fire Maidens! It was a silly low-tech movie, yes, but it was no worse than any other implausible sci-fi flick of that pre-spaceflight era. This movie is what it is, and what it is, is a pleasurable escapist marshmallow. See it if you can - you'll get a few laughs out of it.

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.