Voyage sur la planète préhistorique

"Voyage to a Prehistoric Planet" should be excruciating, but miraculously it's a pretty fun flick - provided you're into the B movie thing (and if you aren't, why on earth are you looking this "masterpiece" up?)

First, a little historical note. Although the American version of the film features the great Basil Rathbourne and that monotonous beauty Faith Domergue, these two thesps were in fact added in to the original footage in order to increase its appeal for a U.S. audience (the movie is actually Russian - or maybe Swedish). They aren't supposed to be there, and you can sorta tell, since they never get involved in the action. Sadly, they end up dragging the movie down, since all they do is communicate with each other by radio, slowing the action to a crawl with lots of pointless dialogue like, "I hope everybody's okay down there on Venus. Keep your fingers crossed..."

Now for the rest. Just about every scene in the movie falls into one of three categories:

(1) Tedious (2) Silly Fun (3) Genuinely Interesting

For #1, you've got lots of milling around in quarries and spaceship sets. For #2, you've got cool rubber monsters and the world's lamest aircar, which waddles along slower than your granny could hobble. For #3, you've got some cool cryptic references to the Venusian civilization, which pretty much remains a mystery for the entire film. I was particularly impressed by the single, indistinct, mysterious shot of the native aliens, and by the carving hidden in a hunk of rock. Too bad the whole movie doesn't deal with tracking down clues about the alien civilization, but alas, it's mostly concerned with techno-talk and survivalism.

Overall - quite good, if you're in the right company.

i watched this as a kid when it was shown almost every sat and Sunday night on wor TV channel 9 and thought it was kind of cool.there's a big clunky robot that talks in electronic monotones,rubbery dinosaurs,a big flying reptile and hints of an alien race hiding in the shadows,roger corman bought this film from the Russians when it was called planeta berg(planet of storms)inserted American scenes with basil rathbone and faith domerge and retitled it,and used the leftover footage for two other movies;planet of blood and voyage to the planet of prehistoric women(that features a busty Mamie van doren in a seashell bra)anyway its not bad,the dubbing is really poor,some of the special effects are pretty good for its time,i did like the hovercraft ship thy used.this DVD is very easy to find in sets or even for a dollar.avoid the sinister cinema print its too fuzzy.its not the best sci fi but its not the worst.its science fiction from the 1960's compliments of Russia and roger corman.6 out of 10.

The first of two modified versions of a well-done Russian movie, filmed in 1962 under the title "Planeta Burg" ("Planet of Storms") by the Leningrad Studio of Popular Science Films. No kidding.

The original story involves a manned landing on Venus, during which a group of cosmonauts and their seven-foot robot get separated from their comrades while exploring. The designs of both the robot and the astronauts' spacesuits are very impressive. Ditto for the land cruiser the cosmonauts use; it's a floating car that resembles those wonderful "cars of the future" which Detroit produced during the 1950s. In one scene the robot carries the cosmonauts on its shoulders across a lava flow.

Venusian life forms include a few non-animated dinosaurs, but they aren't very threatening other than an attack on the floating car by an ungainly flying reptile. The plot is pretty sedate and actionless, but the dialogue is intelligent. After finding evidence of a low-level civilization, the astronauts speculate on the possibility that Martians tried to colonize Venus but somehow slipped back into more primitive state! Cool idea . . .

In 1965 Roger Corman bought the rights to the film, added some scenes with Faith Domergue ("This Island Earth") and Basil Rathbone, and then released it in America as "Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet".

In 1968 he took out the former additions, added more footage, and released it again as "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women". In this third version, Mamie Van Doren and several other well-endowed beauties lay around on rocks by the ocean and make thoughtful faces while they have a telepathic debate concerning the "alien invaders" from Earth. The girls worship a dead pterodactyl until the end of the film, then they pull the wrecked robot from the ocean and start worshipping it instead (proof positive that a blond is a blond, regardless of what planet she's from).

The cosmonauts and the girls never come face to face -- which is no surprise, of course, since their scenes were filmed six years apart on two separate continents. Mamie's scenes were directed by Peter Bogdanovich under the pseudonym Derek Thomas!

In 2020, after the colonization of the moon, the spaceships Vega, Sirius and Capella are launched from Lunar Station 7 to explore Venus under the command of Professor Hartman (Basil Rathbone), but an asteroid collides and explodes Capella. The leader ship Vega stays orbiting and sends the astronauts Kern (Georg Tejkh) and Sherman (Yuri Sarantsev) with the robot John (John Bix) to the surface of Venus, but they have problems with communication with Dr. Marsha Evans (Faith Domergue) in Vega. The Sirius lands in Venus and Commander Brendan Lockhart (Vladimir Yemelyanov), Andre Ferneau (Robert Chantal) and Hans Walter (Georgi Zhzhyonov) explore the planet and are attacked by prehistoric animals. They use a vehicle to seek Kern and Sherman while collecting samples from the planet. Meanwhile John helps the two cosmonauts to survive in the hostile land.

"Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet" is so cheesy and silly that becomes funny. The effects are awful even for a 1965 movie, and the dialogs are very poor. Maybe the director and writer wrote this story and these lines in the elementary school so ridicule they are, specially the lines spoken by scientists. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "O Planeta Pré-Histórico" ("The Prehistoric Planet")

Before you view this film, you should read some of the comments on it here on IMDb. Most of the film is lifted from Planeta Burg, a Soviet sci-fi film made around 1960 by none other than legendary American workhorse B film-maker Roger Corman. Corman added Faith Domergue and Basil Rathbone and some poorly dubbed English, but, thankfully, left the plot, soundtrack, visuals and most of the dialog intact. What's enjoyable about this film is the original film included within it.

The story line is pretty simple. A manned space flight to Venus encounters many unforeseen challenges, including a great diversity of life forms, including, possibly, intelligent beings. Braving the elements of this tectonically unstable planet, an unbreathable atmosphere and dangerous creatures are several cosmonauts and a powerful and intelligent robotic android (somewhat derivative of Robbie the Robot).

This is a nice piece of mid-twentieth century pulp sci-fi. While it doesn't carry the weight of many of its contemporaries - such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, or Forbidden Planet, etc - it's enjoyable for its clever low budget visual effects, eerie atmospherics, and inventive technological ideas. Great film for sci-fi buffs and film history fans.