Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women

"A group of astronauts attempt to rescue a party stranded on the surface of Venus. In the process, they encounter numerous perils, including distinctly unfriendly prehistoric monsters. Their misadventures are watched from afar by a group of telepathic alien women who worship a pterosaur named Tera," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis. Director/narrator Peter Bogdanovich uses Andre Freneau (Gennadi Vernov) as story protagonist.

This is the second bastardization of the Russian science-fiction film "Planeta Bur" (1962). There are some good visual effects, carried over from the original movie, especially the cosmonauts' airborne planet surface vehicle. But, as astronomers knew, by the 1960s, this film doesn't really depict how a landing on earth's neighboring Venus could possibly look - if they'd have picked another Solar System, they might have had a classic.

The use of "Robot John" is one of several similarities to the TV show "Lost in Space" (appearing in 1965), especially the fourth and fifth episodes of that series. The Robinson family's "Robot" was intended to serve the same function; and, both teams of space travelers encountered "prehistoric" monsters, misguided robot helpers, spaceship weight problems, lost civilizations, and wildly unstable planetary climate changes.

The U.S. poorly dubbed this "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women", and cheaply inserted footage featuring busty Mamie Van Doren and several other tightly-clad blondes. How these women came to be living on Venus is wisely left to the imagination. The idea is loosely based on the original film's appearance of a mysterious female figure. "Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet" (1965) was the first, and better, American version.

** Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968) Peter Bogdanovich, Pavel Klushantsev ~ Mamie Van Doren, Gennadi Vernov, Vladimir Yemelyanov, Georgi Zhzhyonov