Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women

Although Planet Of Prehistoric Women's mother film Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet had some interesting aspects to it, this one is a total dud. Unless of course all you want to see is Mamie Van Doren and those scantily clad Venusian babes. All of them Playboy playmates or could qualify for same.

Honestly if the earth people knew what was on Venus, they'd be rushing pell mell to get to the shrouded second planet.

This film is a re-edited version of the first film with some added footage of Mamie and her clan. It seems as though the earth astronauts have killed the flying reptile the Venusians worship as a god. Causing a theological revolution on the place.

Unless you like Mamie and those twin weapons of mass destruction she sports, I'd pass this one up.

Director Peter Bogdanovich had to start somewhere; following second unit work on Roger Corman's "The Wild Angels," Corman allowed the hardworking novice an opportunity to do a feature film utilizing the exact same Russian stock footage used by Curtis Harrington for his 1965 "Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet," a 1962 entry titled "Planeta bur" (Planet of Storms). It's no stretch to assume that the first-time director just didn't have his heart in his work, as all of his newly shot footage features a dozen bikini-clad models not required to speak, everything narrated by Bogdanovich himself. There is no integration between the alien mermaids and the Russian characters, so the whole thing just sits there, aimlessly meandering from one crisis to another. Granted, I had just viewed Curtis Harrington's work on his "Voyage," so all the Soviet footage was already familiar to me, but at least Harrington had Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue actually communicating with the Russian astronauts, their scenes already dubbed into English. The blame here simply lies with Roger Corman, who felt the need for another retread rather than something truly original. "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women" carries a 1967 copyright, and at least Corman was satisfied enough to grant Bogdanovich the freedom to do a feature starring Boris Karloff, who supposedly owed Roger two days work on a previous contract; we can all be grateful that the result was the superlative "Targets," shot in Dec 1967, an achievement that even "The Last Picture Show" couldn't top (some may feel free to disagree). Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater aired "Prehistoric Planet" only 3 times, "Prehistoric Women" 4 times (maybe it was the bikinis), all from July 1969 to July 1972.

"Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women" concerns a party of cosmonauts attempting to rescue another group on Venus. Along the way they encounter prehistoric monsters and other perils, and there is an intelligent robot. This part of the film is really an excellently made Russian sci-fi film called "Storm Planet", while the other part concerns a band of telepathic Venusian cave girls led by Mamie Van Doren, who worship a pterosaur named Tera and watch the struggles of the cosmonauts from afar; this other part was spliced in by P. Bogdonovitch (at R. Corman's behest? I'm not sure), and is ridiculous camp. I've seen two versions of this film (not including the Russian original), one without the Van Doren sequences. Although it is regarded as a psychotronic/cult/camp type of film, the classiness of the original manages to come through most of it, and the pacing benefits from the exclusion of a stereotypically sexist subplot involving a female crewmember's misplaced patriotic zeal.

Like many of the reviewers, I watched this after the "Prehistoric Planet" film. I was astonished that there were no changes to any of the previous footage, other than the Bogdanovich voice over and the disappearance of Faith Domergue (Marcia). What has been added is a set of blonde women who hold sway on Venus and worship a Pterodactyl. They have scallop shell bras and hip hugger pants with bell bottoms made of a sheer material. I do remember that Mamie Van Doren was really quite a good looking lady and these really are some attractive women. But they never really speak. They are telepathic. They are there to show that they actually caused much of what happened to the Astronauts in the previous movie. This had to be made for the drive-in crowd to neck and ignore, simply to fill space on a triple feature. It certainly wasn't worth much time and effort.

In 1965 Roger Corman produced Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, and in 1967 he produced (uncredited) Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (VPPW). But the similarities do not end there. Both films are essentially recycles of Planeta Burg, a great Soviet sci fi adventure from the 1950s. Most of the footage from both films - and ALL of the coherent and interesting footage - comes from the original Soviet film.

VPPW is Peter Bogdanovich's first directorial effort, and unlike some of his later films, it's entirely disposable.

It is not the first, nor the last, time that an American director essentially plagiarized a good foreign film, but it is among one of the worst examples of Ameicanization I have ever seen. Even compared to what was done to Gojira, La Femme Nikita, Wings of Desire and Open Your Eyes, this is close to an all-time low.

Like the previous Voyage to a Prehistoric planet, but less seamlessly, Bogdanovich simply took a little new footage and added it to the original film. The story is essentially an adventure set on the planet Venus, where two cosmonauts and a robot await rescue, and follows the cosmonauts and their rescue team through a series of harrowing adventures involving giant carnivorous plants, lizard men, and geological hazards. Planeta Burg also introduced a little mystery by showing some evidence that Venus may once have been inhabited by an intelligent species capable of producing works of art.

The most interesting aspect of Bogdanovich's retelling of this story is his exploration of this mystery. It seems that the last remnants of Venusian civilization are scantily clad telepathic women who worship, among other things, a Pteradactyl which their earthling visitors have murdered. These women have apparently figured out how to reproduce without men, and to produce cotton pants and hats for themselves out of Venus' barren wastelands, but are otherwise quite primitive. Remarkably, despite the fact that there do not appear to be any Venusian men, the gods the women worship are referred to as "him". You get the picture, yes?

The basic idea of examining the Venusian perspective on the events depicted in Planeta Burg was a good one. But this was, apparently, the only good idea involved in the design of this film.

This film is worth seeing if you ever felt compelled to see Mamie van Doren chewing on a freshly caught raw fish, or if you are a fan of Planeta Burg and just have to see how it has been butchered in this final act of cinematic violence. Otherwise, I can't recommend it.

The special effects are way below the quality of those which appear in the 1950s film, the added content is poorly acted, badly edited, and adds very little to the film.