Cat-Women of the Moon

"Cat-Women Of The Moon" is an unusual entry in the "male explores find a civilization with women but no men" for a couple of reasons. One is that one of the explorers is a woman, and the other is that it was filmed in 3-D. But nothing much is done with those two bursts of originality - the woman explorer could have been a male with very little rewriting, and there is almost no effort made to exploit the 3-D filming process. (I'm not asking to be hit in the face every few seconds, but some carefully composed shots would have been nice.)

The lazy efforts on those parts can be felt in other parts of the movies. Oh, there are a few things that made me laugh - the interior of the moon rocket, wobbily scenery, people shouting when in their spacesuits, and the "stabbing" scene. But most of the movie is kind of dull. It takes about 2/3 of the movie before the explorers directly interact with the cat women, and before that point (and afterwards), there is talk talk talk, little of which is amusing. I was kind of glad that the movie lasted just barely over an hour, but the ending is so sudden, so "That's it?!?" that part of me wished they went on a little longer to end things properly.

If you want to see a funny example of this genre, I suggest you watch "Queen Of Outer Space".

In the early part of his career, Victor Jory appeared in some great films, starring alongside the likes of James Cagney and Errol Flynn. He even had a prominent role in Gone With the Wind. His co-starring role in Cat-Women of the Moon represents a descent to the depths in a film that resembles an amateur high school production. He must have been desperate. This is about as bad as it gets with a horrendously unimaginative miniature rocket and a plot that makes you wonder why they bothered. The absolute highlight occurs midway through the film when the head Cat Women slaps one of the underlings. The slap misses by some margin despite the sound effect of hand making contact with flesh. This scene is so bad that it has been mimicked by comedy writers ever since. The original print has been remastered for some unknown reason. Whoever made the decision to do that wasted their time.

For several years this movie had the reputation of being one of the worst movies ever made. Now it seems that bad reputation has cooled off since many other worse films have been remembered. Cat-Women Of The Moon is the story of four men (Sonny Tufts, Victor Jory, William Phipps, and Douglas Fowley) and a woman (Marie Windsor) who blast off in a rocketship, and land on the moon. On the moon they encounter large spiders, and the cat-women. The moon no longer has any male inhabitants, and it is learned the cat-women plan on stealing the rocketship to take a few of them back to our planet. The cat-women would then take over the world! The cat-women have telepathic powers to gain information from the male crew members, and make the female crew member a sort of guest cat-woman. The movie has some stuffy dialogue, but a lot of dialogue is hilarious and will bring unintended laughter. The repeated shots of cat-women silhouettes against cave walls becomes humorous, and there's a well known flub in which a cat-woman calls one of the crew members by the wrong name! The "exotic" dance number the cat-women do may also bring laughter. The special effects and large, cave spiders may bring on even more laughter. The acting of the rocketship's crew members is certainly not good, but it is certainly not the worst that can be seen in movies. Victor Jory and Marie Windsor probably do the best where acting is concerned from the crew members. Acting by the cat-women is worse. Most of the cat-women were billed as The Hollywood Cover Girls, which alone should indicate this movie contains a high amount of camp and unintended laughter. Music by Elmer Bernstein is mostly unnoticeable, and when it is noticed it is clearly not his best work. The mental telepathy aspect between the cat-women and the earth woman is interesting. Watching Cat-Women Of The Moon with a friend or in a group may be a laugh riot! How can you not laugh at those sappy, facial close-ups of crew man Doug (William Phipps), and cat-woman Lambda (Susan Morrow) as they fall in love; Marie Windsor's screaming; the way the cave spiders scream while being stabbed and shot; the painting that is supposed to be the city of the moon inhabitants in the distance; etc? Cat-Women Of The Moon can be enjoyed in a low-budget, comic book way, and may bring on a lot of unintentional laughter!

Thanks to Jeff Joseph of Sabucat Productions, I recently had the pleasure of seeing this film in all of its original polarized 3D glory at the Egyptian theater in Hollywood with 600 of my "closest friends"! ;-) (www.3dfilmfest.com) Sadly, though, while the presentation this time around was flawless, the print was in very poor condition, and it may not get too many more public performances - if ever again - which is a real shame. You see, this is one of those movies that has to be enjoyed in a theater, with a LOT of people, for maximum funness. It might be fun to sit around the living room and laugh at the campy dialogue and bad acting and VERY bad special effects with your friends, but to see it in a theater... well, there is no comparison. Especially when seen in polarized 3D... the fun factor goes up by a factor of at least ten!

If you're in the mood for a bad sci-fi film from the 50's, give this one a try. The more people you have watching it with you, the better. You'll get a real kick out of it, as this movie has some of the funniest lines ever, including my personal favorite, "You're too smart for me, baby... I like 'em stupid." Definitely recommended for a good laugh, and a great time. And if by some off chance you ever have an opportunity to see it in 3D, do not miss it!

Obviously Sonny Tufts was really hitting the bottle when he appeared in this film. He was touted as a new star in the 40's but his messed up personal life really did him in and he was reduced to playing in Grade Z movies and barely getting by. In several scenes he loses his train of thought and because of the low budget the scenes were not re-shot. What a hoot but at the same time pathetic.

This is one of those little sci-fi films that were so popular in the 1950s, usually low budget and inept. But if you are a bad film buff, you can't help but love Cat Women. There are some good actors in this film.....Victor Jory (how far he had fallen!); the wonderful Marie Windsor who made any film in which she appeared worth watching; and Douglas Fowley who was a film staple for years. And then there were the Cat Woman, slinking around in leotards and dog collars.

I won't go into the "plot" but suffice to say it was the same as all the other films which involved lost civilizations on distant moons. It is such fun and if you love low budget films with ridiculous special effects, bad acting and dialogue that makes you cringe, see Cat Women of the Moon. It's a treat!!