Cat-Women of the Moon

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.

This film was originally released in full stereoscopic format in 1953, and a regular B/W print was released later under the title "Rocket to the Moon". The film is of historic interest as it was one of the first (perhaps the first) of many Sci-Fi movies about space travellers who encounter a "lost" civilization of nubile young women, not only in attractive dresses and perfect coiffures but also speaking perfect English. This theme was so successful that it has been repeatedly followed right up to today when everyone has a much more sophisticated understanding of the realities of space. Historically, it is interesting to compare this film with those of the same genre released more recently such as Femalien or the Emmanuelle in Space series. Over the two generations since Rocket to the Moon was released, films of this genre have gradually changed their intended appeal by becoming primarily skinflicks rather than Sci-Fi thrillers.

It is unfortunate that Hollywood quickly lost interest in the complexity of producing good stereoscopic films (which are most often now featured in specialist theatres such as the IMAX), and instead has followed what I feel has been a largely disasterous attempt to explore the potential of anthropomorphic lenses even though in the majority of cases these have no conceivable artistic contribution to make to the final product. Although produced for polarised projection, Catwomen of the Moon is one of the very few 3D films which has been made available on VHS tape in analglyphic (dual colour) stereographic format. It has also been released as a DVD, but in non-stereographic format. Whilst the analglyphic tape version will remain of interest to a most people interested in the history of the cinema, I find it very hard to understand the choice of this film for release as a regular DVD.

This film was not produced on such a low budget as some of its successors. The view of the rocket itself gives the impression that at a pinch this might be large enough for a small monkey, but for its period it makes a serious attempt to show the need for features such as spacesuits for the crew of the rocket. After their rocket lands on the dark side of the moon the astronauts find a deep cavern where air still exists and where these suits can be dispensed with. Scientific improbability returns when they travel back to the surface wearing casual sports clothes and encounter a fairly normal gravitational pull. More surprisingly (?), the cavern is occupied by giant spiders and a group of nubile catwomen who are threatened with extinction, not by the complete absence of any men but by the gradual loss of their air. Logically they therefore plan to steal the rocket and return to Earth in it. The whole plot is worked out in just over an hour (64 min) of quite easy watching; however the story (plot?) does not have the charm shown by the film Fire Maidens of Outer Space which appeared three years later. This is unfortunately not currently available in any home video format, although in my opinion it provides a more enjoyable example of movie nostalgia than the Catwomen.

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!

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!!

Cat-Women of the Moon (1953)

** (out of 4)

Five astronauts (four men and a woman) land on the moon only to discover that there's oxygen on the thing but not only that but there's some "cat women" who want to steal their ship and go to Earth. For every masterpiece like The Day the Earth Stood Still you had fifty movies like this one and if you have a sense of humor towards bad films then you should enjoy this one. The film runs a very short 63-minutes and it's the type of film where you keep waiting for something to happen and it never does. I'm really not sure what the idea behind this film was other than to cash in on the sci-fi genre as the screenplay offers up nothing. I guess the so-called story deals with the cat women wanting to get back home but none of this really takes place until ten minutes to go and everything leading up to that point is just the astronauts walking around being amazed at what they see. There are some really campy moments including one sequence where the group walks into a cave only to be attacked by giant spiders on strings. Other campy moments include the cat women trying to seduce the men as well as a laughable scene where the astronauts learn that there is oxygen on the moon. Another funny thing is that there are several instances where the astronauts come off so stupid you really have to wonder if they were just homeless men on the street who were picked up and sent on a space mission. Another error happens in the gold cave when the actress accidentally calls the character she's talking to under the actors name. Heck, even future Oscar winner Elmer Bernstein did the score here. If you hate low budget, bad films then you'll hate this one as well but if you like bad movies then there's enough here to make this one "so bad it's good".