Mars Needs Women

Sometimes bad movies are just bad. Not campy. Not funny bad. Just awful. This is #1 with a bullet.

This is what I call a "Fast Forward Film", meaning you can put your VCR on fast forward for extended periods, and not miss anything important. Actually there isn't anything important or interesting in this entire flick. There's about five minutes of story, so to pad things out, someone will walk into a room, and then walk around the room, then pour themselves a drink, then walk around the room again, just to kill time.

If I can convince even one of you not to waste your time with this film, I can die a happy man.

Of all the sci-fi movies that I have seen that were filmed in Houston, this is among the best.

Mars Needs Women is watchable fun. Tommy Kirk pilots a spaceship with a crew of 4 Martian males into an abandoned ice making factory, which is spooky and heavy with the fetor of rotting chemical containers.

They have 24 hours to acquire 5 women who are both beautiful and healthy which they can use to repopulate their loathsome planet.

Tommy must assume the identity of a newspaper reporter and convince a rather strapping Yvonne (Batgirl) Craig through a series of soliloquies and expertly maneuvered tarradiddles that he is more than a bromide journalist rather he is ultimately the urbane, suave Prince Charming who can make her pretty little head swirl with thoughts beyond the realm of standardized lucubration. Behind her horn-rimmed glasses, she quivers for this alluring myrmidon from beyond the stars. He is captivated by this autochthonous siren. To want- to love- to live.

He in turn bespeaks the confusion of his soul, an embodiment of the whole piece, rightly an olla podrida of mental acuity and the most conspicuous of all jigs; that quasi-caromed, state of palpitate we mortals call seduction.

It gives us much to mull. It is to cinema what T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" was to prose; only this classic has a stripper, a groovy soundtrack, and a harpoon gun.

That still belongs to "Salo".

A bunch of Martians (led by Tommy Kirk) land on Earth. Their plan is to abduct women, bring them to Mars, and use them to keep their population growing. They each hunt down women successfully but Kirk falls in love with his prey Dr. Bolen (Yvonne Craig). Can he bring her with him or stay on Earth with her?

With a title like that you would expect this movie to be pure camp. Surprisingly, it isn't! Everything is played straight-faced with absolutely no joking or winking at the audience. Now this movie is terrible--there's tons of stock footage (which easily take up most of the running time); a LOONGGGG strip sequence; dreadful acting (although Kirk and Craig do try); inept direction; bad sound (I couldn't hear some of the dialogue--no loss); hilariously inappropriate music and horrendous "special" effects (wait till you see the Martian spaceship!). The script is actually OK--it's not stupid just dull.

There are plenty of dull spots in this movie but still, there are some moments to treasure--the introduction of Dr. Bolen on TV is hysterical and I got a laugh out of the title of a lecture she was giving--"Sex and Outer Space". And it was kind of fun to see how badly Larry Buchanan directed this. And I saw a new print and the colors were bright and strong.

So, this is a bad movie, but I've seen worse. From what I've heard even Kirk and Craig to this day admit liking it! I'm giving it a 2.

I'm not kidding. Don't believe for one second that Tommy Kirk and Yvonne Craig star in this waste of celluloid. The actual star (at least for the first 15 minutes) is a white air raid speaker broadcasting a blow-by-blow account of the incredible stock footage scenes!

The cameraman does his best to capture the emotions of the speaker, zooming in and out of the speaker during moments of high drama, captured for all time in glorious stock footage.

By the time Kirk and Craig show up, you'll miss the speaker and the stock footage. At least they were a more interesting couple. And remember..."don't eat the Earth food."

I love this movie because it is just so darn sincere. There is not a moment in the film that suggests its author understands the ridiculousness of his premise. This wants to be a good movie, an intelligent piece of science fiction, and yet, it is called Mars Needs Women. The movie even has some literary pretensions showing.

Everything about this movie is inept, but done with such earnestness that it is reminiscent of when a cute little kid says something totally absurd and laughable with a straightforward demeanor that just makes it all that much funnier. I rank this up (or is that down) with camp classics like Glen or Glenda. I just found it very funny.