Voyage to the Plant of the Prehistoric Women (1965) - Video On Demand

Voyage to the Plant of the Prehistoric Women - Movie Review

A team of astronauts crash land on Venus, and find themselves under attack by prehistoric monsters. They kill one of the monsters that turns out to be a god to the Venusian women, bringing the wrath of the alien women down on them. Directed by Peter Bogdanovich just a few years before his Oscar nominated The Last Picture Show under the name Derek Thomas.

In 1961, writer Alexander Kazantsev teamed up with writer/director Pavel Klushantev to make a film called Planet of Storms (Planet Bur) for Leningrad’s Popular Science Studios. Cult hero producer Roger Corman was on a trip through the Soviet Union after having been invited to a film festival in Yugoslavia and bought the footage and hired Curtis Harrington to incorporate it into a film, Queen of Blood. In classic Corman fashion the footage was then used for Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet and finally, Peter Bogdanovich made his directorial debut (and provided the narration for) Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women. According to Bogdonavich’s recollections as published in Corman’s autobiography How I Directed 100 Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime, Corman told him the problem with the film was that there were no women.

Bogdanavich hired a group of assorted young ladies, dressed them in bikins made of sea shells — designed by his then wife Poly Platt who would later serve as production designer on Paper Moon and Terms of Endearment — and had them cavort around on the beach for a few days.

The movie largely consists of the Russian film cut together with shots of Mamie Van Doren, who had won fame for her sex-pot roles in such fifties blockbusters as High School Confidential, and the aformentioned young ladies wandering about a rocky shore as the waves crash around them. They speak in voiceover while the Russian actors are dubbed, and although Andre is supposed to be besotted with the alien women, they never see each other - just the eerie singing of the mermaids is heard. Bogdonavich shot the footage silent and dubbed it such that the women seemed to be in telepathic communication with the space explorers. The difference between the original footage and the new stuff is painfully obvious.

Planet of Storms was quite a hit in the Soviet Union and throughout the Iron Curtain nations. According to an interview with Klushantev by Robert Skotak in Outre magazine, the film was seen by over 20 million people during its first year and was sold to some 28 countries. Planeta Bur looks to be a slick space fantasy for its time. After the American introduction which shows toy spaceships, the Russian models are a noticeable improvement, carefully designed, and the costumes and props are all very appealling. The cosmonauts have to contend with dinosaur men who fling themselves at the invaders, an attacking pterodactyl, and an erupting volcano which spews lava in their general direction. Fortunately they have their technology to depend on, and in particular a large robot who assists the lost spacemen, even though he malfunctions at a crucial moment.

The resulting film is an almost surreal experience. Cheap, but wonderfully bizarre.

Voyage to the Plant of the Prehistoric Women - Cast & Crew

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