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Oddly intriguing but far from impressive
Women of the Prehistoric Planet is actually a fairly decent film in some ways, despite its non-existent special effects and really cheap sets. It does, however, suffer greatly from the wildly unsuccessful comedic efforts of Paul Gilbert (although he does manage to give us a classic "Hi-keeba!" moment). I must caution those of you with images of scantily clad native women in your head to just forget about it. There is no reason whatsoever for this movie to be called Women of the Prehistoric Planet. One could argue that the planet is in fact prehistoric, but the fact is there is not one single woman living there when the rescue ship arrives - just some guy and his monkey. Only one woman leaves the ship and sets foot on the ground from that point on - so, as you can see, the title could not be more misleading. And, in case you're wondering, there aren't any dinosaurs, either - just one big lizard, one good-sized tarantula, and a snake or two. <
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>But what of the story, you ask? Well, a couple of ships named Cosmos 1 and Cosmos 3 are heading home from Centaurus when one of them goes off-course, having been taken over by Centaurians onboard (who would much rather have stayed home in the first place, thank you very much), and crashes on an unexplored planet. Admiral King (Wendell Corey) defies orders and goes back to search for survivors, even though eighteen years will have passed by the time he gets there (eighteen years on the planet, but only three months on the ship). This of course demands a quick shout-out to Einstein and the time paradox, and the characters in this film go to ridiculously great lengths to explain the concept to all the dunderheads who apparently slept through the relativity lecture back in astronaut school. Anyway, the ship arrives on the hot, jungle-like planet, but no survivors are found around the crashed ship. A Centaurian gal named Linda goes out exploring for herself, though, runs into trouble, and is rescued by a young fellow in a loincloth named Tang (Robert Ito, aka Sam Fujiyama from TV's Quincy). Tang is the son of two of the original Cosmos crash survivors and the only halfway intelligent person living on the planet. He's half-Centaurian, so he and Linda hit it off right from the start. You can probably figure out the rest - who leaves, who stays, etc. There's a little twist at the end that is predictable yet effective. <
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>This movie has a few things going against it. One is the very inclusion of Lt. Bradley (Paul Gilbert), whose constant flirting and buffoonery are quite at odds with the otherwise serious nature of the film. Another is stock footage (although there is only one instance in which a cute little lizard is made to look like a big, threatening lizard). Third, there's all that traipsing around the jungle, the culmination of which is a dangerous journey across an acid pool - which our poor dumb heroes insist on crossing when they could easily take a few extra steps and just walk around it. Of course, one clumsy oaf falls in and gets killed, but the filmmakers totally blow the whole scene by not showing his bones float back up to the top - I mean, what's the use of dumping someone in a pool of flesh-eating acid if you're not even going to close the deal with some floating bones? <
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>Wendell Corey is amazing in the role of Admiral King - not because of his acting, which is quite wooden, but because he talks without ever opening his mouth. When I mumble, people tell me to speak up; Corey mumbles constantly, and he gets a starring role in a film. Go figure. As a mumbler myself, though, it's an honor to see a true master at work. An interesting note about the film (interesting to me, anyway) is that it features Gavin MacLeod and Lyle Waggoner in tiny, uncredited roles. I'm a MacLeod fan, but I've yet to actually spot him while watching the film.

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All-star cast lost in the stars!
Don't confuse thus movie with Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric
Women or Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet. These were two
movies cobbled together by producer Roger Corman from a
Russian film called Planeta Bur (Planet of Storms - 1962) which
was, by all accounts, a pretty good science fiction effort by the
Soviets. Corman reedited it, shot new footage with new cast
members, and made two different films out of it. Corman
certainly gets his money's worth out of everything!

Women of the Prehistoric Planet is by writer/producer/director
Arthur C. Pierce, who also gave us Mutiny in Outer Space and The
Human Duplicators, among others. This movie is a classic
example of how science fiction used to be done in Hollywood, as
hokey space opera with a low budget, immature characters with
scant and trite motivations, inane dialog, poor editing, directing,
and less than mediocre special effects. This movie could almost
be considered the last of its breed, as suggested by critic John
Stanley, since the TV series Star Trek debuted that same year and
set a new standard for outer space adventures. And then later
came Star Wars, which showed the-powers-that-be that big bucks
could be made if it were really done right!

Fans of The Creature from the Black Lagoon will find the music
score here very familiar. The plot will seem familiar, too -- space
travelers returning home in three separate starships (Cosmos 1, 2,
and 3) face disaster when Cosmos 3 crashes on an unknown planet
and Cosmos 1 goes to the rescue (what happens to Cosmos 2? It's
never mentioned again!) Due to Einstein's Theory of Relativity,
18 years pass on the planet during the 3 months it takes Cosmos 1,
going at lightspeed, to get there. They find no survivors, only
evidence of a mutiny in space. They do find the usual stock
monsters: giant snakes, lizards, spiders, and cave-men, which they
dispatch with both standard firearms and laser pistols and rifles
(lasers were still a new thing back in the `60s!) Most of the budget
seems to have been spent, not on special effects, but set design --
the jungle looks pretty lush, and the waterfall and pool where
Linda, the Centaurian, takes her nude swim is also nicely done.

Despite its flaws I like this movie. I saw it on my first color TV
back in 1968 or so, and hadn't seen it since, until I got this video.
All I remembered of it was the giant spider attack scene and that it
had John Agar in it, but that was enough to enable me to track it
down. In addition to the ubiquitous Agar (Tarantula, The Mole
People, Daughter of Dr. Jekyll, etc.) the movie has a pretty good
cast: Wendell Corey, Keith Larsen, Stuart Margolin, Paul Gilbert,
Kam Tong, Robert Ito, Merry Anders, Gavin MacLeod, Lyle
Waggoner, and Irene Tsu. A lot of them went on to TV fame in
the `70s, and some of them, like Kam Tong (Hey Boy in Have
Gun-Will Travel) and comic Gilbert (The Duke) had already done
so.

The "surprise" ending here will be no surprise to anyone who's
seem Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires, or Rod Serling's The
Twilight Zone TV series, in which at least two episodes had the
same "surprise" ending! Still need a hint? The action takes place
on the 3rd planet of a star called SOLaris. `Nuff said.

I recommend this outer space saga to all diehard fans of the
schlock-type science fiction genre, because of its cast and camp
value. Enjoy!