Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women
| Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women | |
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DVD box-cover art
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| Directed by |
Peter Bogdanovich (as Derek Thomas) |
| Produced by | Norman D. Wells Roger Corman |
| Written by | Henry Ney |
| Starring |
Mamie Van Doren Mary Marr Paige Lee Irene Orton |
| Music by | Keith Benjamin |
| Cinematography | Flemming Olsen |
| Edited by | Bob Collins |
| Distributed by | American-International Television Filmgroup |
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Release date
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Running time
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78 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women is a 1968 American science fiction film, one of two which were adapted from the 1962 Soviet SF film Planeta Bur for Roger Corman. The original film was scripted by Alexander Kazantsev from his novel and directed by Pavel Klushantsev; the adaptation was made by Peter Bogdanovich, who chose not to have his name credited on the film prints, and included American-made principal scenes starring Mamie Van Doren. The film apparently had at least a limited American release through American-International Pictures Inc. but is best known from subsequent cable-TV showings and home-video sales.
Astronauts landing on Venus kill a creature that resembles a pterodactyl and is worshiped by the local women. The women try and fail to kill the astronauts by means of their superhuman powers. Eventually, the astronauts escape the planet, and their robot, damaged by a volcanic fire, becomes the women's new god.
The movie was known as Gill Men at one stage.
It was the last film made by the Filmgroup company.
Of the production, Bogdanovich himself has stated:
[Planeta Bur] was a Russian science-fiction film that Roger [Corman] had called Storm Clouds of Venus that he had dubbed into English. And he came to me and said, "Would you shoot some footage with some women? AIP won't buy it unless we stick some women in it." So I figured out a way to work some women in it and shot for five days, and we cut it in. I narrated it, because nobody could make heads or tails of it. Roger wouldn't let me add any sound. It was just a little cheap thing we did, and people think I directed it when I really only directed 10 minutes of it.
Bogdanovich said he had to paint out the red star on the spaceship, "in every frame. We painted in some obscure symbol that might pass for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration."
Bogdanovich hired Mamie Van Doren and several other blondes to play Venusians "because I thought everyone should be blonde on Venus. I dressed them up in rubber suits, bottoms only and put shells over their breasts. I had them traipsing around Leo Carillo Beach for a while shooting inserts that might relate to Venus". Bogdanovich says he gave the girl characters "South Sea movie names" because "it seemed right".
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Wikipedia