User Reviews

Wendell Corey spent the 1940s and 1950s as a dependable second lead and an occasional leading man in major motion pictures. By the 1960s however, alcoholism had badly affected his health while his acting career had slowed down considerably. John Agar's glory days (if you can use that term) occurred in the 1950s during which he made several science fiction movies for Universal. By the mid-1960s, he was appearing in trashy, low-budget fare like "Zontar, the Thing from Venus" and "Curse of the Swamp Creature". Both actors were at career low points when they made "Women of the Prehistoric Planet", and while the movie was destined to be pretty bad from the beginning, their lazy performances didn't help the film any.

A spaceship on a rescue mission encounters a new planet, which looks a lot like the interior of a Hollywood movie studio. After a lot of hiking through the jungle and a few adventures, the crew discovers an old, wrecked spaceship, which was the objective of their mission. Afterward the crew returns to the main ship. One crew member (Irene Tsu) falls in love with one of the old spaceship's crew, and decides to stay as the mother ship departs. There's a twist ending, which you'll guess way before Wendell Corey does.

Many 1960s sci-fi movies were filmed exclusively in studios, giving them an artificial, claustrophobic feel. This film is probably the most talky and stagy of them all, with not one scene shot outdoors. Corey was 52 when the film was made, but was in the final stages of alcoholism and easily looks 20 years older. Agar's performances, always pretty lazy, hit a new low here. He looks like a robot trying to act. Irene Tsu stands out as the only good cast member, but she can't carry the film by herself.

After the spaceship lands, the film just meanders from scene to scene with little coherence. One preposterous scene has a crew member falling off a slippery log into a deadly pool of liquid, but it's obvious that the crew could have easily walked around the hazardous stuff! Stuart Margolin has an unintentionally funny death scene thanks to a giant spider. The script was so bad that I really felt sorry for the actors at times.

This movie has apparently had longstanding copyright issues and is only available on old, out-of-print VHS tapes. If you want to see Agar and Corey in a really forgettable movie, take a look. Otherwise, don't bother.

There's a lot of negative things to say about this movie, which the authors of the reviews prior to mine have already done to death, and I'm not really going to argue with them: this is a badly made, lethargically written film. It's a textbook B-movie. However, unlike virtually every other low-to-no budget Science Fiction film I've ever seen, this one actually tries to work some actual "Science" into the fiction, and for that I give them high marks for trying, even if the rest of the flick completely undercuts the interesting time dilation aspect of the film.

Here's the deal: A flotilla of starships have been on the planet "Centaurus" for some time, and are heading back to their homeworld again, launched in six-month intervals. There's a human civilization (Composed of Asians) on Centaurus that has fallen on hard times, and appears to have been colonized by the Caucasians. En rout back home, some Centaurans rebel on one of the ships, and it goes off course, eventually crash landing on the heretofore uncharted planet "Solaris 3". The flagship of the flotilla decides to go back to look for survivors, and eventually meet up with the child of the survivors of the crash.

Here's the cool stuff: 1) They point out in great detail that they're traveling near light speed, and hence time is passing slower for them aboard ship than it is back on their homeworld. The starship's helmsman points out that by the time they get home again, his brother will be 32 years older than him. It only takes the rescue ship three weeks to get to Solaris 3 in subjective (Shipboard) time, but objectively, on the planet 18 years have passed. How freakin' cool is that? Come on, after a lifetime of watching lousy SF films where interstellar flight is as easy as hopping an airplane to Reno, you have to admit one which actually deals with Einsteinian Relativity is pretty sweet! It's a very cool idea to have someone look at a functional ship he just saw six months before, and yet it's derelict wreck that's been sitting in a jungle for 18 years. What's that? You find relativity confusing? There there, sparky, that's OK. Why don't you go back to watching Star Trek and leave the science fiction to the big boys, OK? That's a good boy... 2) The race relations aspect of the movie is pretty neat, too: the astronauts are all Caucasians, the Centaurians are all Asians, and neither side really trusts the other. Some of the Caucasians don't even consider the Asians to be human, despite the fact that they obviously are. Again, in an age when all SF postulates a future where all races live together in a spirit of peaceful unity, it's kind of charming to see a movie that dwells on how hard it can be to attain that kind of unity. 3) This movie actually goes out of it's way to imply a larger history than we actually see on screen, which is pretty clever. The Admiral believes (According to dialog in the film) that humanity established interstellar travel millenia ago, and then lost it for whatever reason. The Centaurans are the descendants of human colonists that adapted to the conditions of the planet Centaurus over scores of thousands of years, which is why they look different than the spacefaring humans who found them. 4) Irene Tsu is just smokin' hot in this movie, seriously. It doesn't hurt that her cave-girl sarong is slit up the leg all the way to her waist, but even without that she'd still be just..wow. I remember seeing this movie for the first time when I was 10 (On Dr. Paul Bearer's "Creature Feature" show) and getting strangely attentive whenever she'd come on screen and eat a banana or kick her legs when being carried off. I was only 10, mind you, I had no idea what it was about her that was affecting me so, I just knew that I felt pleasantly happy whenever she was on screen. 5) The final twist of the movie actually came as a big shock to me. Granted, I was ten, but it does kind of come out of nowhere, and it is sort of neat.

To conclude, I'm not saying this is a good movie because it certainly ain't. I *am* saying that it tried really hard, that it's got more interesting ideas than an entire season of Next Generation, or the entire series run of Seaquest (Not that that's hard in either case), it actually tried to say something about race relations, and while it unquestionably failed artistically, I have to admire it for tackling the big questions when so few more professional productions would even take the chance admitting the questions exist.

Probably the MST3K version of this film is the best way to watch it, though, because it is deadly dull, and Joel and the 'Bots really do liven it up quite a bit.

It's just horribly horribly bad... You spend two-thirds of the movie waiting for the prehistoric women to show up, and they disappoint. Bad. Really Bad. Not nearly as bad as Manos: 'The Hands of Fate'. But still just horrible. So bad... How long till this post is allowed? Thank god I was only watching this as part of MST3K. No, this comment is not gonna be helpful. Well... Yes it is, because this is so bad... What else needs to be said? It's just that freaking bad. BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD Movie.... Kilroy was here. That's the bottom line, because Joel Hodgeson said so... There is no reason for this movie, it just is what it is, and you're left to deal with it...

Seriously, whether or not this comment makes the it to the website or not doesn't really matter. This movie was bad. Why? Because it doesn't have any redeeming qualities (except for a single Centaurian, who just happens to be hot).

My overwhelming first impression of "WFTPP" was probably not the one the filmmakers were hoping for: "Man, poor Wendell Corey was already in baaad shape by 1966". I'm serious - the guy still had some dignity and presence on film, but he was noticeably slurring his words in even his most important scenes (and let's remember these are the takes they KEPT) and seemed little more than a shell of a man most of the time. And at that, he was still had the most "gravitas" of any actor in the production.

My second thought: "Well, Linda and Tang made a cute couple, alright, but the movie makes it clear that there are ALREADY primitive people on the planet besides them, and so the whole "Adam and Eve" plot twist just doesn't work. They were probably killed and eaten 20 minutes after the Cosmos I took off for the last time".

My third thought: "Two comedy relief roles in the movie was a bad idea. Both these actors have been genuinely funny elsewhere (especially Margolin, who more than pulled his weight in series TV roles), but they are really out of their elements here. They are (in Mike Nelson's words) "dead rotting squirrel(s) in the punchbowl of the screenplay". Actually, Nelson was talking about another actor in another movie in another book he wrote a few years back but I think this simile is quite appropriate here.

My fourth thought: I recognized one of the 'ray guns' the crew was using as a plastic toy that I played with as a child. It was a "Secret Agent Man" weapon - you pretended you were a secret agent about to be attacked and you pressed a button on the side of your 'radio' and a barrel shot out of the side and the 'speaker' unfolded to become a pistol grip. They cost about $3.99. They were cool toys, yes, but they were TOYS. I very nearly hurt myself laughing upon seeing this one resurrected as a prop in a science fiction movie.

Similarly, at one point, a crew member strings a piece of TWINE across a creek bed (filled with dry ice) for the exploring party to hold onto as they walk across the (8 foot) gorge via a fallen tree. I repeat: not a rope, not a cable,but a piece of TWINE, not even suitable for flying a kite on a March afternoon. I understand that the budget would be skimpy in a movie like this, but this was ridiculous.

So, in general, this was a pretty dopey movie, and one that did not live up to the promise of its title (there is just one woman) or the tag-line (we never see any primitive "women" interact with Tang, the crew, or Linda in any way). It's not even bad enough to be memorable. However, I'm sure the audience enjoyed it as background noise while they were making out at the drive-in!

This ranks for me a 6 whether with the MST3K commentary or not. That is as in bad movie 6 that is. C'mon you've got to give a sci fi movie a little bit of slack since it's, 1: filmed in color, 2: talks about how people age on planets while the space travelers don't since they are traveling at the (close to) speed of light, 3: super hot chicks, mostly Asian ones who are all stacked and the movie flaunts it throughout, 4: it has recognizable actors in it (none of the eye candy, which is probably a good thing so we see more skin), 5: it has the "stunning" ending which Corman did before with Teenage Caveman. So there it is in a nutshell, several hot Asian babes showing just enough skin to make it interesting, John Agar in one of his finest roles, the snitch from the Rockford Files who lays it out to the stupid Officers (He's a Chief), saying WTF? Oh I know it's bad, really bad, but give me some Asian skin to look at in a Sci Fi flick and I'll watch with glee. That Engineer LT comedy relief was not bad either, you could tell he was cool because the MST3K crew were getting pi#sed off because he was actually pretty cool. Oh I forgot to mention, they fry a living iguana lizard with fire and that was definitely a real shot of that lizard burning alive, its so cruel but compared to watching a Faces Of Death movie, I'd rather see a lizard die on screen, PETA can go bite me! 6 of 10, yes it's really bad but in a good way, probably best seen with the MST3K commentary but enjoyable without it as well.

I was able to realize the ending from the beginning from the most part. The weird thing about this film is that it's just paced poorly. The scenes with the two people just go on too long. Spoiler: they are revealed to be the Adam and Eve (or at least as prototypes) on the planet Earth. This film has such a weird way of expressing comedy. The supposedly funny scenes go on way too long and contribute little to the story. It's also pretty hard to follow, not knowing how the time lapse system works. Of course, I'm not interesting in keeping up with the story.

Most of this film just seems like padding. Wasn't there an episode of "The Twilight Zone" that showed that this same plot could be done in a half hour? Good for them for using it first. This movie just goes through too many pointless scenes and it's hard to take seriously. A single shot causes a giant lizard to be engulfed in flames. Most of the characters just seemed to have no purpose. *1/2

What a hoot fest. A pair of spaceships, taking eons to get back to their home world, run into trouble when the indentured servants on one ship rebel and they crash land on a primitive planet. The second ship takes about 20 years to land and investigate. The effects are awful and the acting is by the numbers. Wendell Corey speaks his lines like he need dental surgery or he's looped. Would love to see this film released re-mastered to DVD or Blu-Ray. Recommended for bad movie fans.

SPOILER ALERT! First of all, the title and the video box have something in common: they respectively hype and show the pre-hysteric women of the prehistoric planet - something alas the movie does not contain at all! There is one "prehistoric" woman and she's not very prehistoric! However, she is played by Irene Tsu so who cares, right? Suzie Kaye is a crew member on COSMOS I and she is great to look at too! Hubba, hubba! In fact, between those two, they're the only reason to tune in and watch this ripoff because there are no prehistoric women, half-dressed in loin cloths like Raquel Welch, Victoria Vetri or Julie Ege.

The plot concerns a spaceship (COSMOS III) that is overtaken by the "savage" Centaurians on board. The lead spaceship, COSMOS I, headed by the "sober"(?) captain, Wendell Corey, flaunts a directive to return to homebase and instead turns back to look for COSMOS III, which has presumably crashlanded on a planet in the SOLARIS system, which by the way is a dead giveaway for the plot twist at the end of the movie.

COSMOS I lands safely and then sends out an expedition to look for survivors (if any) of COSMOS III (what, they couldn't land closer to the wreckage than that?) In the meantime, one of the Centaurians, Irene Tsu, leaves COSMOS I, to go for a little walk just for the hell of it. Meanwhile the rescue expedition encounters iguanas that explode into flame when hit by pellets ejected from toy ray guns! They also encounter steaming pools of acid which one very clumsy and expendable crew member manages to fall in. Meanwhile back to Irene Tsu (and none too soon either). She gets kidnapped by a guy named Tang, whose mother and father were crewmembers on the crashed spaceship 18 years before! Finally, the rescuers reach the crashed spaceship and find a few bones and skeletons - and a fake spider that does in Chief, Stuart Margolin. One almost wishes it had done in perennial funnyman, jokester and co crew member, Paul Gilbert instead (talk about your sexual harassment!). The talk goes on endlessly, if not between Wendell Corey and Keith Larsen, then between Keith Larsen and John Agar! The talk wouldn't be so bad but those scientific explanations go on endlessly and even seem to confuse and confound the scientists on board the spaceship! The end twist would have been more believable had we not seen other primitive men try to kill Irene Tsu and Tang who at the end are supposed to be Adam and Eve, the FIRST MAN AND WOMAN on this new planet which as the movie fades out, Wendell Corey decides to name EARTH! If you don't take this movie seriously, it is one big laughfest. Oh, not as many laughs as say PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, but it has its share.

Another entry in my, find the crappest movie in the sci fi section. How many times must we go through being ripped off? I want my 50 cents back! On the cover of the copy that I hired is a sexy looking woman riding a dinosaur, with a Pterodactyl flying in the sky. I was expecting sexy Amazon women dealing to each other and the visiting men in the mud. I was expecting to see spacemen being shagged to death as punishment for visiting.

What do we really get? A bunch of drunk retards in possibly the worst spaceship model that I have ever seen! A spaceship that has the old style of telephone, the put your finger in and pull the hole kind of telephone. The spaceship also has the biggest switches I have ever seen. They land in a bad model that was obviously created as some kids science project at school. They then enter a sound stage that has polystyrene trees and caves that rattle easily. There is much talk of centurians, what are centurians? Who cares? They seem to be Asian people. DODGY! Because this film is made in the mid sixties, when the civil rights movement was just getting going, there is much talk of these 'centurians' being savages.

Despite the dodgy, drunken, Ku Klux Klan talk of the crew. They decide to leave and look around the planet. Why? Because they are all drunk on gin and need to walk it off. Especially the chubby guy. Meanwhile, you have their 'Grand-Dragon,' who gives soliloquy's for no apparent reason. These wise axioms also make absolutely no sense. But the crew are all so drunk the ignore him anyway. He is trying to be Captain Stubing, but Captain Stubing wasn't as drunk. There is some fat guy who either is very drunk or just has downs syndrome telling irrelevant and meaningless stories about how he likes to throw his urine at people. There is also a girl who seems to have been sniffing glue. She has a dazed expression and hooks up with an equally retarded 'Tang.' Now, after he strips her naked and drags her back to his cave. She then proceeds to fall in love with him. No pick up lines here, no you just knock her out and literally pick her up. This is how you get a wife here.

Women of the pre-historic planet. WOMEN! Not one retarded woman who runs off with a guy who seems to be named after a bad fruit drink! This is just so MISLEADING!

The other guys drunkenly stagger around the planet for no real reason. They encounter a giant lizard. Because they are great scientists who are very sophisticated and strong environmentalists they instantly shoot the lizard and kill it. They do this using laser guns that I have seen at my local toy store. They also encounter a tarantula that can jump huge distances. This is thanks to a handy naturally evolved piece of string that helps it move. They also cross a river on a log, tying a rope above to walk along it. Now my 9 year old sister could do this easily, playing hopscotch along it. However, everyone here is either retarded, drunk and retarded or just drunk. Making these drunk old buggers play hopscotch would be a death sentence. So of course one guy falls in and this is his instant death. Even though it is a spa pool/hot tub that he has fallen into.

A volcano goes off. A monkey happens to be on the planet and he serves the crew banana's in a cute and friendly way. A man struggles with his homosexuality. But because this is a film from the 60's and homosexuality can't be mentioned, he instead calls it a centurion fixation. But we really know that it as allegory for his own homosexuality. The drunk old guy tells him it is time to face up to the truth. That the whole crew knows! Yes, horror of horrors, even the women know! But they don't mind because they have been looking for a decent interior decorator for their spaceship for ages now.

A bunch of guys attack with spears, well so would you even the only thing that you shagged in your life was an over friendly, banana serving monkey. The retarded girl doesn't mind the eruption and has an unconvincing fight with polystyrene blocks. She the goes to hang out with the retarded Tang. The camera wobbles then stops, the eruption is over. The drunk crew wonders why they came here in the first place. In fact, the chubby guy who likes to throw urine spends the last part of the film drunkenly groping the women on board. They fly away and unfortunately don't crash into anything. Isn't there a law about drinking and flying spaceships?

This is 'Women of the Prehistoric Planet. Great title, bad film. It even has a twist, which I will not reveal. However, I can safely say it is as retarded as the rest of the film. I have never used the word retarded so often in anything that I have ever written but this film has inspired me. This film is sooooooo dumb 1/10.