Customer Reviews
Murky but Occasionally Interesting 
2006-01-17
Travel to Venus with a bunch of scientific-looking guys and an impressive robot that thinks of itself first. Why travel to Venus? Answer: To look for intelligent life, because it apparently does not exist on Earth.
There are reasonably good special effects as the intrepid voyagers head off to Venus to rescue those daring young men in their landing machine that accidentally crashed on Venus because that was how they set up the plot of the story. I hope all that is clear. This movie started life as a Soviet science fiction film (which the Soviet government may have palmed off as a documentary, for all we know). Roger Corman became the executive producer, and he spliced in scenes of Faith Domergue (who has appeared in numerous B-science fiction flicks) as Dr. Marsha (Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!) Evans and Basil Rathbone (in one of his last films, a sad end for the man who is often identified as Sherlock Holmes) as Professor Hartman. Corman cleverly has Evans and Hartman in different locations, both communicating with the men on Venus, thus keeping everyone from knowing that these shots were added to someone else's film to make a completely different film.
The shots of Faith Domergue and Basil Rathbone were unnecessary and distracting. The best shots are on Venus, as the men are attacked by guys in rubber Godzilla suits, only people-sized instead of king-sized, a tentacled plant, and a flying reptile that looks suspiciously like the bird in "The Giant Claw." There are obligatory tense moments involving the poisonous atmosphere of Venus, earthquakes (or is that Venusquakes?), lava and a flood. How fortunate that it was not blizzard season!
In spite of the somewhat vague plot and the inability of people to find each other so that they could be rescued, this movie has a couple of bright spots, those being a robot and a "space car" (their terminology, not mine). The robot is one of the most impressive robots I have seen, ranking with Robbie the Robot, and the robot from "Lost in Space." The space car looks like it could have been in "Fireball XL5" or "Thunderbirds," and also adds a bright spot to this movie.
The plot drags in places, the sound is weak, the scenes with Domergue and Rathbone were unnecessary, and the attack from the water that I kept expecting never arrived. Yet, I somehow managed to enjoy this movie. I think it was because the Venus scenes had some charm to it. I will only recommend this movie to hardcore science fiction film fans, or to fans of Roger Corman; everyone else to move on to something else.
A tantalizing tidbit: There is a sequel to this movie titled "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women," which features Mamie Van Doren. It seems that while the men in this movie were wandering around trying to rescue their comrades, there were a bunch of hot babes wandering around looking for the men. What a meeting that would have been!
The Cormanator Strikes Again!... 2005-07-19
Yes, this is indeed the eastern european sci fi classic in it's Cormanized form, before being totally destroyed in it's final VOYAGE TO THE PLANET OF PREHISTORIC WOMEN incarnation. Here we get added scenes of Basil Rathbone as the head of an extremely boring moonbase, and Faith Domergue as Marcia, the communications relay person between the moon and Venus. On Venus itself, we have two sets of astronauts (cosmonauts) looking for each other. One group encounters a man-eating plant (much like the one in Angry Red Planet), a bunch of stuffed dinosaur puppets, and a mysterious singing lady. The others must deal with a horde of lizard-men, the lava from an erupting volcano, and a robot that wants to dump them into the molten flow! Speaking of the robot, it's actually pretty cool looking. It's up there with Robby (Forbidden Planet) and the B9 (TV's Lost In Space)! All in all, VTTPP is a good waste of time on a rainy afternoon...
When in doubt, add more crap 
2005-05-08
How many hands in how many pots by how many cooks on how many stoves in how many countries does it take to ruin a movie? I think the answer is not very much, as the classic Manos: Hands of Fate showed us. However, the makers of this film, and there were many, decided to test going the other direction. This movie has had more hands on it than Paris Hilton.
Portions of this movie were originally known as "Planeta Burg" (Russian for "Planet of Storms") and had a cast of several almost not so bad Russian actors. This footage, captured with state of the art communist photo machines, is almost not grainy. In fact, on the Beer Scale of Footage Quality, this ranks "Killian's Irish Red" meaning the footage is slightly more clear than looking through a pint of Guinness.
But that's not even the best part, the best part was the footage that was spliced in when the film came to America. There are crystal clear shots of Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue added. You can see Faith Domergue in "This Island Earth" that was so succesfully riffed as the feature of "Mystery Science Theatre: 3000 The Movie."
Also, there are some scenes spliced in with American quality special effects (America was even ahead of the USSR in Z-film movie quality). From this mish mash of cinematography, the producers decided to find complete idiots to do the voice dubs of the Russian actors. At least I hope these people are idiots, they may just in fact be people with profound mental retardation, in which case their efforts are laudable.
A funny note here, the dubbing of the film was pretty bad, but what makes it hilarious is the fact that the Rathbone and Faith Domergue lines are not dubbed at all.
So, the Russian Director, the U.S. director Curtis Harrington, and the fall guy Roger Corman all added their individual specialties to this work of a thousand authors, and the result? Mud.
Wait, that's an insult to made, at least mud is consistent.
Oh yeah, I didn't even mention silly things like plots and performances and neat stuff about this film...
Maybe because there were none.
Bad-Acted Voyage To Venus 2004-12-29
VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTOIC PLANET is a truly interesting sci-fi adventure combining FORBIDDEN PLANET and THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT. Three men come to Venus in search of two men and a robot who previously crashed on the planet. There, they find prehistoric monsters and other ancient items and hear a woman singing(this is explained in the sequel,VOYAGE TO THE PLANET OF PREHISTOIC WOMEN). I recommend this film, minus its bad acting and little dinosaur footage.
3 stars,1966,Color,100 minutes,Not Rated
Corman splices Rathbone into Soviet Sci-fi 2004-01-04
This is for those of you who have a taste for the strange, esoteric joys of B moviemaking. Notorious cheapie producer Roger Corman has evidently bought an interesting, serious sci-fi opus made in the '50s behind the Iron Curtain, dubbed it into English and added brief scenes of the great thespian Basil Rathbone and Faith (This Island Earth) Domergue and it comes off like something David Lynch would dream up! It makes no sense, but it's fascinating! Rathbone's diction is so veddy erudite (though noticeably slurred in one scene), and he seems bored and bummed out, but he's got the MAGIC- even though his scenes are shot entirely seperate from everyone else in the movie. Domergue, gorgeous just a few years before, is unrecognizable- something dreadful was happening to this actress to make her so haggard and listless. She "communicates" with cosmonauts on Venus through a microphone on a panel, and halfway through, removes her lab coat to reveal her once stunning figure in a sweater. After that, the two English-speaking actors are not seen again (they dub in some dialogue to "explain" what happened to Domergue). The cosmonauts are obviously from another movie. They all look so Slavic it's amazing (kind of resemble young Charles Bronson): short noses, long upper lips, wide, stern mouths, beetling brows, and craggy cheeks, but with teased Kremlin-style pompadores like TV evangelists (what is it with Communism and high hair, does it represent Progress?) The prop designs are pure Workers' Paradise Futurism: retro-cool (to us) spacesuits, and a robot that looks like it lumbered out of a Socialist Realist poster. Whatever language they're speaking, the consonants and vowels roughly match up with the English translation, but the dialogue is delivered so monotonously by the dubbers, and the "philosophical" discussions are so awkwardly pointless, that the odd phrasing and long, inappropriate pauses make for a very weird dialogue track. There's an impressive Brontosaurus (basically stationary), a nifty man-eating plant, some ridiculous men in rubber dinosaur suits and a "pteradactyl" that looks like a vulcanized rubber Muppet, but the coolest thing is the hovering, bubble-topped land-rover they ride around in. Get the Diamond Entertainment version that has "First Spaceship on Venus" on the same DVD- the transfer is basically in magenta and gray, panned and scanned by a guy who obviously wanted to get home early, and in one scene there's a green, horn-shaped piece of crud that gets stuck in the film gate for about 20 seconds, but I got it for under $7, and I was spellbound.
Marsha Is Still In Orbit! 
2007-04-09
In the mid-1960s Roger Corman, who specialized in drive-in drivel, ran across a USSR-made film that was so bad not even the Soviets would watch it. He bought it, cut it, redubbed what what was left, and then coaxed Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue into shooting a few scenes to provide names for the movie marque. Then he called the thing VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET.
Now and then a bad movie is SO bad it becomes entertaining--but most bad movies are simply bad, and VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET is all of that and a side of fries. Dr. Marsha (Faith Domergue) is in orbit around Venus, has the beehive hairdo from hell, and doesn't know what do. She keeps receiving transmissions from Professor Hartman (Basil Rathbone), but he's not much help. So she waits while five explorers and a robot run around the planet looking for each other. What they find are a lot of bad special effects.
There are exactly two things of interest in this movie. The first is Dr. Marsha's beehive hairdo, which is beyond description. The second is the robot, which is a little like Robbie from FORBIDDEN PLANET but with less personality, fewer skills, and really big toenails. Unfortunately, neither hairdo nor robot are enough to elevate this flick above the emphatically dire. The print is poor and the color is worse. Do Faith and Basil a favor and give it a miss.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Only a fan... 2007-02-12
Another old movie using the effects of the time that are not the best. One of Basil Rathbones last movies.
Vintage Roger Corman, even though most of it isn't even his 2006-09-04
Making bad movies can be tiring work, especially when you're Roger Corman and make a practice of filming a second film, usually made up entirely on the spot, at each shooting location. One fateful day Roger had an epiphany - why make a completely new bad movie when he could just steal someone else's? So it was that, in 1965, Corman bought the rights to a 1962 Russian film called Planeta Burg. Add a few new scenes, mix in a lot of bad dubbing, and slap some fake credits on that puppy - and Voila! you've got yourself another Roger Corman masterpiece - and all without breaking a sweat. (Personally, I would have edited out the big CCCP logo on the main spaceship, but Corman chose not to.) Who cares if the Soviets don't like your mucking around with their movie? What are they gonna do - declare a Cold War over it? Set up missiles in Cuba? Of course, continuing his 2-for-1 moviemaking practice, Corman didn't stop there, scavenging Planeta Burg once again to make Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women in 1968. Here's what really gets my goat, though. I actually sort of enjoyed Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet. I can't imagine why, but I did.
This film takes us back to the good old days, when you didn't have to worry about weightlessness in space and you could gallivant around Venus in a space suit. Watch out for those meteors, though, as one-third of the potential cast learns just after the fake opening credits. Fortunately (or not), the other ships make it to Venusian orbit and decide to head on down without waiting for the go-ahead from Professor Hartmann (Basil Rathbone) back on Lunar Base 7. The first ship apparently crashes, leaving our three burly Russian friends in the second ship to execute a rescue mission upon landing. Meanwhile, Marcia (Faith Domergue) remains alone in orbit, so that she can perform such crucial functions as forgetting to tell the search party where the lost astronauts are located on the planet.
You'll cheer as Andre (who really belongs on a short leash) is attacked by a gigantic spider-plant, but all too soon you realize that nothing is going to happen to any of these annoying characters (Andre even jabs a needle into a brontosaurus at one point, without the big guy even noticing). But what of our lost astronauts, you ask? Well, they have Robot John (obviously a cousin to Robbie the Robot) to look after their puny hides while they wait to be rescued. Personally, I would rather have the hovercar that the second crew of astronauts uses to traverse the planet. The Soviets really did a good job on the special effects for this thing, as it looks just as good as Luke's hovercar in the original theatrical version of Star Wars.
Indulge me as I insert my MST3K-inspired John! Marsha! John!! Marsha!! non sequitur here. Thanks. Well, Robot John pretty much gets the shaft toward the end of this thing, while Marsha almost ruins everything yet comes out smiling. The only reason she's even in the movie is Roger Corman, who chose to add her and an aging Basil Rathbone to the film he ripped off to make it look like his own. Neither character serves any real purpose, which is sort of sad in Rathbone's case, as he deserved better.
The only thing missing from this Corman classic is a few buxom blondes, an oversight Corman corrected in 1968 when he used the same Russian footage to show us what was on the other side of the "red city" that attracted Andre's attention in particular - Mamie Van Doren and friends. If you're going to watch Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, you might as well check out Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women, too. After all, Roger would have wanted it that way.
Roger Corman, you've done better 2006-08-15
The bulk of this movie is a Russian piece of dreck that Roger Corman brought over and dubbed in the dialog. Then he filmed new scenes with Basil Rathbone and some woman with a bee hive hairdo and spliced it all together to make a new movie. The new scenes add nothing and just leave you disoriented as you go from a dubbed scene to a non-dubbed scene.
Two ships of astronauts land on Venus to explore the planet. One of the ships crashes, so the when the other lands, they have to rescue the first crew. Along the way they run into prehistoric animal life and a volcanic eruption. The first crew also has a robot named of all things, John. The robot talks and walks very slowly and I have no idea what good he is for anything.
The biggest problem with this movie is it's boring as all get-out. Nothing happens. One scene runs into another but they never achieve any real coherence or relevance. The effects are classic. A pterodactyl attacks in one scene. It looks like it was made out of papier mache or something as it has no moveable parts. It just flies like a big lump. My favorites are the lizards which are obviously guys in rubber suits jumping up and down. Hilarious.
Caution: Giant Sand Octopus! 2006-02-16
This is a true wonder of the cinematic world. Roger Corman took the remnants of a lame Soviet sci-fi movie, "Planeta Burg," dubbed it into English, added a couple of western actors including Basil Rathbone, and called it a movie. This film is essentially a bunch of often-seen stock footage shown in glorious sepia and gray. (The box says the film is in color, but the reality is generally otherwise.) This is a real chore to get through even for devoted fans of bad movies.
The plot, as much of it as there is, concerns three groups of voyagers to Venus. One of the ships crashes outright, one has great difficulty landing, and the third lands successfully. I am fond of the endless scenes of the third group of astronauts pondering what the red lights below the clouds of Venus are, as that's where they are going to land. The conclusion seems to be some type of lava and that they would all be burned up. Bearing in mind that discretion is the greater part of valor, does it make a lot of sense to try to land on lava after the first two ships to attempt the landing have utterly failed?
The intrepid explorers land safely in a non-lava area, and begin hiking, whereupon they find giant man-eating octopus flowers, and the most ridiculous six foot tall tyrannosaurus creatures ever seen, which, it develops, have a propensity for wrestling around in mud with the astronauts. There is also an extremely lame robot named, creatively enough, "Robot John." There are endless scenes about women who sing like Sirens, and much cross-Venusian trekking. The astronauts have particularly silly and incongruous equipment, especially their atomic powered flying car, and are dubbed into English with some of the worst dialogue in film history.
The general directorial premise of this film seemed to be "throw a bunch of movies in a blender and press the mix button." The bewildering array of footage, impossible color matching, and ridiculous yet predictable plot make this film a tough slog. As a mind-numbing bad film, this is tough to beat. I give it two stars for the audacious compilation of film from so many sources into a finished work that almost makes sense. Watch it at your own risk, because only the strong survive.
As a further warning, this film was later recut yet again a year later with even more jarring and disjointed scenes (featuring Mamie Van Doren) and released as "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women." In case you may be wondering, it failed to improve "Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet," and that's saying something.
