Voyage To The Prehistoric Planet :: Education by Design Store

Customer Reviews

EVEN FOR SPACE SCIENCE FICTION FANS THIS IS A TOUGH SELL

2006-12-04
IN A NUTSHELL: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING IN SPACE + BASIL RATHBONE & FAITH DOMERGUE

'Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet', starring Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue is essentially a Russian film originally titled, 'Planeta Bur' [Planet of Storms]. With Roger Corman as Executive Producer, the original film was rather abruptly and crudely edited, and then the two aforementioned American actors' roles were basically pasted on to the film for audience appeal as nothing more than a trite afterthought.

----> MAJOR CAST MEMBERS <----

Basil Rathbone - Prof. Hoffman
Faith Domergue - Marsha
Marc Shannon
Christopher Brand
John Bix
Lewis Keane

----> CREW MEMBERS <----

Curtis Harrington - Director / Screenwriter
George Edwards - Producer
Vilis Lapenieks - Cinematographer
Ronald Stein - Composer (Music Score)

WHAT 'Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet' IS ALL ABOUT:

Well, this film is a rather shabbily constructed much-ado-about-nothing space-opera. There are a few notable special effects, such as, the hovercar, the robot [John], and the jumping men in the rubber dinosaur suits. There is also something resembling a brontosaurus but it does not look or act very convincing.

This film is really hurt by the fact that it is obvious that niether Rathbone or Domergue are ever really in scenes with the rest of the original cast, and are in fact in a seperate production spliced into the original feature to gain the attention of American audiences. This promotional effort is done to the detriment of the finished film.

BOTTOM LINE: A POOR PRINT OF A DISAPPOINTING FILM ABOUT A MOST INTERESTING TOPIC - SPACE EXPLORATION

I would suggest trying to find a copy of 'Planeta Bur', the original Russian film or simply look for something else within the genre to watch.

Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet

2005-09-18
VOYAGE TO A PREHISTORIC PLANET was made in 1965, stars Basil Rathbone, and the cover depicts one snarling and one glaring dinosaur towering over three space-suited astronauts. Does anything more really need be said?

Plot - The year is 2020 and American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts are traveling to Venus. I've read somewhere that this is a Russia film that had scenes inserted and some phony American credits plastered on it prior to release, but wasn't interested enough to see if my favorite internet search engine could cough up the answers to that mystery. Rathbone plays a scientist on the satellite Lunar 7 and the other `star' in this one, Faith Domergue, is an astronautlette on the Venus-orbiting Vega. A handful of `nauts and John the Robot are on the Venus surface, dodging the stray alamosaurus and/or 12-foot-tall man-eating venus flytrap while finding evidence of an ancient Venusian civilization.

There probably was an okay Russian movie here before Roger Corman Productions got their hands on this one. John the Robot is cool and some of the special effects are a cut above the standard glop they were putting out then. The story drags terribly, though, and Rathbone is apparently included for name recognition rather than to serve the plot or to move things along. Thankfully, they don't dress him up in a goofy costume or otherwise embarrass him. The pacing is terrible, the dubbing is atrocious and there's no drama to speak of. The print, although the color is somewhat washed out and there are some scratches, is in okay condition. Not recommended.