Main Cast: Zsa Zsa Gabor, Eric Fleming, Laurie Mitchell, Paul Birch, Patrick Waltz, Barbara Darrow
Release Year: 1958
Country: US
Run Time: 80 minutes
Plot
This legendarily campy sci-fi epic (shot in color and CinemaScope, and rather lavish for a sci-fi film of this period) concerns a team of astronauts (all men -- this was 1958, you know) who are drawn off course and land on the planet Venus, only to discover it's populated entirely by beautiful women! The space travelers spend a lot of time drooling over their new hosts, dressed in highly practical mini-skirts, but the Venusian queen (Laurie Mitchell) does not much care for her visitors and wants to see them executed. However, not everyone on the planet takes such a hard line against the male gender. One of the Venusians is played by Zsa Zsa Gabor in what is probably the highlight of her film career; the original story was written by Ben Hecht. The producers helped stretch their budget by borrowing costumes and props from a number of other films, including spacesuits from Forbidden Planet, a spaceship from Flight To Mars and sets from World Without End (which was set on Mars, not Venus, though the differences must have escaped the film's scientific advisors). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Edward Bernds' Queen Of Outer Space still divides audiences and critics, a half-century after it was made, but in peculiar ways. Beyond a doubt, it is one of the campiest movies ever made -- back in the early 1980's, before MST3K was a fixture on cable, audience members at repertory showings would talk back to this picture. And no one -- not even Bernds himself -- would ever say it was a great, or even a very good movie; but it is a uniquely entertaining movie, that has enough of a sense of humor about itself so that its value as entertainment has only grown -- and seem more accessible -- in the 51 years since it was originally released. There are other movies of this sort, to be sure, most notably Edward D. Wood, Jr.'s Plan 9 From Outer Space -- but Wood sincerely believed that he was making a potentially great and important movie, and half of the fun of watching it is the deadly earnestness of its tone. Bernds and company had no such notions on Queen Of Outer Space -- not when the one astronaut says to another, about a bevy of stunning Venusian women, "How'd you like to take that to the senior prom." Actually, the writing credits on Queen Of Outer Space were among its most exalted attributes, although there's still some question as to whether Ben Hecht, who is credited with the story, ever actually "wrote" anything. And if Hecht did have a vision of this story, it was clearly set on a more sophisticated textual plane than the one occupied by the finished script written by Charles Beaumont, who certainly knew his way around the conventions of science fiction sufficiently well to parody them here. Bernds' approach to his material was clearly the correct one, and carried out skillfully, but he is helped in no small measure by a very cooperative cast. Eric Fleming seems to be taking everything very seriously as the stalwart captain of the Earth ship diverted to Venus -- doing anything else may well have been beyond his range at that point and perhaps beyond the scope of the part as written, but he does what is needed; Dave Willock steals almost every scene he's in as the clueless Lieutenant Cruze; and Patrick Waltz gives the performance of his career as Lieutenant Turner, the ladies man in the crew; and Paul Birch, wearing the considerably let-out costume worn by Walter Pidgeon in Forbidden Planet (all of the men wear hand-me-downs from that film), is a genial straight man for all of them. And then there's Zsa Zsa Gabor, who is doing what she is best at, simply portraying Zsa Zsa Gabor -- only Laurie Mitchell is really putting much effort into any of this, mostly because she's playing the farthest from type and working under heavy makeup and costuming. The music score by Marlin Skiles is also something of a miracle, managing to be both futuristic and playful in equal measures, and capturing the tone and mood of the action perfectly. None of it is great filmmaking but it is never boring and always entertaining, even the throwaway lines ("I'm the navigator baby, and they can't make a move without me," Waltz says, in all seriousness, to a breathlessly passionate Joi Lansing in the extended pre-credit sequence). There were lots worse ways to spend 80 minutes at the movies in 1958 than seeing Queen of Outer Space, and far less entertaining so-called comedies issuing forth every week in 2009. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Dave Willock - Lt. Michael Cruze; Lisa Davis - Motiya; Marilyn Buferd - Odeena; Lynn Cartwright - Venus Girl; Marjorie Durant - Venus Girl; Mary Ford - Venus Girl; Gerry Gaylor - Base Commander; Kathryn Marlowe - Venus Girl; Laura Mason; Tania Velia; Norma Young - Venus Girl
Credit
Dave Milton - Art Director, William Beaudine, Jr. - First Assistant Director, Edward Bernds - Director, William Austin - Editor, Marlin Skiles - Composer (Music Score), Emile LaVigne - Makeup, Wm. Whitley - Cinematographer, Ben Schwalb - Producer, Joseph Kish - Set Designer, Charles Beaumont - Screenwriter, Ben Hecht - Short Story Author
Queen of Outer Space (1958) is an Allied Artists Pictures science fiction feature film starring Zsa Zsa Gabor, Eric Fleming, and Laurie Mitchell in a tale about a revolt against a cruel Venusian queen. The screenplay by Charles Beaumont was based on an outline supplied by Ben Hecht. The film was directed by Edward Bernds, has been broadcast on television, and has been released to VHS and DVD.
Capt. Patterson (Eric Fleming) and his space crew (Dave Willock, Patrick Waltz, and Paul Birch) crash land on Venus and are captured. They learn the planet is under the dictatorship of cruel Queen Yllana (Laurie Mitchell), a masked woman who has banished men from the planet. In the palace, the astronauts are aided by a beautiful courtier named Talleah (Zsa Zsa Gabor) and her friends (Lisa Davis, Barbara Darrow, and Marilyn Buferd). The women long for the love of men again and plot to overthrow the evil Queen. When Patterson has the opportunity to remove the Queen's mask, he discovers she has been horribly disfigured by radiation burns caused by men and their wars. In a fury, the Queen decides to destroy Earth and its warlike peoples but she dies in the attempt. The Venusians are free again to enjoy the love of men. Cast includes Guy Prescott as Col. Ramsey (uncredited), Gerry Gaylor as Base commander, Ralph Gamble as Officer in anteroom (uncredited), and Joi Lansing as an astronaut's girlfriend (uncredited). Venusians are played by Mary Ford, Marya Stevens, Laura Mason, Lynn Cartwright, Kathy Marlowe. Coleen Drake, Tania Velia, Norma Young, Marjorie Durant, Brandy Bryan, Ruth Lewis, and June McCall.
Production notes
Three Stooges and Bowery Boys director Edward Bernds recalled that after famed producer Walter Wanger was released from prison for shooting agent Jennings Lang in the groin for having an affair with his wife Joan Bennett, Wanger could only find work at Allied Artists. In 1952 Wanger brought a ten page idea for a screenplay by Ben Hecht called Queen of the Universe that was a satirical look at a planet run by women. Several years later, with the idea of science fiction films being more common, Allied Artists revived the project with Wanger replaced on the film by Ben Schwalb who was then producing the Bowery Boys films. Screenwriter Charles Beaumont didn't think there was much in the Hecht screenplay, but Schwalb suggested spoofing the idea and had former Three Stooges screenwriter Ellwood Ullman touch up Beaumont's screenplay.[1] Allied Artists retitled the film Queen of Outer Space as they thought the original title sounded more like a beauty pageant.[2]
The film recycled many ideas such as a planet ruled by women from other science fiction films of the era as Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, Cat-Women of the Moon (both 1953) and the British Fire Maidens from Outer Space (1955). Queen of Outer Space also recycled many props and costumes, most prominently the C-57D crewmen's uniforms and Altara character's wardrobe from Forbidden Planet (1956),[3] models, sets, and special effects from Bernds's World Without End (1956), the usual stock footage of a V-2 and a rocketship model used by the Bowery Boys in Paris Playboys (1954) that was co-written by Bernds and Ullman. The facial makeup of the deformed Queen strongly resembles the effect of being hit by a pie thrown by the Three Stooges.
References
^ p.55 Weaver, Tom Return of the B Science Fiction and Horror Heroes McFarland 2000
