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.
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.