Mars Needs Women (1968 TV Movie) User Reviews

Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Gotham City

[RetroRoger · 4/10 · 24 October 2004]

Went into this movie expecting Tommy Kirk to do a reprise of his Gogo the Teenage Martian role from 1964's 'Pajama Party'. Instead, we get Dop, a seriously serious 'medical missionary' from the dying red planet, who needs five voluptuous young earth women 'unmarried ... of good health ... and possessing the common indicators of fertility and reproduction'.

The boys from Mars had tried the usual method of standard alien abduction in the movie's opening scenes, snagging a tennis-playing ingenue, a woman taking a shower, and a girl in a restaurant waiting for her beau to get back from the cigarette machine. WE NEVER SEE THESE THREE WOMEN AGAIN. Dop explains this ominously but matter-of-factly to blustering Army Colonel Robert 'Bob' Page: "We have attempted to seize three women by transponder. We have been unsuccessful." Could be the problem was using a transPONDER instead of a transPORTER -- since transPONDERS receive radio signals, not flesh-and-blood females.

So the five Martians decide on the sensible, low-tech direct approach -- hypnosis and kidnapping. And Dop is nonplussed when Colonel Page considers this "an overt action of ... war!" The Martian fellow (successfully) transports himself back to his ship and prepares for their one-UFO invasion.

In the words of the nameless network news announcer " ... the most powerful nation on earth is humbled by five men in a space cylinder hurtling toward the approximate vicinity of ... Houston, Texas."

For the next few minutes, we get to watch exciting stock footage of the X-15 and fighter jets trying to intercept the Martian craft, while Colonel Bob and his aide stare blankly at a loudspeaker explaining all the action.

The aliens land secretly and cautiously debark from their saucer, armed with Ray-O-Vac flashlights and harpoon guns. No wonder they misused the transponder.

Their immediate invasion plans call for securing "earth apparel, an automobile, currency, and a city map" of Houston. Martian operative 'Fellow 3' successfully appropriates the needed currency and map by raiding the nearby Phillips 66 gas station.

The boys' criteria for appropriate female specimens is not unlike Dr. Bill Cortner's search for the perfect body on which to attach his fiancé's severed head in "The Brain That Wouldn't Die". They round up an airline stewardess, a buxom co-ed artist, a homecoming queen (who bears a haunting resemblance to Marilyn Quayle), a stripper (played by local Texas burlesque legend, Bubbles Cash), and Pulitzer Prize-winning geneticist Marjorie Bolen, who, as 'Fellow-2' puts it, "happens to be blessed physically, too -- anatomically-speaking."

Dr. Bolen is played by the 'physically-blessed' Yvonne Craig, who is more recognizable in her skin-tight Batgirl costume from the '60s Batman TV show. Dr. Bolen melts at the insightful DNA questions that Dop asks at her news conference. Soon the Pulitzer-Prizewinner and the Invader from Mars are holding hands at a planetarium, where Dop delivers a heartsick soliloquy about his dying planet.

This movie is ripe with inadvertently funny lines delivered in dead seriousness, like:

"Do not -- repeat -- DO NOT eat any of the earth food."

"You are now, for all practical purposes -- earth men."

"Our time is short ... considering that in the next 20 hours, each of us must survey, choose, examine the medical records of, and abduct a female meeting the exacting qualifications of Operation Sleep-Freeze."

"Dr. Marjorie Bolen turned out to be a stunning brunette, who found it hard to hide her charm behind her horn-rimmed spectacles."

"Tonight: 'Sex and Outer Space' -- A News Conference On Extra-Terrestrial Reproduction by Dr. Marjorie Bolen, One of America's Leading Authorities On Space Medicine, in the Coronado Suite, 10:00 P.M. Only Newsmen with proper press credentials admitted."

"The exotic dancer is secured."

'Mars Needs Women' owes a lot to other great cheesy movies, like the aforementioned 'Brain That Wouldn't', and especially 'Teenagers From Outer Space', and even anticipates 'Revenge of the Nerds', when the geek geneticist wins the day with LUV. Watch this, then chase it down with 'Pajama Party', for a real 60's spaceman/bodacious babe overdose. 4 of 10.

One of the great awful movies

[cherold · 3/10 · 9 September 2004]

I love this movie because it is just so darn sincere. There is not a moment in the film that suggests its author understands the ridiculousness of his premise. This wants to be a good movie, an intelligent piece of science fiction, and yet, it is called Mars Needs Women. The movie even has some literary pretensions showing.

Everything about this movie is inept, but done with such earnestness that it is reminiscent of when a cute little kid says something totally absurd and laughable with a straightforward demeanor that just makes it all that much funnier. I rank this up (or is that down) with camp classics like Glen or Glenda. I just found it very funny.

Starring...the Air Raid Speaker!!!

[jimtinder · 2/10 · 12 May 2000]

I'm not kidding. Don't believe for one second that Tommy Kirk and Yvonne Craig star in this waste of celluloid. The actual star (at least for the first 15 minutes) is a white air raid speaker broadcasting a blow-by-blow account of the incredible stock footage scenes!

The cameraman does his best to capture the emotions of the speaker, zooming in and out of the speaker during moments of high drama, captured for all time in glorious stock footage.

By the time Kirk and Craig show up, you'll miss the speaker and the stock footage. At least they were a more interesting couple. And remember..."don't eat the Earth food."

Terrible...but not the worst movie ever made

[preppy-3 · 2/10 · 17 January 2004]

That still belongs to "Salo".

A bunch of Martians (led by Tommy Kirk) land on Earth. Their plan is to abduct women, bring them to Mars, and use them to keep their population growing. They each hunt down women successfully but Kirk falls in love with his prey Dr. Bolen (Yvonne Craig). Can he bring her with him or stay on Earth with her?

With a title like that you would expect this movie to be pure camp. Surprisingly, it isn't! Everything is played straight-faced with absolutely no joking or winking at the audience. Now this movie is terrible--there's tons of stock footage (which easily take up most of the running time); a LOONGGGG strip sequence; dreadful acting (although Kirk and Craig do try); inept direction; bad sound (I couldn't hear some of the dialogue--no loss); hilariously inappropriate music and horrendous "special" effects (wait till you see the Martian spaceship!). The script is actually OK--it's not stupid just dull.

There are plenty of dull spots in this movie but still, there are some moments to treasure--the introduction of Dr. Bolen on TV is hysterical and I got a laugh out of the title of a lecture she was giving--"Sex and Outer Space". And it was kind of fun to see how badly Larry Buchanan directed this. And I saw a new print and the colors were bright and strong.

So, this is a bad movie, but I've seen worse. From what I've heard even Kirk and Craig to this day admit liking it! I'm giving it a 2.

Really Lame

[LouBlake · 17 February 2002]

Sometimes bad movies are just bad. Not campy. Not funny bad. Just awful. This is #1 with a bullet.

This is what I call a "Fast Forward Film", meaning you can put your VCR on fast forward for extended periods, and not miss anything important. Actually there isn't anything important or interesting in this entire flick. There's about five minutes of story, so to pad things out, someone will walk into a room, and then walk around the room, then pour themselves a drink, then walk around the room again, just to kill time.

If I can convince even one of you not to waste your time with this film, I can die a happy man.

Tommy Kirk, you devil you...

[Mr. Pulse · 2/10 · 31 December 2000]

The aptly titled "Mars Needs Women" is a rather tepid piece of science-fiction, that feels like you're watching someone on a Sunday afternoon, the movie just kind of loafs around, takes it easy, never tries to over exert itself. It's got some fine cheesy moments (And Yvonne Craig is about as sexy as they come), but overall, more of a yawn than a laugh riot.

Tommy Kirk is one of the Martians desperately in need of women (I guess their bizarre pick-up moves aren't scoring the babes like they used to on Mars), and they come to Houston, TX to try to get them. Well, since Kirk's the leader, I'm sure you can assume it all goes badly, and that the effects are silly, the plot inane, and the dialogue downright awful in points. This you know.

But you might not know that the Martians can teleport, but still need cars. And they can hypnotize women, yet they resort to trying to seduce them (In really awkward ways too...a planetarium for a date? Yuck.) You are probably also unaware that scene after scene go by without a single piece of dialogue or plot development (The stock footage of the aircraft scene is my favorite...five minutes of a big plane deploying a small plane, which then lands, while 5 different faceless people with near-identical voices converse on an intercom). Just so you know.

At least I don't blame the Martians for wanting these women, they are all rather fetching, especially Yvonne "Call me Batgirl and I break you" Craig as a sex specialist/astronomer/geneticist/librarian (I dunno, she's like the Bionic Woman or something). Call me crazy, but I love a girl in turtle shell glasses.

My own personal tastes aside, there is some good mocking material in "Mars Needs Women" but not as much as a "No Holds Barred" or a "Gymkata." Not for lightweights.

Yvonne Still Tightens My Manly Hydraulics

[ferbs54 · 5/10 · 30 October 2007]

When I first heard that "Mars Needs Women," in the 1967 TV movie of the same name, I must confess that my initial reaction was "Big deal. Who doesn't? Get in line. The line starts here!" But after seeing how serious and high-minded the quintet of Martian abductors in this film was, how peaceful and desirous of screening their potential victims, how they use hypnosis rather than violence to achieve their ends and save their dying planet...well, I grew a bit more sympathetic. Rather than trying to pick up women for the fun of it, these Martian dudes (who look just like us, by the way, especially after they steal some suits and ties and remove their antennaed helmets) literally have a world at stake when they go out and try to get lucky. We watch the five as they each go after a stewardess, a homecoming queen, a painter, a stripper (played by the appropriately named "Bubbles" Cash), and a lady scientist who's an expert on space sex (!). (I suppose each of the gals is expected to get pregnant around 1 million times!) This last is played by Yvonne Craig, who, in the mid-'60s, was responsible for tightening the manly hydraulics of many baby boomer boys, in her role as TV's Batgirl. Anyway, this film tries to be serious, but the dialogue is so stilted, the editing so inept, the acting so wooden, the stock footage so excessive, the FX so lousy and the pacing so draggy that it can't be regarded as anything but camp, and something of a labor to sit through. Somehow, though, unsatisfactory as the whole thing is, part of me liked it and found it almost touching; probably the part of me that understands how difficult it can be to meet suitable women, and the part that remembers lusting over Yvonne way back when. One final thing: The sound on the DVD that I just watched is pretty bad; you may want to turn up the volume on your sound system ALL the way before going in. And having a few beers beforehand, too!

Astounding!

[Widget-5 · 2/10 · 3 February 1999]

That's right...this IS an astounding movie, though not in the way director Larry Buchanan probably intended it. The only one of Buchanan's AIP-TV flicks that isn't a remake of an earlier movie, it has all the ingredients of a Z-grade mess: start with former Disney standby Tommy Kirk as the bland leader of a Martian expedition, add Batgirl Yvonne Craig as a scientist who (for some strange reason) falls in love with our favorite Matian, sprinkle in some aggressively-dull footage of a local (Dallas) football game, stir-in enough double-entendres and leering by the male cast to make you gouge your eyes out, and you've got...not much!

Mars needs air and water too

[sol1218 · 5/10 · 8 September 2004]

****SPOILERS**** Far out story about a crew of five very human-looking Martians led by their captain Dop, Tommy Kirk, who land on Earth and gather five very attractive healthy and child-bearing young women. To bring back to Mars to help re-populate that dying planet due to the low birth-rate of females there. Called operation "Sleep Freeze" the Martians have just a few days to achieve their mission.

I was prepared to get a few laughs watching the movie "Mars Needs Women" just by what it's title indicated but was surprised about just how serious and intelligent the movie was.

"Mars Needs Women" is, I think, the first movie to ever even mention much less explain what DNA, Deoxyribonucleic Acid, is: The unique and individual blueprint of every single human and animal that ever lived on Earth. This in a movie released in 1967 when most people never even heard of DNA.

The Martians abduct a number of women through their use of hypnosis, stewardesses exotic dancers and home-coming queens, to take with them back to Mars. Where the Martians there are desperately waiting for and eagerly wanting to impregnate them in order to save their dying race. Yeah thats all the Martians want from the young and shapely earthling. Having a good time making out with the beautiful young ladies never crossed their minds for one second.

Dop falls in love with the woman that he's supposed to bring back to Mars with him the pretty as well as brilliant young Dr. Majorie Bolen, Yvonne Craig, who's a Pulitzer Prize winning author in the field of DNA and extra-terrestrial genetics.

Dop has a change of heart at the end of the movie and scuttles the plan "Sleep Freeze" at the expense of his safety and well being back on Mars. The movie is much like another film about aliens who come to Earth to destroy it. Then one of them rescues the doomed Earthlings by giving up his life to save them like the plot in the movie "Teenagers from Outer Space".

The movie "Mars Needs Women" is not what you might think it is, cheesy and erotic, but very serious and will surprise you in how ahead of it's time it is in the science of human DNA. How it makes up what we all are at a time when the word DNA was just three letters in the English alphabet in the minds of those who heard it.

Come on, five women? Be a good sport, let them go.

[joebergeron · 4/10 · 17 June 2011]

Five Martian men arrive at Earth and politely ask if they might acquire five female volunteers to save their dying race. Naturally, the emotionally overwrought cavemen in charge of the US military cannot consider anything as outlandish as that. Permit five American gals to do something as unconventional as volunteer to save an ancient civilization, thereby achieving something infinitely more noble than what their Earthly futures as wives and strippers might offer? Hell no!

Therefore the Martians are left with no alternative than to abduct some women, though I daresay a couple of them are charming enough to have a shot at convincing them to volunteer even without the blessings of the patriarchy.

Hidden amidst the scenes of wall-mounted speakers, stock footage, college football games, and strip shows, we get a genuinely effective scene wherein Tommy Kirk rescues a planetarium show by musing aloud about Mars and its civilization. To its credit, his speech accurately reflects what little was known (or believed) about Mars at that time.

Finally, this movie features Yvonne Craig, whose appearance makes up for any weaknesses in the special effects.

Funny thing about the movie is seeing parts of Dallas mid1960s

[pgkphotoservices · 5/10 · 26 July 2015]

Supposedly the location is Houston the movie was all shot in the Dallas area. You get a couple skyline shots,a couple scenes at the old White Rock Lake Pump station-where the spaceship was hidden, The Athens Strip-actual name of Striptease Bar where Bubbles Cash performed in reality, Fair Park and even out at Collins Radio in Richardson where the big Radar Telescope dishes can be seen. There are also some scenes around Southern Methodist University (SMU).

It is a campy movie, really hiring an actual Striptease artist to play a stripper? So set back and laugh and try to spot bits and pieces of Dallas from almost fifty years ago!

Don't laugh...I really liked this movie...

[Enrique-Sanchez-56 · 8/10 · 16 June 2011]

I am not quite where to start or how to explain what it was that did not convulse me about this movie as it to others.

Somehow, if you cut out that terrrrrible actor playing a military type early on, the rest of it doesn't seem so bad. I think once a movie hits a bad not early on, the audience is unforgiving of the rest.

You must admit the stoic acting style of the Martians didn't really seem that far off from one might expect from such a movie. There WERE a couple of lines that Tommy Kirk really blew, I have to admit, but for the most part, his acting on this one did grow on you.

The story line which was bare thin, and the pacing which was on the sedated side were actually pleasant to watch if you might be in the right mood, which I was (in the middle of the night.) There was just something I can't put my finger on. Sure, the movie really tried hard to be a serious movie, but for the sometimes silly lines, it came off well. And there must be something to say about the fact that this was not a theater released feature. It was a TV movie. I can't imagine that they would WANT to give them more than $20k to pull it off. And there is where it might have started to go wrong. With a few subtle re-writes, and perhaps if they hired better actors in some minor roles (that otherwise needed serious acting lessons) this might have been a really good movie.

I don't know anything about the director, so I might just be blowing my horn in the wrong direction. Yet, I think they did the best they could with what they were given.

I do believe that TOMMY KIRK pulled it off quite nicely especially near the end. My favorite scenes were then, at the end and what I feel might be everyone's favorite scene, the one at the strip club, but not for merely the skin shown, but for Alien #5, CAL DUGGAN's expressions as he watched the dancer doff her outfit. I was very entertained by that! And I wanted to repeat, that I got to enjoy the easy pace of the movie sometime during the middle. It became what shall I say? comfortable and peaceful? Especially since we were watching a small American town in that era, it was right on the money. I know, because I was there in the 60s and I remember the pace of life was oh so much slower than it is today.

Would I recommend this to everyone? OK I will admit that no, I wouldn't. But to a fan of sci-fi and especially 50s/60s sci-fi, I would say yes, why not, give it a try.

Larry Buchanan needs a budget, an editor and some scriptwriters

[BrandtSponseller · 6/10 · 16 January 2005]

A genetic problem on Mars has decreased their female population so that there is only 1 female born to every 100 males. They believe that they can solve their problems by acquiring a few choice females from the Earth, for scientific study experimentation, and they're prepared to get the women whether they receive cooperation or not.

If properly fleshed out, the premise could have promise. But it's not fleshed out, and Mars Needs Women is loaded with problems. The plot as it stands makes very little logical sense. Not that this is a completely unwatchable film--it has many "so bad it's good" qualities, and my final score was a 6 out of 10.

Another problem is that the film seems extremely low budget. They barely even built any sets. Quite a few shots are just a couple of characters talking, framed tightly, against a solid-color backdrop. Most of the "fancier" shots, such as those of military aircraft flying and landing, are stock footage. The film is also full of padding--the stock footage goes on far longer than it should have. There is a scene that seems to go on forever where we just see a loudspeaker and listen to mostly unintelligible "military radio" banter. There is a striptease scene (apparently strippers are one of the prime candidates for the kind of women that Mars needs) that goes on for minutes and minutes with the stripper taking nothing off.

The Martians are just like humans for the most part, sparing the trouble of expensive make-up and sparing having to explain why Earth women would work for the task at hand. The Martian costumes are just shiny material with something like bathing caps on their heads and big headphone cups on their ears (this aspect is somewhat reminiscent of My Favorite Martian, and was even echoed in later material like Mork & Mindy, but in Mars Needs Women it doesn't have the intentional humor).

So why did I give this film a rating as high as 6 out of 10? Well, believe it or not, a few aspects of the film work as they were intended to. The whole sequence of the two Martians at the hotel, acquiring a press badge and so forth, was actually engaging and not really unintentionally funny. But most of the film is unintentionally funny, and most of it works on that level, too. You can laugh at the bad decisions made due to budget. You can laugh at the pacing. You can laugh at the hammy dialogue. You can laugh at how the Martians pick their women. And most of all, the more you spend time analyzing the ridiculous plot, the more you'll laugh.

One of Top Ten Worst Films of All TIme - Mars Needs Women

[arthur_tafero · 1/10 · 27 March 2024]

In spots, this was a very funny movie; but it was intended to be a serious science-fiction film. It might not be as bad as Plan 9 from Outer Space, but it sure is close.

Tommy Kirk finds out that life without mouseketeer ears can be very cruel. He is cast as. Martian who falls in love with an earth girl eerily resembling Annette Funicello (but better-looking and sexier).

I had no idea that Martians wore wet suits and earphones. They must have spent a fortune on production values. The spaceship is quite impressive as well. I have seen grade-school videos made with better production values. The direction (if you can call it that) was painfully inadequate, and the acting was worse.

The only good part of the film is that it offer occasional belly laughs. I can actually recommend you see it for ten minutes or so, and then fast-forward to the last five thrilling (only kidding) minutes to see the throbbing conclusion. The reain was necessary to make the actress look like she was really crying. I believe Mr. Kirk (as he is credited) was better off staying at the club.

Watchable Fun

[GlennBeckFan · 3 June 2004]

Of all the sci-fi movies that I have seen that were filmed in Houston, this is among the best.

Mars Needs Women is watchable fun. Tommy Kirk pilots a spaceship with a crew of 4 Martian males into an abandoned ice making factory, which is spooky and heavy with the fetor of rotting chemical containers.

They have 24 hours to acquire 5 women who are both beautiful and healthy which they can use to repopulate their loathsome planet.

Tommy must assume the identity of a newspaper reporter and convince a rather strapping Yvonne (Batgirl) Craig through a series of soliloquies and expertly maneuvered tarradiddles that he is more than a bromide journalist rather he is ultimately the urbane, suave Prince Charming who can make her pretty little head swirl with thoughts beyond the realm of standardized lucubration. Behind her horn-rimmed glasses, she quivers for this alluring myrmidon from beyond the stars. He is captivated by this autochthonous siren. To want- to love- to live.

He in turn bespeaks the confusion of his soul, an embodiment of the whole piece, rightly an olla podrida of mental acuity and the most conspicuous of all jigs; that quasi-caromed, state of palpitate we mortals call seduction.

It gives us much to mull. It is to cinema what T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" was to prose; only this classic has a stripper, a groovy soundtrack, and a harpoon gun.

So bad it's bad

[JohnSeal · 2/10 · 20 February 2000]

Mars Needs Women is aggressively unwatchable. Filled with non-acting, bad costumes, and awful writing courtesy of auteur Larry Buchanan, the film also utilises tremendous amounts of (dull) stock footage. Contrary to the opinions of some schlock cinema fans, there is a filmic point of no return, and Mars Needs Women strays far beyond it.

I like some cheesy and silly old sci-fi films, but NOT this one

[planktonrules · 1/10 · 9 February 2006]

There is a place for REALLY bad sci-fi and horror flicks of the 50s and 60s. No, it's NOT in the garbage--at least for many of them. It's because they are sometimes so entertaining and funny due to their hokeyness or ineptness. For me, there's nothing as satisfying as watching PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE or BRIDE OF THE MONSTER to get a good chuckle. BUT, there are also a lot of old movies that don't quite fall in this category. Instead, they do abound with poor production values and acting but are just bad and difficult, if not impossible to watch. They are just BAD. Unfortunately, despite a GREAT title an idea for a plot, this movie is just terrible and not worth your time. That's because it's just plain DULL and pointless. Don't waste your time--you've been warned!

Silly 60's Mars Flic Needs Story, Script, Action, Direction, and Acting!!

[MooCowMo · 2/10 · 27 April 1999]

Dull as dishwater sci-fi movie about "martians" stealing women for breeding purposes is slower than a dead hamster in winter. Tommy Kirk, that wooden teenage star of such miserable classics as "Old Yeller", "Son of Flubber", "Village of the Giants", and the laughable "Ghost in the Invisible Bikini", plays Dop, a wooden martian who falls in love with Yvonne Kirk. Kirk, equally wooden, went on to play Bat Girl in the campy classic 60's Batman tv series. 5 martians follow around and kidnap several "superior" human female specimens because, as the title suggests, Mars Needs Women. They even broadcast that same message to the scientific community of earth, who are understandably flummoxed. Not a single character, setting, or action has the slightest shred of credibility; in fact, the "martians" are designated as so because they walk around in purple wet suits, carrying spear guns to pass as space weapons. Director Larry Buchanan's pedigree for schlocky films is unrivaled, including such stinkbombs as "Zontar: The Thing From Venus", "The Eye Creatures", and "Curse of the Swamp Creature". Loses camp points for being so slow and boring. MooCow says there are more fun turkeys elsewhere, proceed at your own risk. :=8/

The X-15 Footage Is Nice

[TedMichaelMor · 1/10 · 10 July 2010]

I do not quite know why I had trouble following this film. That might not matter—all that much, except that it seems important that kidnap victims have "to be pretty special to qualify" for abduction, though the victims seem stereotypical to me. I think that I missed something somewhere.

Some of the excellent film work fascinates me, which ought not to have surprised me since the cinematographer was Robert Jessup, who shot "The Acorn People", "Porky's Revenge", and many episodes of "Dallas", which is the location for much of this film. Night scenes here have a serious beauty—sometimes. A scene shot at a service station recalls "Les parapluies de Cherbourg" Apparently, director Larry Buchanan enjoyed making bad movies. He did make one here. Yvonne Craig almost makes seeing this awful movie worthwhile. I do not know if this was before she dated Elvis. Some awful movies deserve a look if you are up late, know all the informational programs on other channels by heart, and you have seen the rerun of "Antiques Road Show" more than ten times. Otherwise, skip this one.

No wonder Mars needs women...

[Darkangl · 1/10 · 10 February 2002]

After seeing what a bunch of stiffs they send in search of fertile earth females, it's no wonder the martian females lost both interest and their ability to reproduce. This movie looks like it was thrown together in the makers spare time and the script is completely lacking in anything even remotely interesting. If you can make it all the way through this movie without stopping it and switching over to something more enjoyable, then you're a better man than I. I guess it would be a good movie to watch if you needed something to help you sleep though...

It Stinks

[gftbiloxi · 1/10 · 18 April 2005]

It stinks, and there isn't much more that you can say about this film, which reminds me of a badly filmed skin-flick with all the sex scenes deleted. We're talking grade Z actors, script, production values, and direction--and the sell-by date on the package expired a couple of decades ago.

The story, such as it: the Martians (who look suspiciously like men with a Spandex fetish) have run out of women, so they nip next door in a spaceship that looks like an over-decorated pie pan to borrow a few. Now, it happens that the ones they want lack brains, beauty, and God knows they lack acting talent, so you'd think Earth would be glad to see them go. But no, Earth gets offended; the Martians decide to take 'em anyway; hostilities ensue. Whoop-De-Doo.

Now, there are bad movies that are fun to watch. But MARS WANTS WOMEN is not one of them: it won't take you ten minutes to realize that you would have been better off using your dollar bills for toilet paper than spending them on this flick. If you don't believe me, then at least rent the darn thing before you buy it--but either way, don't say you weren't warned.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Mars Also Needs Better Actors and Writers

[Uriah43 · 3/10 · 25 July 2019]

This film essentially begins with NASA receiving messages from outer space which upon being decoded read: "Mars...needs...women". Not long after that an alien from Mars named "Dop" (Tommy Kirk) teleports and explains the predicament his planet faces due to a mutation in their genes which doesn't allow females to be born to them. So with a race that is steadily dying the decision is made to send a handful of space travelers to Earth to acquire five female specimens. Unfortunately, rather than trying to understand their plight, the military leadership at NASA treats the situation as an invasion and as a result issues an order to kill or capture these aliens at all cost. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that, while this low-budget science fiction film might possibly have been better received ten or fifteen years earlier, it definitely seemed out-of-place in 1967. And even then I may be giving it too much credit as the entire movie was rather boring from start-to-finish. To be more specific, there were too many scenes which focused on minor details and not enough on things that really mattered-like a decent script or a cohesive plot. Additionally, the acting and camera work were rather second-rate as well. In short, I don't consider this to be a good movie by any means and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

What's wrong with you people?

[zlucasz · 10/10 · 16 May 2007]

I don't understand the reviewers here who say that they deeply enjoyed Mars Needs Women yet give it two stars. Having enjoyed something doesn't count in your assessment of its value? Those who claim it's among "the worst" movies ever made should take a look at the other three movies Buchanan made for TV at around the same time. None rise to the heights of Mars Needs Women (and Zontar is more an example of a film that taxes endurance enough to have a certain sublimity of it own). What makes this movie especially great are the genuinely poetic moments that make the obviously intended earnestness of the ridiculous scenes more plausible. This film will be watched and studied long after the pablum currently playing your mall's multiplex is forgotten.

must watch with popcorn

[AskewNerd · 7/10 · 5 April 2005]

This is one of those movies that will make you laugh for no apparent reason. You have to love the movies that were never made to be taken serious. Pure entertainment. But, this film has a sense of sophistication and the appearances that actual research was done. Great entertainment, just don't dig too deep. Pop some popcorn, sit back and laugh. The only thing missing is 3-D glasses. Honestly, the acting is not to terrible for a 60's drive in movie. With this title, it is guaranteed to be one of those films that kids of today will watch merely because they think it's different. The film is a perfect model for the "hipsters" of our generation. Whatever works though. So, when you finish your Pedro The Lion CD and feel depressed, pop in this tape. It will make you happy (and hip).

A waste of Yvonne Craig

[hitchcockkelly · 2/10 · 28 January 2023]

I could forgive the cheesy plot and the bad acting. I might even be able to forgive the colossal dullness of the script, which focuses a lot of time on the aliens' attempt to secure a hotel room, watch football games, and hypnotize women by staring at them while spooky music plays. What I can't forgive is that Yvonne Craig doesn't appear until the hour mark, and she only shares 9-10 minutes of screen time with Tommy Kirk. Their scenes together were the only good ones, especially the one at the planetarium. Why on Earth (or Mars) would you come up with such a sexually titillating (for 1968) title, then show the most beautiful woman in the picture for only about 20 minutes? Craig doesn't even get to deliver a memorable last line even though a question about the aliens is put to her directly! It's pretty pathetic when you can't make a good B-picture out of Martians and sex. What a waste.