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| Queen of Outer Space (1958) | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 5 2017, 03:31 PM (349 Views) | |
| Laughing Gravy | Aug 5 2017, 03:31 PM Post #1 |
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![]() Queen of Outer Space (1958) Dir. Ed Bernds An Allied Artists Picture in CinemaScope 80 min. / Color / 2.35:1 On DVD from Warner Bros., with commentary by Tom Weaver and Laurie Mitchell ITB Strange Science Cinema #135 In the far, far future year of 1985, a crack team of rocketeers wearing uniforms borrowed from Forbidden Planet is escorting a famous scientist to earth's orbiting space station, but before they can dock the station is destroyed by killer rays from outer space, and our crew of intrepid warriors soon find themselves marooned on Venus, a planet populated entirely by beautiful women and ruled by the nightmarish queen, who wears a mask and sports a rotten attitude towards men. Secretly opposing her is Zsa Zsa Binks, er, Gabor, the planet's chief scientist and wearer of gorgeous gowns slit up to here and a lot of beautiful jewelry. A civil war of the Venusians breaks out and the astronauts find themselves doing a lot of fraternizing with the enemy until one of the men is attacked by a giant rubber spider, leading our boys to decide to beat a hasty retreat - but not until they try to destroy the Queen's doomsday machine, a plywood playhouse that looks like something you could order from a comic book in the '60s for $1.98. This is, I firmly believe and espouse, the most entertaining movie ever made, with every shot a gem, every line of dialog a hoot, and every member of the cast reaching a career peak for inanity. A kitschy classic if ever I've seen one - and the darn thing was written by Charles Beaumont from a story by Ben Hecht (sort of). Seriously, I could watch this movie every week for the rest of my life. It appears that Beaumont's name wasn't enough to get this thing funded, so Ben Hecht's moniker was added to the credits but it's a matter of conjecture as to whether he actually contributed anything. As mentioned, costumes from Forbidden Planet are worn by most of the cast (including lovely Altara's miniskirts gracing a lot of the nice Venusian ladies) and super-scientist Zsa Zsa dresses as if she's on her way to a party at Bruce Wayne's house. Laurie Mitchell is the Queen, Eric Fleming is the Cap'n, Paul Birch is the scientist, Patrick Waltz and Dave Willock are the crew members, and Joi Lansing pops up outta nowhere to give the film its biggest unintentional laugh in a film that's stuffed full of 'em. Million-dollar Dialog: Crewman looking out the ship's window at the snow of Venus: "That ain't snow! It's angel hair! We done died and gone to heaven!" The Cap'n: "I love you!" The Super-Scientist: "If loff is vhat makes your heart sing, den I loff you, too!" Watch for the scene where Zsa Zsa tricks the Venusian guards by donning the mask and pretending to be the Queen: apparently, her Hungarian accent still manages to fool everybody, but heck, there are 10,000 hilarious moments in this movie, you'll no doubt have plenty of your own to talk about. A beautiful print on the DVD and hopefully Warner Archive will do a Blu-ray one of these days of this science-fiction gem. Also on the Program For the kiddies, a trio of Paramount Modern Madcap cartoons, including Turtle Scoop (a tortoise and a hare, newspaper photographers, compete for stories in an awful, awful cartoon); The Inquisit Visit (a spoof of Zsa Zsa Gabor, oddly enough, as an accented star with a lot of ex-husbands is interviewed on television, and the darn thing is even worse than the first cartoon) and the okay-by-association L' Amour the Merrier, in which a French matchmaker tries to match up a garbageman with a Princess. Hmmm. Finally, we finished off Panther Girl of the Kongo, and boy, did we all end up glad the darn thing was over. The first time we saw it, years ago, it was enjoyable enough but it's tough to slog through a second time. Finally, we enjoyed the trailers to next week's one-two punch of million-dollar epics, Night of the Blood Beast and She Gods of Shark Reef! Wow-de-wow WOW! |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| CliffClaven | Aug 5 2017, 10:36 PM Post #2 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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One thing that doesn't sit well now: When the queen tries to romance the earthman, it's made clear her damaged face is the dealkiller, not her evil tyranny and all that. He actually winces. Those scenes endorse choosing sides on the basis of f-ability, and you regard the hero and the moviemakers as 1950s jerks. A slightly savvier filmmaker would have Gabor and Mitchell switch roles, with Mitchell keeping the damaged face. That would make the hero a better guy, choosing good girl over bad beauty. The sketch film "Amazon Women on the Moon" includes what looks to be a specific parody. They keep cutting back to the moon between other sketches, as if we're channel surfing and missed a few scenes. |
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| Laughing Gravy | Aug 6 2017, 07:49 AM Post #3 |
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Yes, Mr. Weaver was kind enough to send Ms. Mitchell a copy of Amazon Women of the Moon and they discussed it during their commentary - Laurie took the film as a direct remake of her movie. Laurie also said that it was Miss Gabor who insisted on wearing the glamour gowns for the film, that she was "the star of the movie" and needed to look like it. In hindsight, they agreed that that was probably a boost to the film's box office. A real oddity here - the opening credits don't start until 15 minutes in, the longest pre-credit sequence of which I'm aware. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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