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[tab title="Movie Review"]
"26 million miles from Earth, and the dolls are still the same!"
Bedazzling certain items in your wardrobe is nothing new. Cute! Cute! Cute! Just look at what Queen Yllana does to her mask in the laser-brained adventure that is Queen of Outer Space. The glitter! The sparkles! All in an effort to draw attention to her mask and away from her face. Wait. What?
Most people don’t realize it but, in 1958, Zsa Zsa Gabor led an uprising of women against a cruel dictator. She did. The event even made national papers, too. Unfortunately, the story was buried in the back pages …. where the theater listings appear. Maybe you never caught that, but it is there. Check your local listings.
However, if you failed to see the uprising of scantily clad women – or should we call them Martian babes? – your second chance has arrived with the blu-ray debut of Queen of Outer Space from the Warner Archive Collection. Directed by Edward Bernds and every bit as low-rent as it sounds, this CinemaScope production is bursting with color and chauvinistic tendencies. Men, get ready to apologize (and salivate)!
This laser brained extravaganza is a ridiculous hoot, though. It begins with three chumps who probably should have never left the planet in the first place trying to navigate a rocket off the planet. These idiots - Eric Fleming as Captain Neal Patterson, Dave Willock as Lt. Mike Cruze, and Patrick Waltz as Lt. Larry Turner – probably couldn’t stumble their way across a straight line, let alone pilot a rocket ship through space which, partnered with the equally dim Professor Konrad (Paul Birch), is exactly what they do.
You know this mission is doomed. They were supposed to go to a functioning space station. God knows why. But, on the way, they witness it being destroyed by some weird animated lasers shooting repeatedly across space. They don’t react. They just stare out the window. Suddenly, they are the target of the bolts of electricity and their ship, once hit, crashes on a Venus moon. {googleads}
Turns out, humans aren’t alone. The aliens have just been avoiding us. If this is the cream of the crop when it comes to brains and brawn, I don’t blame them. Frequent writer for the Twilight Zone Charles Beaumont turns in a script that isn’t kind to either sex. And the stilted acting from EVERYBODY doesn’t help matters. That's the beauty of it, though.
The men, having survived the crash, are now captives of a thriving civilization full of curvy women. With short skirts and high heels surrounding them, the men turn into blathering idiots and try to get frisky with them. At first, the men feel as if they have died and this is heaven. They even wonder out loud about it. They soon sober up. These chicks mean business.
The women, rightly so, are a bit suspicious of these blathering numbskulls. They don’t hate men, per-say. They just can’t hang around them because the evil masked Queen Yllana (Laurie Mitchell) has ruled it so. Men are for her. Well, rules are made to be broken and so the women, seeing the strange astronauts as their ticket off the rock, start making the moves that matter to the men; touchy, touchy, kissy, kissy moves. AND THEY LIKE THE FREEDOM TO FORNICATE. Yahoo!
Armed with a plan to change those stupid anti-men rules, Gabor as Talleah, Lisa Davis as Motiya, Barbara Darrow as Kaeel, Marilyn Buferd as Odeena form an alliance with the men that will truly soar across the stars above. Things are going to change.
You already know this film is wrongheaded from the beginning. It is definitely dated and its social norms are completely whacked. This film is also as stereotypical and as sexist as it sounds. You will groan. BUT it absolutely works to create an atmosphere of cosmic charm. It creates a space of creativity where every lug head and combative chick out there in matinee land can get it on!
Watch space get sexy with BIG rockets and HEAVENLY bodies! The only position Queen of Outer Space is willing to take on the matter of sex, though, is missionary. Ba dum tss!
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[tab title="Details"]
MPAA Rating: Unrated.
Runtime: 80 mins
Director: Edward Bernds
Writer: Charles Beaumont
Cast: Zsa Zsa Gabor, Eric Fleming, Dave Willock
Genre: Sci-Fi
Tagline: Man's First Flight to Planet Venus!
Memorable Movie Quote: "I know you men are anxious to return home, but you must endure your privations and hardships."
Theatrical Distributor: Allied Artists Pictures
Official Site:
Release Date: September 7, 1958
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: September 25, 2018
Synopsis: Breaking news from space! The bad: An intrepid captain and his men have landed on a planet where males are outlawed. The good: Some women there are eager to break the law! Queen of Outer Space is a milestone of movie camp. Eric Fleming plays the granite-jawed leader who shares with his crew the crime of maleness. That's just the start of their troubles. The man-hating Venusian Queen (Laurie Mitchell) aims to destroy Earth once a Beta Disintegrator is operational. But a gossamer-gowned scientist (Zsa Zsa Gabor) and her curvy cohorts eye the men, and they like what they see.
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[tab title="Blu-ray Review"]
Blu-ray Details:
Home Video Distributor: Warner Bros.
Available on Blu-ray - September 25, 2018
Screen Formats: 2.35:1
Subtitles: English SDH
Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
Discs: Blu-ray Disc; single disc
Region Encoding: Locked to Region A
Say whatever you want to about the content of the movie, but the colorful restoration is a thing of crackling beauty. Released via Warner Archive, the detailed 1080p image is beyond crisp and colorful, suggesting details in never seen before. Black levels run deep and colors, even in the recycled rocket footage, is a bit too much to take in. Film grain is solid, too. No pops, crackles, or hisses. The DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio track is strong with absolutely no distortion. Simply put, Queen of Outer Space has never looked or sounded better.
Supplements:
Commentary:
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Fans of the movie get the 2007 commentary replicated here. In it, film historian Tom Weaver and Laurie Mitchell wax poetic about this mission to Venus.
Special Features:
A fancy menu screen and a trailer.
• Original Theatrical Trailer
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