BATTLE BEYOND THE SUN No stars (out of ****)
1963/66 mins/Not Rated/American International Pictures
The Russian sci-fi film was very ideological and symbolic in its conflicts. Roger's thinking was that there was a fortune in special effects and he could jazz it up for American audiences. I had to translate the images into an English storyline that fit the mouth movements. He told me to put in a scene where an astronaut has a vision of two moon monsters, one male, the other female, are battling it out. I shot that for him and cut it into the film. I don't think I ever saw the final version of Battle Beyond the Sun. -Francis Ford Coppola, recalling the film's origin in Roger Corman's autobiography
Yes, you read that right. Francis Ford Coppola. THE same Coppola who made such classics as The Godfather I and II, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now, but in 1963, he was just another hungry young man trying to make it in Hollywood. The funny thing is that one would be hard pressed to believe Coppola had any talent on the basis of this movie. Maybe he was still learning the mechanics of filmmaking and he wasn't working with source material that was all that great to begin with, but he seems out to sea trying to make a coherent movie out of this gobbledygook. Although Coppola is credited as Associate Producer, he decided not to put his name down as the director of this folly, hiding out under the pseudonym Thomas Colchart.
The "plot", Americanized by Corman and Coppola (under fake names, natch) deals with the dazzling future world of 1997. There is this great space race between the US and the USSR. (Well, in this Americanized stew, the two sides are called North Hemi and South Hemi.) Both sides are trying to become the first group to colonize Mars. The South Hemi have developed a new rocket that will get them to Mars in record time. Upon learning this, the North decide to rush out into the space to beat their enemy there. As usual, haste makes waste.
Battle Beyond the Sun is a dreadful 66 minutes. The special effects may have been state of the art in 1963, but in 2010, they are stilted and hokey looking. I have no idea how this film played in its' original Russian version, but this English version is like watching paint dry. It has an interesting concept but it is so talky and boring that I found myself yawning far too much at four P.M. on a Sunday afternoon. Speaking of talking, Coppola's dub job is atrocious. The words seldom match the mouth movements, creating some unintentional giggles. Not that his dialogue is anything to cry home about. Coppola became known as a really good writer, but he seems out to sea trying to come up with a story that makes sense. Some of the dialogue on display here is such ear-bleeding nonsense that I had to keep chanting Coppola's credits over and over just to remind myself that he did become a good screenwriter.
The funniest scene in the film involves the original footage Coppola shot for the Americanization. Towards the end of the film, an astronaut ends up disturbed by a dream in which two monsters battle on the surface of the moon. Wasn't this movie about Mars, not the Moon? Regardless, the monster battle is absolutely hysterical. Corman asked for male and female creatures, but Coppola took him far too literally. The female monster is a giant vagina with teeth:
Kind of gives a new meaning to the term vagina dentata, doesn't it?
This, uh, unique creature battles with an equally unique creature that resembles a giant scrotum with eyeball laden penis arms.
If I didn't post pictures, no one would ever believe me.
The ensuing battle between the Dick Creature and Pussy Monster ends up being a real laugh riot since it doesn't mesh AT ALL with the Russian-shot footage of a cosmonaut shaking about.
VOYAGE TO THE PLANET OF THE PREHISTORIC WOMEN *1/2 (out of ****)
1968/79 mins/Not Rated/American International Pictures
In late 1966, Corman approached his then assistant, a young writer and would-be director trying to make a name for himself in Hollywood. His name: Peter Bogdanovich. After completing his duties on The Wild Angels, Corman made Bogdanovich an offer he couldn't refuse: Bogdanovich would have the chance to write and direct his first movie, which turned out to be Boris Karloff's final movie of note, Targets. Before he started work on that picture, Corman had a starter assignment in mind, as Bogdanovich recalled in Corman's autobiography:
In the meantime, Roger asked me to work on one of those Russian sci-fi films he acquired, Planet of Storms. "It's got spectacular effects and we're dubbing it into English for AIP. But there are no women. So run down to Leo Carrillo Beach. It'll match the Black Sea but it's really supposed to be Venus. Shoot women. We'll cut it all together." I hired the Gill-Women of Venus- just a bunch of stoned kids walking around Carrillo Beach dressed like mermaids with seashells covering their breasts. Tackiest fucking costumes I've ever seen! And now they were praying to a pterodactyl or something and telepathically to Mamie Van Doren or something. This was hell.
It was certainly hell sitting there and watching this crap. Voyage to the Planet of the Prehistoric Women is another case where you'd be hard pressed to find any talent from a future great filmmaker on the basis of this debut feature. Bogdanovich apparently doesn't think much of this film. Not only did he hide out under the pseudonyms Henry Ney (for the screenplay) and Derek Thomas (for his "direction"), he turned down the opportunity to record a commentary track for the DVD release. I will say this in his defense: it's a hell of a lot better than At Long Last Love (his misguided 1975 production in which Burt Reynolds and Cybill Shepherd among others rape, murder and bury the Cole Porter songbook). Anyone who feels compelled to trash Daisy Miller should be sentenced to watching this turd on an endless repeat cycle.
Narrated by a surviving member of the expedition, the story is set in 1998. Earth sends a spaceship of three astronauts to Venus for an expedition to find life there. Do they ever- it turns out that Venus is ruled by a group of prehistoric females who communicate telepathically. The women are upset that a group of strangers have invaded their planet and killed their god Terra- a giant rubber pterodactyl- so they pray to their fallen god and vow revenge.
Voyage to the Planet of the Prehistoric Women is the funniest of the three features under review here. The Godfather and I laughed a lot during this pathetic 79 minutes. The film opens by cribbing the same exact prologue from Battle Beyond the Sun. It isn't any better the second time around. The crappy special effects, lame rubber suited creatures and cheesy, ear-splitting dialogue practically induced a laughing coma between the two of us.
Especially funny are the newly shot scenes featuring Grade Z-movie queen Mamie Van Doren. I have a feeling that the prehistoric women communicate telepathically because Bogdanovich couldn't afford to shoot sound on location. Van Doren's followers all have that glazed look as if they smoked a bit too much weed or hash prior to filming. The sight of the women carrying a giant rubber pterodactyl and praying heedlessly to it is one I won't soon forget.
VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET ** (out of ****)
1966/72 mins/Not Rated/American International Pictures
Battle Beyond the Sun must have made a decent profit at the box office since three years later, Corman decided the time was ripe for another rehash of the same material. Coppola had moved onto bigger things at Warner Bros., so Corman had to find another young director trying to make a name for himself. Curtis Harrington had recently made a small splash with Night Tide, an eerie 1963 thriller, so Corman approached Harrington with an offer he couldn't refuse. Harrington ended up making two films out of the Russian material: Queen of Blood and Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet.
While Harrington was satisfied enough with Queen of Blood to put his name on it (and tellingly, it is the only one of the four films that was copyrighted by Corman and AIP), he hides behind the pseudonym John Sebastian for the latter picture. I wonder how many people believed that the leader of the pop group The Lovin' Spoonful had directed a feature. I also wonder if this picture is the primary reason that Sebastian the Musician decided to start billing himself as John B. Sebastian shortly after. Although it's still a bad movie, Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet manages to be the most competent of the three rehashes under review here.
In a lunar Mission Control, Professor Hartman (Basil Rathbone in his next-to-last feature) supervises the first manned space flight to the planet Venus. The spaceship Sirius lands on Venus, only to discover that the planet is ravaged by changing weather (lots of rain and fog, mainly to hide the cheap production design), prehistoric creatures long thought to be extinct anywhere and a creepy caveperson lurking about behind shadows at our heroes. With the aid of a super bionic robot named John, our heroes try to navigate this terrain and make it back home safely.
The one problem with watching all three of these films in a row: there is a constant twinge of deja vu, especially when footage begins repeating. Upon seeing the SAME exact shot of an international space station with astronauts walking about for the third time, the Godfather began to laugh uncontrollably, shouting out "This is the third fucking time!!!!" The majority of the footage in this Voyage appeared in the previous one. Only the dialogue and the length of certain shots differ.
Harrington does the best job of linking together his newly shot footage with the original Russian material. It actually makes sense to have Sirius communicating with mission control and of course, Rathbone adds a touch of class to the proceedings even if he only appears fleetingly. Harrington noticed that there was a cosmonaut named Masha in the original Russian film, so he decided to turn her into an American astronaut named Marsha and shot new inserts featuring Faith Domergue (This Island Earth) in the role. The Domergue inserts actually mesh fairly well with the Russian footage, especially since Harrington made an actual attempt to make the set resemble something similar to the Russian spaceship set in Planet of Storms.
Harrington also comes up with a more coherent storyline than either Coppola or Bogdanovich. However, there are just some things that cannot be fixed. The dubbing is still pretty bad, although Harrington's dialogue is better than anything his contemporaries came up with. I guess it's just too difficult to come up with English dialogue that will fit Russian mouth movements. Harrington is also hamstrung by the cheesy special effects. The prehistoric creatures are merely men in rubber suits flitting around like they had Mexican jumping beans inserted anally. As I stated before, the special effects were state of the art in 1966, but are clunkers by today's standards. At least we don't have Mamie Van Doren and a bunch of stoned chicks praying to a rubber pterodactyl this time around.
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