Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965)

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Not copyrighted by Roger Corman Productions. U.S. release through American-International Pictures in 1965. 85 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Landing on Venus, astronauts encounter numerous adventures amongst pre-historic animals.NOTES: Assembled from the Russian film, Planeta Bur ("Planet of Storms" or "Storm Planet"), made by the Leningrad Studios of Popular Science Films in 1962. Kyunna Ignatova played the Marcia character but her footage has been completely replaced by Miss Domergue.PRINCIPAL MIRACLE: Learn how to buy a foreign film and then re-assemble it for American audiences for practically nothing.COMMENT: Now that the full-length American version is now available on DVD, we can appreciate the original's imaginative expertise and rather jolly special effects, despite the loss of some color definition from the Sovcolor sequences. One outstanding scene with the robot ferrying the cosmonauts across a lava flow is worth the cover price alone. Rathbone has only three or four brief scenes and looks both tired and dispirited, though his voice is as powerful as ever. Miss Domergue has quite a lengthy role by comparison but has lost all her heyday appeal. Although the script fails to build up as much tension as it should (we really don't know the characters well enough to be completely absorbed in their fate), Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet offers more than just a simple curiosity interest.

Voyage To The Prehistoric Planet has British Basil Rathbone and American Faith Domergue in a cast of mostly Russian players given American names about the first exploration of the planet Venus. Venus proves to be one giant steam bath of a planet with volcanic activity and all kinds of exotic prehistoric like animal and plant life. There are traces of a human civilization, but the Venusians are real shy around us earthlings.For those of us who saw The Aviator and for some like myself who are old enough to remember her, Faith Domergue was one of Howard Hughes's celebrated protégés. She was an exceptional beauty no doubt and she may have even had some talent, but unlike Jane Russell who managed to emerge from the shadow of Hughes, Domergue never did.As for Basil Rathbone he's seen briefly talking to the astronauts from the Lunar station on the moon from whence the expedition came from. The film is not as bad as I thought it would be, the recreation of the director's conception of Venus isn't too far off the mark as far as what we've been able to determine as to terrain. No exotic life like what is shown here though.And in fact this is supposed to have taken place in 2020 and I doubt seriously if we'll get to Venus by then.

"A spaceship orbits the planet Venus, piloted by astronaut Marcia (Faith Domergue). On the surface, two fellow astronauts and a robot companion set out on a voyage of exploration, observed from afar by Professor Hartman (Basil Rathbone). First they are attacked by prehistoric creatures, and then lose their robot in a massive volcanic eruption that consumes the planet," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.This is the first bastardization of the Russian science-fiction film "Planeta Bur" (1962). There are some good visual effects, carried over from the original movie, especially the cosmonauts' airborne planet surface vehicle. But, as astronomers knew, by the 1960s, this film doesn't really depict how a landing on earth's neighboring Venus could possibly look - if they'd have picked another Solar System, they might have had a classic.The use of "Robot John" is one of several similarities to the TV show "Lost in Space" (also appearing in 1965), especially the fourth and fifth episodes of that series. The Robinson family's "Robot" was intended to serve the same function; and, both teams of space travelers encountered "prehistoric" monsters, misguided robot helpers, spaceship weight problems, lost civilizations, and wildly unstable planetary climate changes.The U.S. poorly dubbed this "Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet", and inserted footage featuring Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue cheaply into the events. The idea, and actual editing, aren't totally awful, but the low budget production and lackluster performances are a real drag. In 1968, filmmakers proved they could do worse, by editing-in scantily clad young women, and re-releasing the film as "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women".*** Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (8/1/65) Curtis Harrington, Pavel Klushantsev ~ Basil Rathbone, Faith Domergue, Vladimir Yemelyanov, Georgi Zhzhyonov

When I think of science fiction films from my youth, this was always one of my favorites, mainly because of the use of the original footages from the Russian film PLANETA BURG (Planet of Storms). All in all, the editing of Marsha (Faith Domergue) into the film along with Professor Hartman (Basil Rathbone) actually adds a bit to the film. Another movie with the same stock footage (VOYAGE TO THE PLANET OF THE PREHISTORIC WOMEN) fails to accomplish the pulp science-fiction feel of this film. The robot, the hover car, the spacecraft, the spacesuits, they all are wonderful visions of what we as kids in the 60's thought space would be like. It's a pity that the real Venus turned out to be so hostile to life as we know it, because I would've loved to have visited this wonderful alien world of the imagination. Of course, in a sense I have while watching the movie, and I think I'll go and watch it again. Very well done, and highly recommended.