Weekend Review – “Mars Needs Women (1967)”

Some regard this as a classic. I would like to read their dictionaries, as they do not use any definition of “classic” I am familiar with.

Cast and Crew Information

Tommy “fired by Disney” Kirk as Dop / Fellow #1
Yvonne “Batgirl / Orion Slave Girl” Craig as Dr. Marjorie Bolen
Warren Hammack as Martian Doctor / Fellow #2
Tony Huston as Fellow #3
Larry Tanner as Fellow #4
Cal Duggan as Fellow #5
Pat Delaney as the artist
Sherry Roberts as the homecoming queen
Donna Lindberg as the stewardess
“Bubbles” Cash as the stripper

Written, edited, produced and directed by the infamous Larry Buchanan

Availability Information

This has been released on DVD.

Premise

Due to an abberation in the Y chromosome, Martian men now outnumber women by 100:1. A group of 5 Martian men come to Earth to “abduct volunteers” to ensure our genetics are compatible so they can begin to repopulate the species.

High Point

Um… was there one? I guess the most entertaining part was the scene in the strip club. The stripper (played by a stripper) does her act for several thirty- and forty-something couples. The act ends with the back of her dress unzipped, and she gets uproarious applause. Ah, the censorship of 1967 cinema…

Low Point

The rest of the movie.

The Review

There is a germ of an original idea here, but it was buried under the standard alien invasion tropes of the day. I give it 2 out of 6.

Ah, the visual effects. Women disappear through badly aligned jump cuts, spaceships fly through outer space with no visible stars because the clouds (!) in space obscure them. The silver stripe on Tommy Kirk’s shirt is quite obviously duct tape. I give it 1 out of 6 instead of 0 because we can tell what they were trying to do.

The story is barely existant. The Martian mission flip flops between a non-hostile volunteer seeking mission and outright abduction and assault. The plot details are almost inconsequential, which is why it is so painful to sit through a 22 minute story concept filmed with an 82 minute runtime. I give it 1 out of 6.

The acting is inconsistently wooden from the Martians, as though the idea that they were meant to be emotionless only came about mid-way through filming. Yvonne Craig, though hardly convincing, is more convincing than should be possible given the script she had to work from. The other abductees had virtually meaningless parts. (Some of them didn’t even have dialogue.) I give it 2 out of 6.

The production is poor, which comes as no surprise. When your incompetant writer also acts as your incompetant producer, incompetant editor and incompetant director, you really don’t stand a chance. The first truly important conversation is conducted with one major speaker mostly off screen and facing away from the camera. In fact, this reeks of being a single camera production that didn’t have the time or budget needed for reshooting any scenes. I give it 2 out of 6.

The emotional response is weak. Bad as it is, this manages to hover just above “laughably bad” for enough time that it can’t even be enjoyed in the same manner as Plan 9 From Outer Space or Manos: The Hands of Fate. The biggest response generated by this movie is due to the fact that they did, indeed, identify some extremely attractive women. I give it 2 out of 6.

Overall, this is a bad movie that’s not bad enough to be mocked throughout. I give it 2 out of 6.

In total, Mars Needs Women receives 12 out of 42.

5 replies on “Weekend Review – “Mars Needs Women (1967)””

  1. Bad filmmakers need old film stock!

    I found it alot funnier than you did, in that MST3K kinda way, but it has alotta draggy parts.

    And it’s the title of a really cool song!

  2. So why does anybody call this a classic?

    Also, something I’d love to see: any time a review gets below, say, 15/42, post a list of all such reviews. Just for entertainment value. :)

  3. To a lot of people, “Classic” == “Old”.

    I’ve never seen this movie and I’m OK with that. I /tried/ to watch Plan 9 but I just couldn’t do it. People call /that/ one a classic, too, whereas it’s just /bad/. Now calling it a “Cult Classic”, that maybe.

  4. As with most pr0n, much of the ‘classic’ sci-fi requires it to be viewed via fast-forward with the sound muted. Oh, and you need to have your bong handy.

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