Roger Corman's skills at quick-buck film-making are legendary and need no introduction to B-movie fans, but still, you have to particularly admire the tricks that ole Roger pulled off to make this one come together. Back in the '60s he bought the rights to a Russian made sci-fi film that nobody saw called "Planet of Storms", cut it into bits, added some new shots and dialogue, and re-edited the whole mess into two separate movies!! 1968's "Voyage to the Planet of the Prehistoric Women" (phew, that's a mouthful isn't it?) is the second of two films using "Planet of Storms" footage (the other being "Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet," without the "Women") and it tells the story (told via flashback) of an ill-fated space voyage to Venus, where one set of astronauts crash lands on the planet; they (and the second team sent to rescue them) are then beset by volcanic eruptions, floods, man-eating plants and giant lizard attacks. These pheonomena are apparently controlled by the "Prehistoric Women," a group of pterodactyl-worshipping, scantily-clad blondes who sit atop a mountain causing all of the "invaders'" woes via telepathy. Since the astronauts' footage all comes from the Russian film (hence the film being told in voice-over/narration style, which covers up the fact that all of the actors were speaking Russian), they are never seen on screen at the same time as the Prehistoric Women, whose scenes were shot and inserted into the existing film by then-newbie director Peter Bogdanovich under a pseudonym (Bogdanovich, of course, would go on to direct such acclaimed, high brow classics as "Paper Moon," "The Last Picture Show" and "Mask" during the '70s and '80s - but hell, I guess everybody has got to start somewhere!). The end result may not make a whole hell of a lot of sense, but it's actually quite clever how Corman was able to tinker a whole new story out of two separate sets of film. The "Prehistoric Women" (a group of seven or eight Space Babes led by then-fading '60s blonde bombshell Mamie Van Doren, who still looks quite fetching here in a seashell bra and tight white slacks) only appear in about a quarter of the film's run time, yet they got top billing because Roger knew that teenagers were going to be sucked in by the promise of T&A in the title...the clever bastard!!! Whatever it cost to make this movie, I'm sure Roger made it back in one weekend on the drive-in circuit. I wonder what the makers of the original Russian film thought of the "re-editing" of their work, but then if the film hadn't passed through Corman's and Bogdanovich's hands we probably wouldn't be talking about it today. Slow moving and awkward as it may be, "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women" is still an enjoyably terrible slice of Z-Grade cinema at its best (or worst, depending on how you look at it). The film is available on DVD at a dollar store near you in a scratchy, washed out public domain print (the color on my copy is so bleached that the movie nearly looks black and white), which only serves to increase the surrealism factor of this odd little movie. God bless Roger Corman, and God Bless America.
