The crew of an atomic rocket to the moon find a dying underground civilization of beautiful, telepathic cat-suited women who harbour nefarious plans for the mother planet. Other than some effective lunar backgrounds (using images created by Chesley Bonestell), the special effects are dire: the rocket's 'atom chamber, sector 5' is a repurposed submarine-movie set (hence the periscope), at least two distinct rocket models are used during the flight, the lunar city is an unconvincing painting decorated with left-over pseudo classical props, and the giant spiders, while endearing, are obviously puppets. The acting is typical for a low-end B-movie, with a somewhat dissolute Sonny Tufts ineffectually barking orders to his nondescript crew. The premise is thin and silly: despite landing on an airless, lifeless orb, the crew (almost sheepishly) take along a revolver, cigarettes, and matches, all of which are later needed to move things along. Fortunately, the perfunctory plot runs its expected course at a brisk pace and the off-camera demise of the conniving cat-woman is surprisingly abrupt and mater-of-fact. Despite the daft story and obvious production weaknesses, the film is imaginative with some interesting ideas: engineer Walters (Douglas Fowley) is constantly looking for ways to cash in on space flight (he makes an in-flight plug for an oil company worth "hundreds of thousands"), presaging the flurry NASA-related space-based marketing in the 1960s. 'Cat Women on the Moon' was the first of a series of films featuring a dying civilization of women looking for men to replenish the race and has a slightly harder distaff edge that than later entries: Alpha (Carol Brewster), the lunar leader is an unapologetic tyrant who plans to take over Earth by controlling women's minds and subjugating men, and then ensuring only girl babies are produced (clearly a plan with some long-term flaws). Any feminist agenda in the film is undercut by the figure-hugging lunar lingerie sported by the titular felines, the negation of Alpha's telepathic control over Earth-woman Helen (Marie Windsor) when the latter is holding hands with the man she loves, and one of the classic moments of 'women in space': the first thing Helen does after surviving the crushing acceleration of Earth departure is to get out her make-up mirror and touch-up her hair-do. The score is by soon-to-be A-lister Elmer Bernstein (or Bernstien as he is credited) who, grey-listed for possibly being a commie, wasn't in a position to be picky about the projects he took on. The music is reminiscent of that in the legendarily awful 'Robot Monster' (1953), which was also scored by the struggling impresario. The plot (such as it is) and some of the props were partially recycled as 'Missile to the Moon' (1958), an inferior remake with all of the weaknesses of its antecedent and none of the novelty. While cheap and silly, 'Cat Women on the Moon' is watchable fluff and noteworthy for birthing the subgenre that gave us, among others, the classic Zsa Zsa Gabor opus 'Queen of Outer Space' (1958) and the bottom-of-the-barrel 'Fire Maidens from Outer Space' (1956).