Queen of Outer Space

In many ways, the prototypical journey into outer space movie of the fifties, parodied much later in such fare as Amazon Women on the Moon (1987).  It's not as effective as the better World Without End (56), lending itself to ridicule due to the juvenile plot - straight out of a young boy's fantasy of finding beautiful women on an alien planet. But, it also copies, to some extent, the ultimate fifties sci-fi film, Forbidden Planet - just on a much smaller scale of hardy spacemen venturing into alien terrain. It's unusual in that the credits don't begin until 15 minutes in - that's after the 4-man crew blast off on what seems to be a routine mission into orbit and witness their space station being destroyed by an alien beam. Then, the unexpected - the energy beam hits them and they crashland on Venus, where the ship's captain (Eric Fleming) gazes around the lush vegetation and wonders aloud if it's a lifeless planet.

In some ways, this is also a follow-up to Conquest of Space (1955), which also had a similar space station and featured Fleming in a similar role. But, then it veers into ludicrous directions on Venus, with the introduction of mini-skirted young females and their despotic queen, who hides a serious facial disfigurement. Zsa-Zsa Gabor plays one of the young women sympathetic to the newcomers and who defies the queen. The sight of these females running around in their skirts and high heels is what prompts most of the derision directed at fifties sci-fi nowadays. A sci-fi plot which fits a comedy like Abbott & Costello Go To Mars (53-they actually also go to Venus) is not great fodder for actual science fiction cinema. But, at the same time, it's not without that entertainment value - and one can look at it as some kind of strange dream, to an extent.  BoG's Score: 5 out of 10