Cosmos I is returning home from a voyage to Centaurus when they receive a distress call from their sister ship Cosmos Three. The troubled ship is about three months away near a star system called Solaris. On board are a crew of humans and Centaurians. Admiral David King (Wendell Corey) requests permission from Command Headquarters to turn around and assist. Command Headquarters denies the request. Admiral King ignores the command and reverses course.
On Cosmos III two of the Centaurians have high jacked the ship. Without proper navigation the ship goes off course and enters a dangerous zone. The ship spirals down to crash land on one of the inner planets of the Solaris system. On the previously unexplored planet there are only a few survivors. One is seriously injured and not expected to live. Another is Sally (Sally Frei) who is also injured but not as bad. Lt Charles Anderson (Tod Lasswell) and his Centaurian wife Zenda (Nobuko Miyamoto) are two of the survivors. That night Zenda’s brother Jang (Hans Wedemeyer), who was one of the high jackers, tries to kill the Captain. Zenda kills him.
When the Cosmos I gets to the planet it’s been only three months but on the planet the time lapse has been eighteen years. The admiral sends out a search party that consists of Commander Scott (Keith Larsen), Doctor Farrell (John Agar), Lt. Red Bradley (Paul Gilbert), the Cosmos One chief (Stuart Margolin) and Sgt Allen (Ron Stokes). While they are searching Linda (Irene Tsu), a Centaurian leaves the ship. While frightened by a giant snake she falls and hit her head, knocking herself unconscious. She is rescued by a Centaurian living on the planet. He says his name is Tang (Robert Ito). His parents were two of the survivors from the crash of the Cosmos III. Tang was born on the planet. Tang and Linda fall in love.
“Women of the Prehistoric Planet” was released in 1966 and was directed by Arthur C. Pierce. It is a low budget science fiction film.
This movie had a lot going against it from the word go. The original title of the film was “The Prehistoric Planet” but the producer, Jack Broder decided to add the words “Women of” believing that “Women of the Prehistoric Planet” was more marketable. The problem is there are no native prehistoric women on the planet. There are a few prehistoric men but they were there just in passing. The real story is about Tang and Linda. Tang being born on the planet but of Centaurian heritage and Linda who was born on Centaurus. Broder is now stuck with coming up with some prehistoric women so he had some scenes filmed with some half naked women prancing around a jungle. The added scenes were used for the foreign release of the film and are briefly seen in the U.S. trailer, which I have not been able to find, but they are not in the original movie.
It also seems that the film also got lost in the shuffle with the very bad “Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women” and “Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet”, both of which are Roger Corman cut and paste films. Not to say this film is any better, it’s not, it’s just bad on its own without Roger’s interference.
The film does boast some interesting and varied actors. For instance: Wendell Corey, John Agar, Irene Tsu, Robert Ito, and several others that you know by sight but can’t always place where. Despite some interesting actors the script gave them nothing to work with. The production values were low, but it’s a “B” picture so I didn’t expect much in the way of set design or dangerous creatures. I did expect some kind of plot. What I got was basically a love story with some racist rhetoric thrown in.
The main theme of the film is Racism, specifically between the humans and the Centaurians. The humans are all played by white people and the Centaurians are all played by Asians. Normally it’s a standard theme with science fiction stories but in this case it’s just not done very well. There is also a Twilight Zone twist at the end that is also pretty standard for science fiction films.
Altogether it’s a little on the disappointing side. I would have preferred a plain old bad science fiction movie but this one had to try to be philosophical and moralistic but it didn’t quite work. There are some enjoyable silly looking space ship miniatures and the standard central casting large lizard in back screen but other than that it leaves a lot to be desired.