Saturday, April 25, 2020

Monster Crap Inductee: Queen Of Outer Space (1958)

Monster Crap Inductee: Queen Of Outer Space
I Prefer Princes Of The Universe

1958

Well, being stuck in this house for a month now thanks to everything being basically shut down for a virus, I already have the opener to basically when I talk about my favorite films of 2020 and that is….

Fuck 2020.

No seriously, between Kobe’s tragic helicopter crash, the locust problem in Africa, our stupid ass president somehow getting acquitted of the totally unethical shit he did, the fact that our next presidential election will be between two old white men in their 70s and oh yeah, this fucking COEVID-19, things have NOT been fun.

But you are here in hopes to get away from that for maybe an hour or less (depending on your reading speed) so let’s talk about this film that barely won my last poll and will be the last of these normal polls of films I own being nominated for a while since next month starts the summer of me nominating films that I have heard plenty of people wanting me to cover. And that film is of course, Queen of Outer Space.

So this film started as a ten page idea bought by a guy who had just gotten out of prison after shooting an agent in the groin after finding out that agent was sleeping with the guy’s wife. And of course the only work this guy who just got out of prison could get was with a low rent company called Allied Artists. This ten page idea was called Queen of the Universe and was a satirical look at a planet run by women….because 1950s everyone. After that, the movie went around to a few producers since someone in the studio took it away from the guy who had shot the agent and was also going to use tropes from other science fiction films at the time to flesh out the story and cast Edward Bernds (who directed episodes of The Three Stooges and Bowery Boys)

And the star of this film would be celebrity (who was basically famous for just being famous) Zsa Zsa Gabor. Of course the best thing I could remember about Zsa Zsa was that cameo in Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors where she got killed by Dick Cavett who turned into Freddy Krueger while telling Zsa Zsa “Who gives a fuck what you think?” and then Freddy kills a girl whose dream this all was with the famous line “Welcome to primetime, bitch.”


To fill out the cast were Eric Fleming, a few stage actors, a real life acting couple at the time, and of course a bunch of models who were all younger than Zsa Zsa Gabor, which did not make Zsa Zsa Gabor happy since many in the crew were looking at all the attractive ladies that were younger than her and ultimately she apparently became a pain in the ass to work with in this film. One of those young ladies hired was a young Lynn Cartwright, who we have talked about on this show since she was in The Garbage Pail Kids movie.


With that out of the way, let’s get to the movie.

We start off with a rocket preparing to launch.


But of course, it won’t launch yet since the crew isn’t on board. Here we meet our three crew members: Captain Neal Patterson, Lieutenant Mike Cruze, and Lieutenant Larry Turner.

In That Order, Left To Right

They are let in to meet their commander (no name given) and Professor Konrad. Their mission is of course to escort Konrad here to Space Station A. Of course, this team was hoping to explore Mars, but the commander says they’ll get that chance, but this mission is more important at this time.

Then we go to a the rocket and Mike is complaining that this is not a mission worth pursuing as this is too routine as basically a taxi to a bus depot. Of course, as he is complaining about this mission, Konrad comes in and overhears a bit of it. Mike apologizes and Konrad says that it is alright as the space station is basically like a bus depot and lists the important stuff of bus depots. Konrad is about to smoke a cigarette, but Neal stops him since the rocket is fueling up and any fire would cause the rocket to explode. Konrad shakes his head and admits to forgetting about that. Neal wonders where Larry is and Mike looks out the window and shows them where he is.

Which Is Making Out With A Girlfriend

She is worried about the mission, but Larry says it is too important for him not to go and will miss her, and they make out some more. Neal is tired of this and orders Larry onto the rocket via intercom. And if you are wondering how this rocket flight works, basically the three members of the crew are seat belted into chairs while Konrad is strapped into a nearby bed.

There, Now Konrad Is Completely At Their Mercy.

I kid, of course. It finally is time for lift off and of course, the girl gets a bit blown away by the wind of the rocket.


They talk about the past and we find out that this movie is taking place in the year 1985(oh, great…..I was only a year old at that time). We also found out that the space station apparently made some disturbing observations and we have some deadly neighbors in outer space. Then suddenly a cartoon ray of light is flying around.

This Looks Like A Job For Superman

Of course this beam ends up hitting and destroying the space station.


Konrad is very upset as many innocent lives just got snuffed out by that destruction, but they can’t sulk to long as the beam is heading towards them as well.


They try to get away, but the beam eventually hits them.


The ship finally starts going down and  time for everyone to show off what their face would be if their brain was melting.

I Think The Captain Has The Rest Of You Beat

And we finally get the opening title card to this movie.

FIFTEEN FREAKING MINUTES IN!!!!

They crash land on a planet.

And If You Think It Is Mars Thanks To The Polar Ice Caps, You Would Be Incorrect.

The crew wakes up and fixes Neal as he has a injury to the head, which is a concussion. Of course, back until recently aka the TWENTY FIRST CENTURY, we thought concussions just gave you a simple headache.

They wonder if they are on a planet or heaven with the snow. They eventually deduce they are on a planet and are grateful to find out that somehow, the air on this planet is breathable.

And Trees

The professor then explains that they are on the planet Venus. Back in the 50s and 60s….there were several films that thought “Oh, Venus might be a fine planet for life”. And yes, before you ask…..this was even while we knew that Venus was too hot and the air was unbreathable. But of course, we didn’t give a shit.

Neal wonders if there is any intelligent life on this planet, to which Konrad responds that he does not know. Then they hear some strange noise and wonder what it is. Konrad thinks it may be an electronic signal of some kind, which means there may be intelligent life on this planet. Larry talks about green aliens that he read in a comic once about the planet Venus.

Afterwards, they make a fire and Konrad is rightfully still upset about the people on the space station who have obviously died due to the blast. Larry again talks about the green aliens and Mike jokingly asks why Larry ever left that job as Master of Ceremonies at the House of Horrors. Neal then asks who is going to take the first watch and Larry volunteers since he can’t get any sleep.

The next day, it is obvious at some point Mike took over, but wouldn’t you know it….

Mike Fell Asleep On The Job

This blunder allows a bunch of women to surround these men with their guns and take them captive.


We find out that the women can somehow speak English yet have strange Venusian words as well. Then we go to some buildings that are supposed to be the palace of these women from Venus, but really it is probably a place in a European country, most likely Greece.


They are taking to the courtroom and one woman attacks Mike for some unknown reason, while screaming how “she hates them”.


Konrad thinks they definitely don’t like strangers, Neal thinks they don’t like men and then Larry wonders where all the men are. They are sent to the middle of this court and our Earthlings wonder if they are being looked over. Of course, we know Larry is looking at them as well, including one that he is really attracted to.

Who By The Way, Is That Actor’s Wife

Konrad wonders if this is a civilization without sex and when Larry wonders if that is really what he calls a civilization, Konrad says no. Yes, because sex is the most important thing that matters in a civilization. Again, this is the 1950s male chauvinistic mind talking, which is what this film is since this is supposed to be a satire of how they think a planet run by women would be a bad idea. Even as a guy, I find this kind of thinking a bit sexist.

And we finally meet the queen of this planet named Yllana.

And Boy That Is A Terrible Mask. So Bad That When She Talks, You Have To Squint For A Minute To See Her Lips Moving In It.

They immediately explain how they can speak their language as they monitored them to understand their language. Neal tries to explain how the crash landed on their planet and would like a way to get back home, but of course, Yllana thinks they are spies from Earth and thinks they want to harm these women of Venus. Yllana even uses the evidence of their first reaction to seeing them is to go for their guns, but fails to mention the fact that well, the ladies had guns at them first so what did you expect. Yllana and her council leave and she says they will decide their fate. So if you timed that, it was basically 30 minutes before we met our titular queen.

That one lady who Larry was looking at goes off to a lab where we meet Zsa Zsa Gabor’s character named Talleah.

And The Blonde’s Name Is Motiya And The Brunette Behind Is Named Kaeel.

They are of course secretly part of a revolution to usurp Queen Yllana as they believe she is too cruel. And if you want to know how they can believe the men are on a peaceful message, Motiya says that the one man’s eyes spoke the truth and you can obviously see that Larry’s attractions of Motiya is reciprocated.

And Talleah Has That Very Thick Hungarian Accent That Zsa Zsa Gabor Can Do.

Meanwhile, the men are returned to the courtroom and the Queen finds them guilty of espionage. Neal and Konrad again reiterate that they are here on peaceful means and Larry says they should “knock off this Gestapo stuff and be a little more friendly”.

Larry, Please Shut The Hell Up

Of course, they are taken away with Yllana saying that they will all die after Mike makes a joke about how okay he is. The Earthmen are put in their cell and Mike makes a joke about how this is a great place to visit, but not live in. Larry wonders why the council and the Queen wear those masks. Konrad thinks it may be for the same reason people in the Far East make their wives where veils. Larry thinks that these women must be knockouts. Konrad thinks they may be attractive to people like Larry, but for someone like him, he sees a sense of foreboding in them as if they are monstrous or evil. Neal feels the same way and admits that he thinks the fact that they are on this planet was not an accident, to which Konrad agrees. After Mike asks, Neal thinks the ray that destroyed the space station and knocked them to this planet may have originated from Venus. Mike finds it preposterous because like this film has said many times, how can women do something like that with Larry wondering even if they did invent it, how could they aim it because they can’t drive well.

That Sure Is Some Grade A Sexism

After all that nonsense, Talleah shows up and pretends to be a person delivering the prisoners their food.

And As Probably Stipulated In The Contract, All The Men Must Be Immediately Attracted To Her.

She gives them food and drink and explains how she is part of a secret resistance against Queen Yllana as she is cruel and warlike. She warns the men that their lives are in grave danger and maybe she can help. Neal doesn’t want to put someone like Talleah in any danger, but Talleah is insistent that she help. She says they can help each other as she knows the evil queen has plans to destroy Earth. Mike thinks they have no way to destroy Earth and Talleah says they should not underestimate her. She explains that ten years ago, Venus was at war with the planet Mordo and despite being a cruel war with Venus almost losing, Mordo was destroyed. Then a revolution happened led by Yllana and all the men (save for mathematicians and scientists who are prisoners on a moon) were destroyed. The men eventually have to admit all of this is probably true and they have to stop Yllana.

Guards come by and Talleah hides. Apparently, Yllana wants to speak with Neal alone. The others tell him to try and use his charms on Yllana in hopes of saving them. He of course goes to do so and we see that Talleah is jealous as she has the hots for Neal too.

And before you think there is no way that Yllana is that dumb to have eyes for one of the men who she considers spies.

You Need To Remember What Era This Is.

Through the moves each of them play with each other, Neal tries to get Yllana to reconsider her position on destroying the Earth, but Yllana is still insistent on destroying the Earth. Neal also wants her to take off the mask so she can see her lovely face, but the queen doesn’t want to. We see Yllana is completely off her rocker as far as her hatred and she even shows off her Beta Disintegrator, which she plans on using to destroy Earth.

In A Scene That Was Deleted And Never Recovered, But Told By The Director And Several Others Who Made The Movie, Yllana Uses The Disintegrator To Destroy The Prison Satellite That Holds The Surviving Venus Men Because One Of Them Attempted To Lead A Revolt Against Her.

When Neal finally is able to get the mask off of Yllana, he sees much to his horror why she wears the mask.

Yep…..Radiation Burns Completely Disfigured Up Her Face

She has the guards send Neal back to his cell. After that, she looks in the mirror at her destroyed face and cries.

To Be Fair To Her, It Is Damn Good Make Up For The 1950s To Make Such A Mask Like That

Neal is back with the others and explains that atomic radiation destroyed her face and mind. Konrad says it makes sense why she hates men and wars. Neal is upset as he should have known about all of this, but Konrad tells him that he shouldn’t blame himself as not even the queen’s own subjects knew of her face. Neal just says that he failed. Two women come in and as the men go to bum rush them in a last attempt to escape, the two women reveal that there are with Talleah and she wants to see them.

When they get to Talleah’s lab, they are all glad to be together with the obvious pairings showing as Talleah is with Neal, Motiya is with Larry, Kaeel is with Mike, and Konrad has no one. Talleah explains that Yllana plans to destroy the Earth in two days. Kaeel reveals that the Beta Disintegrator is held way deep in the jungle and is well guarded. Neal offers for the men to go and take care of this Beta Disintegrator, but at this point, Talleah, Motiya, and Kaeel want to help as well. The men are given weapons when it is obviously revealed that the others know that the men escaped so Talleah has all of them go and hide.


After a look through, they leave as one of them thinks the men went elsewhere. Then we get some Scooby Doo level hiding in an attempt to escape before they do escape.


Meanwhile, Yllana wants the Earth men found and some of the guards bring in someone who they think may have helped them escape.

This Is Odeena And Of Course She Wasn’t In On Them Escaping

Yllana even says as much and tells Odeena to leave. But since we know the queen is insanely evil, when Odeena goes to leave, Yllana kills her with one of the ray guns.


The men and the women of the resistance all hide out in a nearby cave. We then find out that the cave are made of metallic substance and that the metal is gold.

Did You Say Gold????

Oh and in this planet, gold is worthless. Meanwhile, Larry ventures off and gets attacked by a giant spider.

Still More Scary Than Whatever WWE Wanted Us To Believe Was In Erick Rowan’s Cage

They quickly kill the spider.


All the couples start making out while Konrad goes to get some more wood for the fire.


While outside the cave, Konrad notices the other women in Venus still looking for them, but now they are looking for them in that area. Konrad tells the others and they all realize that eventually, they will be discovered and this whole revolution will be for naught. Because of that, they decide to stage a capture where Talleah, Motiya, and Kaeel stage a capture to make it look like they have captured the men. They take the Earth men to Queen Yllana. The three have the guards remain outside while they go with the prisoners. Yllana says that she is disappointed in Neal for trying to escape and Neal said she would perhaps be more disappointed if they didn’t try, which Yllana agrees with. She says she will get the pure pleasure of watching them watch while the Earth is destroyed and then the four will be executed. Talleah then turns on the queen to reveal that this was all a ruse in hopes of ending all of this and to free the men in Tytos 4 (you know the ones that were cooked in that deleted scene, but are alive now because it was deleted). But of course, Talleah also has Motiya and Kaeel talk to the other hidden usurpers in case a plan B is needed.

Yllana tries to attack them with a hidden ray gun in her pillows, but she is captured, bound, and gagged while Talleah takes the mask to try and pretend to be the queen.


The council tries to come in and Talleah (as Queen Yllana) tries to send them away. Unfortunately, her hair and accent cause them a bit of confusion over the order. It fails when Yllana knocks down the blinds that they hid her in so Talleah is captured and the men are now re-captured


Ylanna makes new orders that Talleah will die last while watching Neal and the others die in front of her. She tries one more time to get Neal to be her concubine, but Neal refuses. The prisoners are taken to the Beta Disintegrator, which we were told was in the jungle, but it is now in the queen’s palace.


The queen then puts Earth on a screen and laughs, while telling them that they get to watch Earth’s destruction. Unfortunately, as Yllana is gloating in her plan, she did not realize that Motiya and Kaeel have rounded up the others and committed….

SABOTAGE!!!!

Yllana makes one last ditch effort to manually control the beam, but her to blow up with the machine.


Meanwhile, the resistance has overpowered the loyalists and now Earth is saved from destruction while Venus is saved from tyranny.


After that, Talleah is the new queen, the men’s spaceship is fixed, and the men get ready to say their goodbyes to the women who they have madly fallen in love with. The men vow they will come back though. However, they get a message from their commander.


The commander tells them that they are to stay in Venus as Earth representatives until such time as an Earth spacecraft can make it to the planet, which will be a year. This means Neal can be with Talleah, Mike can be with Kaeel, Larry can be with Motiya, and Konrad can have his pick of the rest.


And that is the end of the film.

And this will be rare as when this film came out, most of the critics liked it since they had such a low bar on science fiction that they were okay with it because it had sexy babes. Only the National Legion of Decency made a fuss and just like we do today with most of those moral rights people on films, they were ignored for the most part. As far as box office goes, I can’t find any info on how it did. And this will be the first where the film was originally liked, but time has been extremely unkind to this film and now it is considered one of the worst films of the 50s, but yet a cult classic.

Unfortunately, with more than 60 years since this film happened, many people are no longer with us. Eric Fleming (who played Neal) drowned in the Huallaga River in Peru in 1966 at the age of 41 while filming for a planned TV show. Paul Birch (who played Konrad) left the world in 1969 at the age of 57. Patrick Waltz (who played Larry) died of a heart attack in 1972 at the age of 47. Dave Willock (who played Mike) died in 1990 at the age of 81 after complications from a stroke. Marilyn Buferd (who played Odeena) died in 1990 at the age of 65. Edward Bernds (the director) died in 2000 at the age of 94 from natural causes. Coleen Drake (who played one of the Venusian girls in her only role) died in 2002 at the age of 76. As everyone knows from the Garbage Pail Kids induction, Lynn Cartwright (who played one of the Venusian girls) died in 2004 at the age of 76 from dementia. Marjorie Durant (who played one of the Venusian girls) died in 2015 at the age of 86. Zsa Zsa Gabor (who played Talleah) suffered a heart attack in 2016 at the age of 99 and it killed her. Laurie Mitchell (who played Yllana) passed away due to natural causes at the age of 90 in 2018.

Only one person did something after this and that was Lisa Davis (who played Motiya and was Patrick Waltz’s husband until his death) did voice acted in the 1961 film 101 Dalmatians as Roger’s lovely wife Anita.


Now for my feelings on the film and yeah, it isn’t good. It is very misogynistic and I say this as a guy. While the makeup for Yllana’s face was good, most of the effects were really bad. Zsa Zsa Gabor shows why she is a celebrity for just being a celebrity as she is not a good actress in this. And they really did not show the Venusians as anything separate from the Earthlings other than the Venusians are women and the Earthlings are men. And for being a satirical film, I didn’t get much laughter out of it. Definitely an easy watch though as it breezes by on the plot and something that could easily be watched on Monster Vision with commercials (which is where I first saw the film). So….I can sort of understand this being a sort of cult classic.

And now that we are done with that. NegaSeth is going to be taking the summer off again and I will be watching films from you, the fans. And the movie decided is a film that was highlighted on MST3K during the Netflix days. 


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