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Queen Of Outer Space

1958, Movie, NR, 80 mins

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This is filmmaking at its campiest. Fleming (the star of TV's "Rawhide") leads an expedition to Venus. Along with crew members Waltz and Willock they discover the planet is inhabited by a group of beautiful women. Va-va-va-voom! Fleming falls for Gabor, garbed in slit skirt and with Hungarian accent intact. But problems arise when title character Mitchell raises her ugly head. Literally. It seems she must always wear a mask because her face was scarred during the war with men. In an unintentional Freudian analogy, she decides to destroy Earth using a disintegrator ray. Of course she's stopped, and all ends happily. Though there are some attempts at humor, this film is at its best when it takes itself seriously. That's really where the laughs come in. The ray guns and costumes, along with the forest setting, were left over from FORBIDDEN PLANET; other sets, some special effects, and a giant spider are reaped from WORLD WITHOUT END; and the happy wanderers' rocketship is from FLIGHT TO MARS. The dialog and plot, of course, are reminiscent of every low-budget science fiction film imaginable. The adequate direction is from the same man who somehow got the Three Stooges through their final pictures. And surprisingly enough, the whole thing is based on a story by Ben Hecht! leave a comment
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