Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet
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| Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet | |
|---|---|
.jpg) European DVD box-cover art | |
| Directed by | Pavel Klushantsev Curtis Harrington |
| Written by | Curtis Harrington |
| Produced by | George Edwards Roger Corman Stephanie Rothman |
| Starring | Basil Rathbone Faith Domergue Marc Shannon Gennadi Vernov (uncredited) Georgiy Zhzhonov (uncredited) |
| Cinematography | Vilis Lapenieks Arkadi Klimov |
| Edited by | Leo H. Shreve |
| Music by | Ronald Stein |
| Distributed by | AIP-TV |
Release date | 1 August 1965 |
Running time | 78 min |
| Country | US / USSR |
| Language | English |
Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet is a 1965 American science fiction film, one of two versions adapted for Roger Corman from the Soviet science fiction movie Planeta Bur (Planet of the Storms), scripted by Aleksandr Kazantsev from his novel and directed by Pavel Klushantsev. Curtis Harrington oversaw the editing and dubbing of principal portions of the source film, and directed new principal scenes featuring Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue. The resulting new film was then syndicated to television by American-International Television Inc.
Plot
The film essentially follows the story of the Soviet original, with Rathbone and Domergue replacing two Soviet actors in roles as space-station monitors of the primary action. The rest of the film stars the remaining Soviet players, dubbed.
In the revised telling, it is 2020 and the Moon has been colonized. After traveling 200,000,000 miles, the first group of men land on Venus, where they find a prehistoric world in which the crew are attacked by various monsters, plants, etc.
Personnel
Cast
- Basil Rathbone as Professor Hartman
- Faith Domergue as Dr. Marsha Evans
- Gennadi Vernov as Robert Chantal
- Georgiy Zhzhonov as Kurt Boden
- Yuri Sarantsev as Allen Sherman (uncredited)
- Vladimir Yemelyanov as Cmdr. Brendan Lockhart
Production
The American-made scenes were shot at the same time as Queen of Blood, another film directed by Harrington that was developed around the story of, and footage from, a Soviet film (and which also used incidental effects shots from Planeta Bur). Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue shot their scenes in half a day using the same costumes and on the same set as Queen of Blood.[1] While Harrington considered Queen of Blood good enough to keep his name on, in this film he is credited as "John Sebastian", derived from Johann Sebastian Bach.
Reception
In a retrospective on Soviet science fiction film, British director Alex Cox called Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet "an act of cinematic cannibalism."[2]
See also
- Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women, the other film adapted from material from Planeta Bur for Roger Corman
- List of American films of 1965
References
- ^ Ray, Fred Olen (1991). The New Poverty Row: Independent Filmmakers as Distributors. McFarland. pp. 53–55.
- ^ Cox, Alex (June 30, 2011). "Rockets from Russia: great Eastern Bloc science-fiction films". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved August 22, 2016.
External links
- Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet at IMDb
- Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet on YouTube
- Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive
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- 1965 films
- American films
- English-language films
- Films directed by Curtis Harrington
- Space adventure films
- Independent films
- American International Pictures films
- Venus in fiction
- 1960s science fiction films
- Films set in 2020
- Moon in film
- Venus in film
- Films about astronauts
- Films about extraterrestrial life
- Films produced by Roger Corman
- Dinosaur films
- Science fiction film stubs