VOYAGE
TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET (1965)(w/FIRST SPACESHIP ON VENUS (1962))
Director: John Sebastian (Curtis Harrington)
Diamond Entertainment
VOYAGE
TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET (1965)The only reason to buy this DVD is for VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET. Ignore the top-billed FIRST SPACESHIP ON VENUS as it's that same old crappy full screen TV print we have all seen forever. Thankfully, a beautiful widescreen version of FIRST SPACESHIP is available on DVD through Image Entertainment.
VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET
is one of those legendary Roger Corman redos where he purchased the Russian
film "Planet of Storms" and added scenes with some marquee value actors
(Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue) and distributed it via AIP-TV. In actuality,
he made two movies out of this one. The other one being VOYAGE TO THE PLANET
OF PREHISTORIC WOMEN. I have read that special effects scenes from this movie
also appear in QUEEN OF BLOOD as well. 
Astronauts exploring Venus find the remains of an ancient civilization, dinosaurs, man-eating plants and time to gawk at the wonders before them. They cruise around in an ultra cool hover car and have an impressive yet emotionally complex robot. Last but not least, mysterious Venusian women shadow the explorers every move. All in all, its comic book plot and fun special effects make this a well spent 78 minutes of your life.
It's
obvious that in its original form, "Planet of Storms" cost quite a
few rubles. It has an expensive, almost epic feel to it. In contrast, the U.S.
added scenes were probably shot in a day, and as such do not sync well with
the original material.
This Diamond Entertainment DVD
release is nothing more than bargain bin filler, which is too bad. Though the
back cover claims that you will get two "Fully Restored and Enhanced Digital
Masters." The only thing that is fully restored here is the belief that
slick packaging and ad copy can sell anything to anybody. Like FSOV, the element
for VOYAGE is scratchy with some fading, but is overall a cleaner print. If
this DVD wasn't cheaper than a VHS copy, it wouldn't be worth the trouble.
What really surprised me about this DVD was the curiously apathetic "Bio" section of the menu screen. For FIRST SPACESHIP, the bio reads "The people involved in the making of this movie were a bunch of nobodies at the time and are still a bunch of nobodies so there is nothing to tell you about them." I'm surprised that since they took the time to create a "Bio" section, that they didn't invest five minutes in a Google search to fill in some back story. I guess I just expect too much from the bargain bin.
At less than ten bucks, I can't help but recommend this DVD. I just hope someday someone finds a better print of VOYAGE, and it is released again on DVD, through a better label. (Mark Suggs)