lemon_magic My overwhelming first impression of "WFTPP" was probably not the one the filmmakers were hoping for: "Man, poor Wendell Corey was already in baaad shape by 1966". I'm serious - the guy still had some dignity and presence on film, but he was noticeably slurring his words in even his most important scenes (and let's remember these are the takes they KEPT) and seemed little more than a shell of a man most of the time. And at that, he was still had the most "gravitas" of any actor in the production.My second thought: "Well, Linda and Tang made a cute couple, alright, but the movie makes it clear that there are ALREADY primitive people on the planet besides them, and so the whole "Adam and Eve" plot twist just doesn't work. They were probably killed and eaten 20 minutes after the Cosmos I took off for the last time".My third thought: "Two comedy relief roles in the movie was a bad idea. Both these actors have been genuinely funny elsewhere (especially Margolin, who more than pulled his weight in series TV roles), but they are really out of their elements here. They are (in Mike Nelson's words) "dead rotting squirrel(s) in the punchbowl of the screenplay". Actually, Nelson was talking about another actor in another movie in another book he wrote a few years back but I think this simile is quite appropriate here.My fourth thought: I recognized one of the 'ray guns' the crew was using as a plastic toy that I played with as a child. It was a "Secret Agent Man" weapon - you pretended you were a secret agent about to be attacked and you pressed a button on the side of your 'radio' and a barrel shot out of the side and the 'speaker' unfolded to become a pistol grip. They cost about $3.99. They were cool toys, yes, but they were TOYS. I very nearly hurt myself laughing upon seeing this one resurrected as a prop in a science fiction movie.Similarly, at one point, a crew member strings a piece of TWINE across a creek bed (filled with dry ice) for the exploring party to hold onto as they walk across the (8 foot) gorge via a fallen tree. I repeat: not a rope, not a cable,but a piece of TWINE, not even suitable for flying a kite on a March afternoon. I understand that the budget would be skimpy in a movie like this, but this was ridiculous.So, in general, this was a pretty dopey movie, and one that did not live up to the promise of its title (there is just one woman) or the tag-line (we never see any primitive "women" interact with Tang, the crew, or Linda in any way). It's not even bad enough to be memorable. However, I'm sure the audience enjoyed it as background noise while they were making out at the drive-in!

foxbrick-1 And it's a real pity that it was in the first national, Comedy Channel (pre-Comedy Central) season of MST3K (before Josh Weinstein left to work on THE SIMPSONS, and before Mike Nelson signed on as a utility actor), so it presumably won't be reissued on home video in their version, while my off-cable VHS tape is on its last legs. The cast makes the film, as several have noted here, as does the twist ending you know M. Shyamalan is waiting to spring on us again any film now...I won't reveal it, but its probably the oldest cliché in bad written SF, so ridiculously hack that even the usually shameless film industry hasn't bothered with it much over the decades.However, quite aside from seeing Stuart Margolin beginning his long, deft, typecast career, and Robert Ito with surely no inkling of his similarly long television career to come, for this viewer, the female cast, led in this regard by Irene Tsu and Merry Anders, is remarkably lovely. Arthur C. Pierce, truly an undersung contributor to the Whacked tradition of film-making, provided us with so much in his few mid-'60s features. It's a pity we haven't given him more attention...or, perhaps, not. But these are wonderfully weird (not least in their utter lack of realization of how schlock they are), and often hard to find, films.

squeaks-2 With a title like "Women of the Prehistoric Planet" I envisioned a Lost World type movie in which scantily-clad amazonian beauties ride dinosaurs, fight against half-animal savages and a harsh, unforgiving environment. But with only one women, some forced perspective lizards that com-bust on impact, and a bunch of white guys straight out of the U.S. Navy, one can only wonder what the creators of this movie were thinking when they came up with the title.To be fair, there are some legitimate scientific ideas that are dealt with in the movie, even if the writers don't understand how they really work. For example, the writers were correct in saying that when you travel near the speed of light time slows down, so that a three week journey for the astronauts aboard the spaceship is perceived by those on the planet as taking eighteen years. However, the perception of the people down on the planet has nothing to do with the speed of the planet's rotation but the way in which the planet's matter distorts the space time continuum.The real plot of this movie is that a spaceship (Cosmos III) is hijacked by the primitive Centurions (a.k.a., non-white people) who probably perform menial domestic services for the crew aboard the spaceship. The ship crash lands on an unexplored planet with only a few survivors. Another ship in the vicinity (Cosmos IV?), moving at nearly the speed of light, travels to rescue the survivors (a three week journey on the spaceship, but an eighteen year wait on the planet). Once on the ground a group of idiots looking like U.S. Navy officers are dispatched to find the crash site. Meanwhile, a beautiful Centurion girl (the ultra-sexy Irene Tsu as Linda) wanders off and encounters a mysterious stranger named Tang who is also a Centurion. Obviously, he's the son of the survivors of the crash eighteen years earlier.The story of Linda and Tang is probably the most interesting aspect of this movie. Through their adventures together they fall in love but must still deal with the tension of growing up in two very different environments. The other aspect of the plot has to do with clumsy idiots falling off logs into acid pools and shooting at anything that moves with their ultra high tech .44 pistols. The ending of this movie will surprise no one.

Bruce Cook Another one of those 1960s sci-fi movies whose poor production standards set your teeth on edge -- but in this case the cast is a hoot!A space expedition comprised of the prolific John Agar, Wendell Corey ("Cyborg 2087"), Lyle Waggoner ("The Carol Burnette Show"), night club comedian Paul Gilbert (the comic relief), and Stuart Magolin (Angel from "The Rockford Files") lands on an alien world (a studio set), populated by dinosuars (stock-footage lizards) and prehistoric humanoids.The astronauts provide assistance to two local inhabitants, a man and a woman who serve as a kind of Adam and Eve for this strange world -- which turns out to be Earth! This twist ending was done so often on the Twilight Zone it will never surprise anybody again.The male humanoid's name is Tang and the female's is Linda ( . . . Linda?). Admittedly the story attempts to interject a few interesting elements; in addition to the roaring lizards, there's a carnivorous plant and a king-sized spider. Remember, I said they TRIED, okay?