federovsky Cosmonauts on a scientific expedition to Venus encounter a succession of difficulties. There are people calling this one of the best science fiction films ever made. TedG honours it on these pages with one of his longest reviews. I'm baffled. It's rubbish; corny pre-teen fare at best.The film-making is not quite Ed Wood level, but almost. There's not a single original or interesting idea in it. No surreal or existential depth, just guys walking around hacking at rubber tentacled plants and ineffectual dinosaurs. There's a robot - built like a Sherman tank - but it was lifted from The Forbidden Planet. The most remarkable thing about the film is that one of the crew members happens to look a bit like William Shatner.It was the height of the Cold War and the space race. Is this all the west was up against?

tedg I'm of the opinion that film is powerful, powerful enough that large segments of our imagination is guided by cinematic relationships. That even the nature of reasoning is affected, even as deeply as how we reinvent practical logic. There are lots of examples to show and arguments to be made -- they are in a collection I am incubating.Science fiction is a special case, at once more obvious. Not all as subtle as what I study. But surely it had as profound an effect on daily lives.To understand this film, you need to know some history. Alas, many readers will not appreciate the cold war that was the overriding impetus for the two largest political entities from the 50s through the 80s.Some dates for you. In 56, the US saw "Forbidden Planet," with a superintelligent robot, space travel and mind augmentation. It was based on Shakespeare's most interesting play and is still among the best scifi films.In 57, Russia launched a satellite and declared that they "owned" space (and would put nuclear bombs over the US ready to "drop"). Also, that soon, they would have men in space.In 58 one of the most successful Russian filmmakers (Klushantsev) made a film about "cosmonauts" and space travel that was enormously successful with the Russian public (and their captive peoples). That film was the beginning of a deeper than usual partnership between Klushantsev and the propaganda arm of the Kremlin.In 1960, an unknown in East Germany made a film (Road to the Stars) about cosmonauts on Venus. It was a runaway hit. In the following year, Kennedy made his famous pledge to put an American on the moon by the end of the decade.The Soviet moon program had some catastrophic disasters, in large part resulting from lies told to the old Stalin regime by Soviet scientists working on ballistic missiles supposedly (but not really) capable of destroying the US. Khrushchev had these scientists destroyed or imprisoned. That meant no moon program.But the people already were convinced that Venus was the prize, so the space propagandists seized on this and retooled their manned program as a race to Venus, forget the moon. As a consequence, Klushantsev was given a (for the times and conditions) vast budget and told to make a film of the heroic Soviet nation exploring Venus. This he did in the film you'll see here if you can find it.Our intrepid crew is asked to make the Soviet people proud, a promise they come back to a few times. There's a robot, clearly stolen from "Forbidden Planet."The thing revolves around there being life on Venus. Just as they take off, they find proof that the life consisted of humans. Afterthey leave, we see a beautiful woman appear. Then, as the spacecraft flies home, we have a few minutes of a Soviet heroes song in that militant, deliberately fake spontaneous joyous tone of the times.The effects developed by this team would be used in strange circumstances for the next 8 years. This crew filmed fake footage of real spaceflights. The Kremlin was never so bold as to fake a success when everyone knew the missions ended in fiery death. But they did decorate their successes with these true-fake movies. The most famous was the 65 spacewalk of Leonov, wonderfully believable until you wonder who is holding the camera. Oddly, the propagandists assumed that the camera eye was such a magical omnipresence that no one would ask.Anyway, this film was somehow procured by the infamous Roger Corman. He shortened it and dubbed in English. He substituted the blank female (who says in an orbital craft) with an even more blank female. One wonders why; Faith Domergue had been hot 15 years earlier but here is wallpaper. And he adds an earthside leader who radios a few times, played by the already embarrassing Basil Rathbone. Something interesting could be said about his Sherlock Holmes here.Kubrick's 1968 2001, used many conventions from this shop, even when they went against the science of the thing. And ever since, on through "Star Wars," we have that single vision of what space SHOULD look like.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

wdbasinger If one wants to learn some Russian (which I would like to do if I could find the time), then this film would give some insights.I bought the version from Sinister Cinema which seems to be missing the first half and so it starts with the cosmonauts discussing a tragic collision in space as they prepare to embark on a trip to Venus. It is in Russian with English subtitles and the special effects and the background music are both awesome. The story is pretty straight forward about a Russian expedition to the planet Venus, their encounter with dinosaurs and other strange life forms, philosophical discussions about the role of man in space, speculation about extraterrestrial intelligent life, and an ironic ending in which intelligent humanoid life is shown to exist on Venus, yet there is no contact between them and earth-born humans. Perhaps the writers intended a sequel.Just like a lot of the German films from the 1930s, there is very little or no ideological propaganda, even though there is one reference to the Communist Party, Government, and the Soviet Union (thankfully a thing of the past). But aside from that single sentence, there is no reference to anything political. The story centers around a group of cosmonauts that represent not just Russia, but all of humanity as a whole as the crew embarks on an exploratory mission of the planet Venus. Recommended highly.Dan Basinger

junagadh75 "Planeta Bur" is about cosmonauts who are lost on Venus, attempting to return to the spaceship, and their adventures along the way, which include encounters with prehistoric reptiles, a volcano, and other perils. Like Ptushko's "Sadko", this is a true gem of fantastic film. The use of natural and artificial sets is very effective in creating an atmospheric, alien world; the monsters (an intelligent robot, a carnivorous plant, pestiferous lizard men, a pterodactyl, and some other dinosaurs) are similarly well done. Unlike American films of this kind, there is no emphasis on macho violence or digressions into "steamy" romance scenes; instead the film concentrates on the lavish visuals in an unhurried and dignified pace. My only complaints are that the introduction is too long and slow-moving, and that the subplot involving Masha's agonizing over the fate of her comrades isn't very interesting; but the scenes on Venus, which comprise the bulk of the film, more than make up for these flaws. "Planeta Bur" was drastically edited by Peter Bogdonavitch and released in the States as "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women"; two versions exist, one with footage of Mamie Van Doren leading a tribe of telepathic Venusian women and worshipping the pterodactyl of the original film, the other without Ms. Van Doren or any of the prehistoric reptile footage.