| Queen of Outer Space | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Edward Bernds |
| Screenplay by | Charles Beaumont |
| Story by | Ben Hecht |
| Produced by | Ben Schwalb |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | William P. Whitley |
| Edited by | William Austin |
| Music by | Marlin Skiles |
| Color process | DeLuxe |
| Distributed by | Allied Artists Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 80 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Queen of Outer Space is a 1958 Americanscience fiction film shot inDeLuxe Color andCinemaScope. Produced by Ben Schwalb and directed by Edward Bernds, it starsZsa Zsa Gabor,Eric Fleming, andLaurie Mitchell. The screenplay byCharles Beaumont, about a revolt against a cruel Venusian queen, is based on an idea supplied byBen Hecht and originally titledQueen of the Universe. Upon its release, the film was promoted byAllied Artists and distributed to some locations as adouble feature withFrankenstein 1970 starringBoris Karloff.
In the year 1985,[1] Captain Neal Patterson (Eric Fleming) and his spaceship crew, Lt. Mike Cruze (Dave Willock), and Lt. Larry Turner (Patrick Waltz), are assigned to escort Professor Konrad (Paul Birch) to an Earth space station. While en route, the space station is destroyed by a mysterious interstellar energy beam, which also damages their rocketship, and causes it to crash land on a planet that Konrad reveals to his shocked companions asVenus. The four men are later captured by an army of aggressively beautiful women with ray guns. The men are brought before the governing council where they learn the planet is under the dictatorship of the cruel Queen Yllana (Laurie Mitchell), a masked woman who has had most men killed, keeping only male mathematicians and scientists on a prison colony moon orbiting Venus.[2] In a detainment area in the queen's palace, Patterson tells his men that he believes that the beam not only destroyed the space station and caused their rocket ship to crash on Venus but he also believes it may have originated from Venus. They are later aided by a beautiful courtier named Talleah (Zsa Zsa Gabor) and her Venusian friends Motiya (Lisa Davis) and Kaeel (Barbara Darrow). The women long for the love and attention of men again and plot to overthrow the evil queen to reestablish the "old order".
The masked queen later has her guards bring Patterson to her bedchamber and once he is alone with her, Patterson has the opportunity to remove the mask, revealing her horribly disfigured face. This was caused by radiation burns received during a war between Venus and the men of another planet "10 Earth years ago". Later, in a fury, the queen decides she must destroy Earth in order to protect her world and preserve her power. In the presence of Yllana’s armed guards, Talleah and the crewmen can only watch as the queen aims the energy-beam "disintegrator" at Earth. Just after Yllana activates the weapon, Talleah's allies arrive and a struggle begins between the queen’s guards and the men. The disintegrator immediately begins to malfunction and finally explodes, killing Queen Yllana.
Talleah becomes the new leader of Venus. At a subsequent ceremony, she announces that Patterson's rocketship has been repaired and that he and his crew can now return to Earth. Talleah's technicians have also repaired the "electronic televiewer", which allows space command on Earth to contact Patterson. Command orders him not to attempt a return but to remain on Venus for at least a year, until an Earth relief expedition can arrive. Although the crew could return home in their repaired spaceship, they are elated to follow orders and stay. They begin celebrating with the Venusians in a flurry of hugs and passionate kisses.
Cast notes:
Also included in the cast are Guy Prescott as Colonel Ramsey (uncredited), Gerry Gaylor as the base commander, Ralph Gamble as the officer in the anteroom (uncredited), andJoi Lansing as Turner's girlfriend (uncredited). The Venusians are played by Tania Velia, Norma Young, Marjorie Durant, Brandy Bryan, Ruth Lewis, June McCall, and Marilyn Buferd, who was a formerMiss America (1946). This was Buferd's final role in her decade-plus film career.
The Three Stooges andthe Bowery Boys directorEdward Bernds recalled that, after producerWalter Wanger was released from prison for shooting agentJennings Lang in the groin for having an affair with his wifeJoan Bennett, Wanger could only find work at the low-rentAllied Artists (formerlyMonogram Pictures). In 1952, Wanger brought a ten-page idea for a screenplay byBen Hecht calledQueen of the Universe that was a satirical look at a planet run by women. Several years later, with the idea of science fiction films being more common, Allied Artists revived the project with Wanger replaced on the film by Ben Schwalb, who was then producing the Bowery Boys films. ScreenwriterCharles Beaumont did not think there was much in the Hecht screenplay, but Schwalb suggested spoofing the idea and had former Three Stooges screenwriterEllwood Ullman touch up Beaumont's screenplay.[3] Allied Artists retitled the filmQueen of Outer Space as they thought the original title sounded more like a beauty pageant.[3]
The central plot of a planet ruled by women was recycled from other science fiction features of the era, includingAbbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953),Cat-Women of the Moon (1953), and Britain'sFire Maidens from Outer Space (1955).Queen of Outer Space also recycled many props, costumes, and other elements used in earlier films of the 1950s, most prominently theC-57D crewmen's uniforms, rayguns, and Altaira's wardrobe fromForbidden Planet (1956); models, sets, andspecial effects from Bernds'World Without End (1956);stock footage of anAtlas missile taking off; and a model rocketship built forFlight to Mars (1951).[4][5] The model was also used by the Bowery Boys inParis Playboys (1954), which was co-written by Bernds and Ullman. It is noteworthy, too, that the queen's guards wore uniforms that foreshadow (and may have even influenced)[original research?] those worn on the laterStar Trek television series, coming in the same threeStarfleet colors; red, blue, and gold.
In her 1991 autobiographyOne Lifetime is Not Enough, Gabor recounts a memorable line of her dialogue in the film and cites the production costs for creating the highly tailored fashions worn by her character:
I madeQueen of Outer Space, which was destined to become a classic. Written by Ben Hecht (ofFront Page fame),Queen was one of the last films he wrote....I play [Talleah], a scientist who is against all of Queen [Yllana's] cruelties and wants to see her banished. The highpoint comes when I declare, "Ihate that queen", a line that even to this day causes a great deal of mirth among many of my gay friends. I liked Ben Hecht and adored my costumes, designed byEdith Head and costing a staggering $15,000 apiece.[6]
In 1958, the film received generally positive reviews from critics in major newspapers and intrade publications. Most reviewers, including Charles Stinson of theLos Angeles Times, approached the film in their assessments as an amusing, mildly eroticparody or spoof, not as a true science fiction offering or even a faintly serious space adventure. In his November 13 review, Stinson characterizes the feature as "cheery frivolity" with "well-constructed cheesecake", all of which is visually punctuated by "luscious DeLuxe color".[7] He even compliments Gabor's performance:
Fortunately, Allied Artists' "Queen of Outer Space"...is not science fiction. Because if it were, it would be horrid. However...it is an elaborate parody of science fiction and, as such, it is quite good, indeed....Naturally, the one and only Zsa Zsa Gabor is the principal attraction. She comes through superbly, demonstrating a nice touch for light, dotty comedy, as, with hair gone moon-platinum, she floats about gauzily, tongue in cheek, flirting outrageously, satirizing herself and sighing deeply over the fact "zat de qveen vil destroy ze planet Earss unless ve stop her, Capt. Patterson". Zsa Zsa saves, of course.[7]
Marjory Adams, writing forThe Boston Globe, also recognized the Gabor vehicle as a "merry spoof of science fiction" that no one either on the screen or in theater audiences takes seriously, especially with regard to the actors' lines. "The dialogue", notes Adams, "is of the sort which might be written by a high school freshman", adding "the only unexpected twist is [Zsa Zsa] isn't the queen".[8]Variety, for decades a leading trade publication in covering the United States' entertainment industry, simply deemedQueen of Outer Space as "a good-natured attempt to put some honest sex into science-fiction".[9]
InCanada in 1958, Mike Helleur, a reviewer forToronto'sThe Globe and Mail, compares the film's portrayal of life on Venus to "living backstage at theFolies Bergère", complete with light entertainment and rather scantily clad young women, who in this case take a "slapstick romp" through a Venusian queen's palace.[10] One of several oddities that Helleur notices in the film is Gabor's singular identity among all the planet's inhabitants met by the Earthlings: "She is...the only girl in Outer Space with a Hungarian accent".[10]
As of 2019,Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 18% based on reviews from 11 critics.[11]
The trade publicationMotion Picture Daily reported in 1958 that theNational Legion of Decency objected to the content ofQueen of Outer Space. In its October 3 issue, less than a month after the film's release, the magazine provides a few examples of the Legion's classification system for judging a Hollywood production's level of "decency":
Two pictures were placed in Class B, as morally objectionable in part for all by the Legion of Decency, which reviewed seven films this week. In the B category are "Man of the West" and "Queen of Outer Space." Objection to the first was explained thusly, "the highly moral nature of this story is substantially marred by excessive brutality and unnecessary suggestiveness." Of "Queen," the group said it contains "suggestive costuming."[12]