by Victoria Silverwolf

Where The Boys Aren't
With apologies to Connie Francis.

One of the more unusual themes of science fiction and fantasy is a society entirely made up of women. I won't claim to have discovered the origin of this idea, but digging deep into old bound periodicals reveals that the early feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman dealt with it as far back as 1915, in Herland, a novel serialized in her own magazine, The Forerunner. Flipping carefully through these old, dusty pages, I found out that it deals with a group of male explorers who come across a remote land populated only by women.

Maybe someday it will appear in book form. Until then, good luck tracking it down.

(If you know Perkins at all, it's probably because of her classic psychological horror story The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), which has been reprinted many times.)

Jumping forward in time, we find Philip Wylie dealing with a similar theme in his 1951 novel The Disappearance. Notably, this work not only features a world without men, but also one without women.

If memory serves, the question What Happened? is never answered.

Another important example is the novella Consider Her Ways (1956) by John Wyndham, in which a modern woman travels mentally to a future time when all men died from a virus.

It was even adapted into an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

A few years later we got a couple of examples from authors who are probably better known to science fiction fans than the general public, unlike Wylie and Wyndham.

World Without Men (1958) by Charles Eric Maine takes place in the far future, long after no male babies have been born. The women of this time discover a frozen man from the past, kept in suspended animation by the extreme cold.

They may have forgotten men, but they remembered hair dye and lipstick.

In Poul Anderson's novel Virgin Planet (1959), a man arrives on a world that has not seen one of his sex for many centuries.

He doesn't seem upset by the situation.

I'm sure there are many other examples of which I am not aware (and I'm deliberately ignoring an old story uncovered by my esteemed colleague John Boston a while ago). Let's turn our attention to cinematic versions. It turns out that we can divide them into two types.

Just Some Old Fashioned Girls
With apologies to Eartha Kitt.

First of all, we have movies about women in prehistoric times, or, in a similar fashion, primitive tribes of women dwelling in some remote part of the globe. For some reason or other, these nontechnological ladies have become separated from their menfolk, either deliberately or by chance.

The earliest example of which I am aware is Prehistoric Women (1950). The film has no English dialogue, only some kind of cavewoman language. A helpful narrator tells us what's going on. A group of tough cookies decide they would rather live without men, only capturing them when they're needed for mating. Our movie's hero teaches them the error of their ways, while taking the time to invent fire making.

Apparently the women invented makeup, hair styling, and the miniskirt.

Coming up fast on its heels was Wild Women (1951), demonstrating the other variety of primitive women flicks. In this case, the isolated females exist in modern times, somewhere in darkest Africa (although they're all Caucasians.) They run into a safari of male explorers, and hijinks ensue, as well as a lot of stock footage.

As you can tell from this poster, the movie has a much more interesting alternate title.

Slightly different in theme, but so utterly goofy that I feel compelled to mention it, is The Wild Women of Wongo (1958). Introduced by Mother Nature herself, this bizarre film deals with two primitive tribes. One consists of good-looking women and unattractive men; the other has the opposite problem. When yet another group shows up, this one made of of ape-men, the two tribes finally get together and trade partners.

Did I mention the talking parrot who provides a running commentary?

Planet of the Dames
With apologies to Pierre Boulle.

Next we have a surprisingly large number of movies in which astronauts wind up on another world full of women. The oldest one I know is, perhaps not surprisingly, a comedy.

Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953) sends the two comics to Venus. That's right, Venus. At no point does anybody go to Mars. Go figure. Anyway, the planet is full of beautiful women, and no men.

Featuring the Miss Universe contestants seems appropriate.

The same year brought us the more serious, but just as silly, Cat-Women of the Moon, in which the title characters are the sole survivors of the ancient Lunar civilization. There are also a couple of big spiders.

The resemblance of the Hollywood Cover Girls to felines is minimal.

Not to be outdone, the British demonstrated that they can make movies just as goofy as American ones. 1956 offered Fire Maidens from Outer Space, set on the thirteenth moon of Jupiter (whichever one that might be.) Adding a touch of class is the presence of classical music on the soundtrack. As you'd expect, the Fire Maidens wear miniskirts, but these are inspired by ancient Greek designs.

In the United States, from was changed to of, for no good reason I can see.

A couple of years later, we got what is probably the most expensive movie yet of this specific kind. Queen of Outer Space (1958) was written by Charles Beaumont, later to pen several episodes of Twilight Zone, from an idea by the noted playwright Ben Hecht. With those big names at the typewriter, you'd think it would be something other than just another variation on the same old theme. Not so, although Hollywood scuttlebutt has it that it was intended as a spoof. Anyway, the plot has astronauts journey to Venus, where they find a bunch of beauties ruled by a tyrannical monarch.

Contrary to popular belief, Zsa Zsa does not play the Queen of Outer Space.

Probably not last, but maybe least, the same year somebody decided to remake Cat-Women of the Moon and call it Missile to the Moon. Words fail me.

More emphasis on the giant spider, less on the feline females.

Double Trouble
With apologies to Otis Rush.

With all of that background in mind, let's take a look at a newly released film with a title that seems to promise a combination of the two kinds of movies discussed above.

Assuming anything in this poster is at all accurate, it's hard for me to see how a skirmish between savage planet women and female space invaders is the battle of the sexes.

We begin aboard the good ship Cosmos One, which looks like a golden flying saucer zooming through interstellar space. In command is Admiral David King, who provides the audience with some helpful exposition by dictating his log entry for the day.

Wendell Corey as Admiral King. Hey! He was in Agent for H.A.R.M. too!

It seems that the admiral's flagship, as well as Cosmos Two (never seen in the movie) and Cosmos Three are on their way back from Centaurus, carrying refugees from a failed colony world. (I'm guessing this is supposed to be Alpha Centauri.) We'll soon find out that the Centaurans are all played by actors of Asian ancestry. (Was the colony founded by Asian space explorers? The film doesn't say.) The crews of the starships are all played by Caucasian actors.

Aboard Cosmos One are some male officers, a couple of female communications technicians (who wear very tight trousers), and a couple of engineering guys, one of whom, to my horror, proves to be our movie's comic relief. There is also one Centauran, a young woman named Linda. (All the other Centaurans we'll meet have Asian-sounding names. Why is Linda different? Because, as we'll learn later, she's actually only half-Centauran. I guess that's why she's on the flagship.)

Irene Tsu as Linda. Hey! She was in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini too!

In the first of many painful scenes involving our would-be comedian (Lieutenant Red Bradley, if you must know), he does some clumsy flirting with the communication gals. After being rebuffed, he makes a remark about how they shouldn't treat him like a Centauran. Oops. Linda happens to be standing right there, and Bradley has to make a feeble apology for his prejudiced remark.

Paul Gilbert as Bradley, with a typical expression.

The incident introduces the film's theme of discrimination, albeit in a ham-fisted fashion. This is brought out more forcefully aboard Cosmos Three (using the same set as the interior of Cosmos One but with different actors.) The Centaurans, accusing the crew of treating them like slaves, take over the ship.

A communications officer tied up by the rebels. Later she'll reveal that she hates all Centaurans. Admittedly, this is after the mutiny, and when she has a broken arm.

The hijacked spaceship hurtles towards a star called Solaris, if I heard the dialogue correctly. (I understand there's a Polish SF novel with the title Solaris, by one Stanislaw Lem, but it has not yet appeared in English translation. If this is an allusion, it's a darned obscure one.)

Cosmos Three crashes into, you guessed it, a prehistoric planet. Among the survivors is a Centauran woman who happens to be married to one of the ship's officers. (At least not all the folks among the crew are bigots.)

From left to right, the Centauran woman, some guy with an injured head, the woman's husband, and the woman who hates Centaurans.

One of the Centauran rebels shows up and attacks the officer. It turns out to be the Centauran woman's brother. In what must be an incredibly painful moment of decision, she shoots her brother (with a plain old gun, not one of the blasters we'll see later) to save her husband.

Back at Cosmos One, Admiral King defies his commanders at home by turning back to search for survivors of the wreck of Cosmos Three. (The implied subplot of King risking his career leads to nothing, so don't worry about it.)

At this point we introduce the idea of time dilation at velocities near the speed of light, a pretty sophisticated notion for a low budget sci-fi flick. The journey to the prehistoric planet will take three months of ship time, but eighteen years of planet time. I was impressed by this plot element, but they ruin it later by claiming that the time difference has something to do with how quickly the planet rotates.

Anyway, the crew explores the planet, running into things like a giant lizard, which they quickly wipe out with a blaster. (I told you it would show up.) They also have to cross a pool of some kind of deadly liquid on a log. Unfortunately, the way this is filmed, you can tell that they could have easily walked around it.

Worst of all, the movie comes to a complete stop as we endure a comedy routine from Lieutenant Bradley. In addition to relating an anecdote that only leads up to a very weak pun, he demonstrates his supposed karate skills. He manages to do a really impressive forward flip during this scene, landing flat on his back, so I'll admit the actor is quite agile. If nothing else, I have to say that I've never heard anybody make the exact same kind of karate shout.

HI_KEEBA!

Due to all the planet's dangers, not counting the comic relief, Admiral King doesn't allow any of the other crewmembers to take shore leave. Security on Cosmos One must be pretty lax, because Linda, who is sick of being cooped up inside, escapes. She quickly gets in trouble, but is rescued by a local inhabitant named Tang. (The fact that he has the same designation as a brand of drink mix doesn't seem to have occurred to any of the filmmakers.)

Roberto Ito as the unfortunately named Tang.

Tang takes Linda back to his cave and covers her with furs. When he reveals that he had to remove her wet clothing, she slaps him silly. Not to be outdone, he slaps her back. Naturally, this leads to them smooching.

An intimate moment in Tang's bachelor pad.

It turns out that Tang is the son of the Centauran woman and her officer husband. (Remember them?) Weirdly, he's got their bodies frozen in perfect condition in an ice cave. You might think this would put a damper on his burgeoning romance, but Linda doesn't seem too upset.

The folks on Cosmos One are worried about Linda, so they set out to find her. We learn that Linda is actually Admiral King's daughter. This doesn't come as a big surprise, as it was already hinted at by Jung, an older Centauran man on the ship.

Kam Tong as Jung and Merry Anders as Lieutenant Karen Lamont share a moment of concern with Admiral King.

Let me pause a moment to describe a pointless scene that occurs somewhere around here. One of the communications officers puts on some cha-cha music and starts dancing in a hip-swaying manner. (Remember those very tight trousers.) Of course, this draws the attention of the lecherous Lieutenant Bradley. It's a really odd moment, that doesn't have anything to do with anything else.

Out of the blue, some cavemen we've never seen before attack Tang and Linda. The rescue team happens to be right there, and they stupidly injure Tang with a blaster. They grab Linda so they can drag her back to the ship, and Tang runs off.

Linda screams as she sees Tang leave. By the way, she's wearing a dress that belonged to Tang's mother, which is in amazingly good condition and fits her perfectly.

Oh, if you're wondering when we're going to see the women of the prehistoric planet, you might as well relax. Unless you count the female survivors of the crash landing, or Linda, there aren't any. From what I've been able to learn, some scenes involving cavewomen will be added to the slightly racier European version of the movie.

Not for innocent American eyes.

Linda isn't very happy to be back aboard Cosmos One. Admiral King eventually agrees that his daughter would be happier with Tang, so off she goes. (I forgot to mention the big volcanic explosion, courtesy of stock footage, that adds some drama, but doesn't alter the plot in any way.)

Linda temporarily returns to the ship. Note that she is now wearing the fetching mini-sarong that Tang gave her.

We then get the film's shocking twist ending, which you'll see coming a mile away. (Stop reading if you want to be surprised, which you won't be.) As Cosmos One heads out into space, Admiral King looks back at the prehistoric planet, and tells us that it is called Earth. That's right, the oldest and corniest plot in science fiction. I guess Tang and Linda are supposed to be Adam and Eve (although I don't know how the briefly seen cavemen and the unseen-in-America cavewomen figure into things.) It just goes to show you that you shouldn't monkey around with worn-out clichés.

Also not in the American version, although Tang does have a chimpanzee companion.

Well, so much for sticking with the topic of this article! The title of this cheap little picture, best suited for mocking, led me down the garden path. No tribe of primitive women isolated from men, no astronauts landing on a planet full of lonely females. I guess I'll have to wait for the next cinematic example of the genre.

Coming soon!

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