Synopsis:
Man’s first expedition to the moon is undertaken by Commander Laird Grainger (Sonny
Tufts), co-pilot Kip Reissner (Victor Jory), navigator Helen Salinger (Marie Windsor),
radio operator Doug Smith (Bill Phipps) and engineer Walt Walters (Douglas Fowley). After
escaping Earth’s gravitational field, the crew is contacted by mission control, and
asked to each say a few words. Helen puzzles the others by greeting someone called
"Alpha". The rocketship is almost struck by a meteor. Evasive action is taken,
but one of the chambers containing acid used for fuel is damaged, and a water line
blocked. Going over Laird’s head, Kip dons a protective suit and enters the acid
chamber to take care of the crisis. Later, recovering under Helen’s care, Kip reveals
his feelings for her – then observes bitterly that she is "Laird’s
girl". Later, Laird asks Helen who Alpha is, but Helen cannot remember having
mentioned the name. She confesses to having a strange feeling of having lived through the
space journey before. The rocketship approaches the moon, and Helen surprises the others
by picking out a landing site on the mysterious dark side. However, the landing is
perfect. Donning their suits, the crew sets out to explore. Helen says that, during the
landing, she saw a cave nearby. Kip grows suspicious as he realises that this could not be
true. Inside the cave, Helen complains that her boots feel heavy. Realising that there
must be atmosphere present, the crew sheds their suits, not noticing a shadow passing over
a nearby rock…. Suddenly, Helen is attacked by a giant spider. The men rush in to
save her, only for a second such creature to attack. This, too, is vanquished. Helen begs
for a few moments of rest. Kip and Walt go to check on the suits, while Laird and Doug
explore some more. A lithe figure in black approaches Helen silently and touches her hand,
leaving a strange glow in her palm. Helen screams, and the figure vanishes. Laird comes
running, and announces that they will all go back to the ship. Helen insists on going on,
becoming enraged and even struggling with Laird when he tries to stop her. Kip returns
with the news that their suits have gone. Helen responds with a strange air of triumph
that they will have to go on. She leads the way, and to their astonishment the men
find themselves staring down into a valley, wherein lies a city made of stone. Inside,
Helen sets out to explore with Doug. Once they are out of sight of the others, however,
Helen steps back and merely watches as Doug is suddenly attacked by a woman dressed
entirely in black, who forces him to the ground and tries to strangle him. Helen slips
away…. Doug manages to yell for help. The others rush to his rescue, and the woman
runs away. When they return to the main chamber, three more of the women attack Kip, but
flee when he fires his gun. Doug manages to capture a fourth woman, but to the amazement
of the men, she simply vanishes. Meanwhile, Helen has encountered more of the women. Their
leader, Alpha (Carol Brewster), greets her warmly as "one of them"….
Comments: While there
is little doubt that Cat-Women Of The Moon is one of the true Bad Movies, it is
also true that its virtues are not necessarily those that can be easily conveyed within a
review. While anyone can appreciate the charms of a three hundred pound zombie making a
futile attempt to clamber out of its own grave, or a gorilla with a diving helmet on its
head spouting existentialist philosophy, the attractions of Cat-Women Of The Moon
lie more in its absolute and exquisite poverty – poverty, that is, not merely of
budget, but of concept and execution. There is a sense of - of lack about this film
that grows increasingly surreal. How is one to react to a film shot in 3-D that makes no
attempt whatsoever to exploit the process? To a film about Cat-Women that has no
Cat-Women? To an alleged thriller whose big climactic scene takes place off-camera
– the events being conveyed to the audience via two carelessly dubbed-in lines of
dialogue? Okay, silly questions – with laughter, of course. But the fun doesn’t
stop there. If the script of Cat-Women Of The Moon is all that we would hope for
from a Z-grade science fiction film of this era, the icing on the cake is the delivery of
the dialogue, which rises to heights of sheer goofiness that has to be heard to be
believed. Not surprisingly, the film’s outstanding contribution comes from Sonny
Tufts, who gives a performance marked by what can only be described as sweaty desperation.
Tufts goes through the whole film with a look of panic clear in his eyes, as if he can
neither figure out where he is, nor how the heck he got there. (At one point in the film,
Laird Grainger is offered some wine. Tufts leaps upon the proffered goblet so avidly that
we can only assume it was the real thing, a dangling carrot used to keep him on the set.)
Running Tufts a close second are "The Hollywood Cover Girls", seven vacuous
females cast as the Cat-Women [sic.] because they looked good in black leotards,
and not, believe me, because of their thespian abilities. Or their skill at
dancing. In the minor roles, we have B-movie stalwarts Bill Phipps and Douglas Fowley. The
former is destined to fall for one of the Cat-Women, and to pronounce reams of romantic
dialogue while the two of them canoodle. Understandably, he spends most of the film
looking acutely embarrassed. Douglas Fowley, meanwhile, who plays the inevitable Venal
Crewman Who Plans To Profit From His Amazing Experience (and is consequently doomed),
gives some of the laziest line readings I’ve ever heard. (Okay, okay, it’s not
Shakespeare – but please, a little effort!) Incredibly, Fowley scores an
on-screen credit as "Dialogue Director" – presumably for the scene where he
cuts in to finish some of Sonny Tufts’ bumbled dialogue for him, thus saving the
producers the cost of a re-take.
Which brings us to our final two cast
members, and the point at which I begin to feel slightly uncomfortable. I’ve no
particular brief for Victor Jory, but he was a reliable B-actor who could be counted upon
to do a decent job. Marie Windsor, on the other hand, is an actress I have quite a lot of
affection for, particularly in view of her performances in films such as The Killing,
Force Of Evil, The Narrow Margin, and my pet unknown western, Hellfire.
Watching her struggle through this piece of tosh is not an agreeable experience.
Hugely to her credit, Windsor actually managed to keep a straight face throughout. Victor
Jory, on the other hand, looks constantly on the verge of laughter. (Always a mannered and
twitchy actor, Jory conveys his embarrassment at being involved in this dubious enterprise
by adding yet another gesture to his standard repertoire of tics: he repeatedly conveys
repressed emotion by pushing a lock of hair back from his forehead.) It is little wonder
that Windsor avoids her co-star’s eye for most of the film: even the big public
declaration of affection between Jory’s Kip Reissner and Windsor’s Helen
Salinger comes with Windsor pressing herself against Jory’s back. However, the bottom
line is that both actors were, in the end, professionals. They signed on to do this
film, and that meant giving it a good old-fashioned college try. The material was
ultimately too much for them, granted, but still they tried; Lord, how they did try. Their
clenched-teeth determination is perhaps most evident in their love scenes. Frankly,
Windsor and Jory look like there are few things in the world they’d rather do less
than kiss each other; but the script said they had to do it and so, by God, they
did: the two of them come together like a pair of enraged water buffalos butting heads
over a disputed stretch of ground. Anything less "romantic" is rather hard to
imagine.
The 1950s saw a sudden proliferation of films
dealing with men – American men, of course – stumbling across lost
societies of women, either deep in the jungle, on previously undiscovered islands or, as
here, on another planet; and, merely through their presence, turning those societies
upside-down. Time and again, the citizenry of these exclusively female worlds, who had
killed off, enslaved or exiled their own men (by definition, pretty poor specimens), took
just one look at the hunky human males who had invaded their territory and instantly
chucked all their silly ideas of taking charge of their own lives in favour of the
delights of a life in Brooklyn – and in due course, we assume, the further delights
of housewifery and baby-making. The common interpretation of this wave of films is that it
occurred in response to the social readjustment of "male" and "female"
roles after World War II; that the films represent the articulation of various male
anxieties, chiefly a need to be reassured that women were, after all, helpless beings who
couldn’t possibly get along without them (or who were sick and perverted if they
could), despite the alarming signs of "independence" some of them had begun to
exhibit during the previous decade. Looking at these "lost world" films
collectively, it is rather difficult to come up with too many other readings of
them – except, perhaps, one still more discomforting. After all, a society without
men is a society full of [*slobber, slobber*] virgins; women who had not
only not been touched, but who could not have been touched. The most frequently
recurring motif in these films (the basic plot of which was perhaps best summed up by
Philip J. Fry: "Flying through space and teaching alien women to lurrve")
was the "‘Love’? What’s that?" scene, in which a wondering
space maiden learned a few pertinent lessons in the manly embrace of a human interloper.
And the extraordinary thing was that these women invariably proved to be remarkably adept
pupils. In fact, despite growing up not just without any men, but without any concept of
either "love" or "sex", there was barely one of them who expressed
anything other than complete gratification at suddenly finding a tongue jammed down her
throat. (Oh, sure, there were a few man-haters in the crowd; but you could rest assured
they’d be killed off before the end of the film. And serve ‘em right.) Behind
such nonsense there seems to lurk a worryingly Pygmalian-esque fantasy: the suggestion
that a woman should be not just inexperienced, but ignorant – unawakened - until
"the right man" came along; at which time she would instantly evince a
positively explosive libido. Of course, the wistful notion that female desire can (in the
immortal words of Mr Kip Reissner) be "turned on and off like a faucet" is so
far from reality that these films become inadvertently revealing; and in this context it
is perhaps worth remembering that the 1950s was also the time when many men were making
the discovery that women who came accessorised with folds, staples and air-brushings were
a lot easier to deal with than the real thing.
Cat-Women Of The Moon was a
fairly early entry in the female society sub-genre; and it is thematically interesting in
that manages to be both less and more insulting to the female sex than most of its ilk.
(By the way, I’m by no means suggesting that these films were insulting to women only;
but they were, after all, written, produced and directed by men, so any offensive
depiction of the male sex is its own fault.) The Cat-Women, we learn, are all that remains
of an "ancient civilisation" (natch). They did not kill off the men, who instead
died of, uh, natural causes – the loss of atmosphere on the moon (!!). And a similar
fate awaits the Cat-Women themselves, unless they can devise a means of escape. Alas
(being wimmin, ‘n’ all), space flight is beyond their means; but they have
developed a form of psychic communication, which they use to contact Helen Salinger, the
navigator of Moon Rocket 4, mankind’s first vessel to the moon. (Tragically, as with
Plans 1-8, we are destined never to know what happened to Moon Rockets 1-3.) Cat-Women
Of The Moon is one of the very few of these "lost women" movies that
includes "the girl" so mandatory in other forms of science fiction of this era;
and furthermore, it is also an unusual "space exploration" film, in which the
presence of "a girl" is not the subject of resentment and/or "This is no
job for a woman!" argument. Startlingly enough, it appears at first that Helen
Salinger is actually there on merit; but thankfully, we are soon disabused of that
ridiculous notion, as it is made clear that all of Helen’s professional knowledge
– her skill in "celestial navigation" – has been planted in her mind
by the evil Cat-Women, who need her help in escaping from the moon. Asking her space-bound
"sisters" the sixty-four dollar question, Helen learns that the Cat-Women could
not control the Earth men, but that she herself was easily manipulated. Far from taking
offence, Helen seems almost thankful; relieved, perhaps, to know that she’s no kind
of genius, but a real woman after all.
And speaking of which, Cat-Women Of The
Moon boasts some confused – and therefore rather interesting - sexual politics.
First of all, we make the discovery that of the five members of the rocketship crew, three
of them are the points of a romantic triangle. Now, from one perspective, sending three
unavoidably conflicted people into space together might seem like a somewhat
counterintuitive idea; but on the other hand, perhaps Mission Control felt that the
ensuing, uh, debate would help while away the long hours in space. We learn in time that
Helen is "Laird’s girl" purely because the Cat-Women controlling her wish
it, as their relationship will give her opportunities to pick his brain [sic.]; she
really loves Kip, but is unable to say so until he – wait for it – holds
her hand. (All together now: awwww….) Helen yoyos back and forth
throughout the film, being forced to cosy up to Laird by the Cat-Women about half of the
time, and being bullied and shaken into confessing her feelings for Kip the rest of the
time, but scarcely ever doing or saying anything of her own volition. It’s
that real woman thing again, I guess. (Personally, I think that if I were forced
into a relationship with – ulp! – Sonny Tufts, I’d express a hell
of a lot more resentment towards my manipulators than Helen ever does.)
Then we have the Cat-Women themselves, whose
attitudes towards "men" are intriguingly various. Alpha, their leader, dreams of
a female-dominated society; like her spiritual sister, Queen Yllana of Venus, Alpha blames "the
men", not for the disappearance of the moon’s atmosphere (which would be unreasonable),
but for their response to it: planned genocide to reduce the population. Alpha herself,
being an enlightened individual, plans a glorious future full of men kept in subjection
and used in "eugenic" breeding programs – which is, after all, much
more humanitarian (lunitarian?). Beta, the second-in-command, is the true man-hater of the
group, full of contempt for the pathetic creatures, and sneeringly certain of her ability
to exploit their "weak point" (which in the case of Laird Grainger and Walt
Walters, at least, lies equidistant between their ears. By the way, who thinks Beta is
going to make it to the end credits?). Lambda, the youngest of the group, is inevitably
the turncoat, speaking longingly of the moon men, who died off when she was just a child,
and falling for Doug Smith, "the first man I ever saw". (Cat-Women Gamma through
Omega are, alas, not invited to express an opinion.) Watching the wide-eyed, wide-mouthed
reaction of the Earth men to their hostesses – or rather, to be fair, that of Laird
and Walt – one does tend to sympathise with Beta. Doug, on the other hand, falls
chastely in love with Lambda, while Kip, protected by his feelings for Helen, remains
aloof, watching the proceedings with a cynical eye. Having much free time on his hands,
unlike his companions, it is Kip who, realising that the film’s title is utterly
stupid and meaningless, runs his eyes over the moon women, with their black
body-stockings, their chokers, their pulled-back hair, their curled fake eyelashes, and
their applied-with-a-trowel make-up, and dubs them – what else? –
"Cat-Women"; thus rescuing the film’s title from accusations of
meaninglessness, at least.
Cat-Women Of The Moon opens
with your typical philosophical voiceover reflecting on man’s desire to "pierce
the barrier" of space. "Why ‘some day’?" he wonders. "Why
not – now!" Cut to Moon Rocket 4, flying through the vastness of space,
its fiery tail a celestial path in the heavens paving [*cough*]. Inside, our
gallant crew of five is experiencing the discomforts of gravitational force while lying on
the thinnest, flimsiest folding cots that you can imagine. This scene goes on for some
time, allowing the viewer ample opportunity for observing that the flight deck of this
rocket is made of painted corrugated iron, and that it is decorated with leftover office
furniture – including wooden desks and chairs on rollers. Strangely, these
don’t move at all during the take-off, despite those nasty G-forces. The camera then
moves from astronaut to astronaut, and we see something else interesting: while all the
men are being flattened into their cots, navigator Helen Salinger is having no difficulty
at all keeping her chest at, uh, attention (women’s underwear….of the future!).
Mission control (aka "Whitesands") then contacts the ship, even though
they must know full well that no-one’s going to be able to answer. Nevertheless, the
radio guy blathers on for a while: "Can you hear me? Can you show any sign of
recognition?" Co-pilot Kip Reissner is the first to shake off the effects of the
G-force, thus clueing us in that he’s the film’s "hero".
"Well," he reflects, gazing out at a less-than-convincing starfield,
"whaddya know?" He then approaches his recovering Commander, who orders him to
"help the others". Kip responds by bellowing, "Hit the deck! Every man a
tiger!" Yes, very helpful. Of course, this exhortation doesn’t apply to
Helen; Kip has to undo her ankle straps for her. Helen then does what the navigator of
mankind’s first trip to the moon would do immediately after recovering from
take-off: she crosses to her little wooden navigator’s desk, pulls open the little
wooden drawer, takes out a compact and a comb and – fixes her hair.
(Okay. Deep breaths. De-ee-ee-eep
breaths….)
Making a pathetic attempt at being hardnosed,
Laird does not immediately respond to Whitesands, but insists on having everyone’s
"initial reports" first. "This is a scientific expedition!" he yells.
"Not a stunt!" This final remark is aimed directly at Helen, who
continues to check her make-up, unperturbed. "Are we on course?" Laird asks her.
"On course," she replies, patting her curls. Laird eventually contacts
Whitesands and with Kip’s help, reports on the condition of the ship. We learn that,
ominously, Moon Rocket 4 boasts both "an atom chamber" and a supply of
"nitrate pictrate acid" (!!??). To our relief, we hear that the latter is
"secure". Laird then tries to sign off, but Whitesands responds that "the
whole world is listening", and asks whether the crewmembers might not say a few
words?
"NO!!" bellows Laird, who obviously
did his leadership and diplomacy training under General Mark Grayson.
This surprises Helen into shutting her
compact. "Oh, Laird, don’t be so stuffy," she admonishes her commanding
officer. The others concur, and Laird – how did he get to be in charge again? –
capitulates, allowing his subordinates to speak, provided they do it from their stations.
"And be brief!" he thunders.
In fairness to Laird, we soon discover why
he didn’t want his crew speaking to "the whole world": they’re just
plain embarrassing. Kip trots out the old "watch that first step" line, while
Doug produces a still hoarier "green cheese" remark, and Walt takes the
opportunity to slip in a plug for "the Delta-5 Oil Company". "That oughta
be worth a few grand," he smirks to Doug. Only Helen manages to say something
interesting: "Hello, Alpha," she pronounces. "We’re on our way."
The men give her a brief, puzzled look; but wimmin being incomprehensible by nature, they
think little of her cryptic utterance.
The crew then gets an ego-stroking message
from General Someone-Or-Other, and are so intent on preening that they don’t notice
the meteor coming straight for them (and pretty much exhausting the film’s 3-D
component). It clips the rocket. Kip does a quick damage assessment, then makes the
alarming announcement that something is "embedded in our rear section!". Owie!!
This, as it happens, is where "the atom chamber" is kept. It is decided to make
an attempt to "dislodge" the meteor (or part thereof – they’re not
real clear about it) using the magic of "centrifugal force"; or in other words,
by slamming on the brakes and doing the space equivalent of chucking a doughnut.
Intriguingly, while the Moon Rocket 4 has displayed a fiery tail all the while it was
travelling directly through space, now, when it needs to change direction, the tail
disappears. Go figure. Inside, the intrepid explorers do up the seatbelts on their office
chairs and clutch their desks; while outside, we see the rocket come to a halt, and swing
in a jerky circle around its point. (I particularly like the rapid way the ship drops into
an "upright" position.) Remarkably, none of the office furniture budges an inch
through this manoeuvre – not even the roller chairs. That’s some artificial
gravity they got there. The meteor is duly dislodged, and Laird lectures his crew about
not paying sufficient attention to their duties (not unjustly, it must be admitted),
telling them that in future, everything will be done "by the book". We are
destined to hear this phrase frequently from Laird over the course of the film, and I mean
"Cat-Women Of The Moon Drinking Game" frequently. You finally get the
impression that someone (Douglas Fowley, perhaps) drummed this expression into Sonny
Tufts’ head, and told him to say it any time he couldn’t remember his actual
lines.
Anyway, Kip does venture to express the
heretical opinion that not everything is "in the book", but a spat between the
two men is cut short when Walt notices another teeny-weeny problem: that one of the
containers of "nitrate pictrate acid" has broken. (We never do learn what this
intriguing material is, nor what it was doing on board. I assume they meant picric acid,
which is indeed a fascinatingly deadly substance. I suppose, in theory, you could
use it as some kind of propellant; but in practical terms, it isn’t really the kind
of stuff you’d want hanging around your spaceship. And speaking of which---) "If
the acid reaches the fuel chamber we’ll explode, won’t we?" inquires Kip
with admirable nonchalance. "Turn on the water line," Laird orders Walt.
"That’ll neutralise it!" (Eh!? Uh, actually, Laird, no it won’t….)
But the water line is blocked. Confronted by a situation not "in the book",
Laird begins to panic. The pragmatic Kip, however, dons a protective suit and goes to fix
things on his own. We discover that the "atom chamber" is separated from the
flight deck by one thin hatch cover (with which Doug and Walt "struggle", in a
laughable attempt at making it seem heavy) which, when lifted, belches forth a thick cloud
of "acid fumes" - and, presumably, "atoms". Kip descends, finds that
the water line is beyond his help, and so does the next best thing: he grabs a carbon
dioxide fire extinguisher and, uh, puts the acid out, I guess.
Kip is temporarily overcome by fumes, and
recovers to find Helen at his bedside, beaming at him. The two indulge in a brief debate
on the nature of love (see Immortal Dialogue), until Kip nobly rejects Helen, she being
"Laird’s girl", and all. Helen stomps off to Laird in a huff, announcing
that he and Kip are a good match. "Hard head and hard back!" she sniffs. "I
guess," chuckles Laird amicably (?). He then inquires as to the identity of
"Alpha" and, when Helen says she cannot remember saying anything of the kind,
diagnoses her as suffering "a touch of space madness". Throughout this scene, it
is borne upon us that Laird himself ought to be paying more attention to his duties: from
the way the moon keeps shifting on the ship’s viewfinder, the ship itself must be
lurching around like a kite in a hurricane. Perhaps our Commander should be keeping his
eyes on the road and his hands upon the wheel. Laird then tells Helen to pick out her
landing spot (isn’t that something you’d do before you left Earth?), and
she replies that she already has: a valley on the dark side of the moon. Laird is mightily
puzzled by how she could know about such a place. "All man has ever seen is the bright
side!" Sidestepping suspiciously, Helen replies that this valley is kind of near
the bright side, but this answer does nothing to sooth Laird. "Why there? We’d
planned to study the bright side, then circle to the dark side!"
(Laird’s fixation on the bright side would seem to be an instance of opposites
attracting.) Helen’s only response is that she’s sure this is the right spot;
she doesn’t know why, she just is; which turns out to be good enough for Laird. The
crew commences landing procedure, with Laird uttering the immortal command, "Start
the retardant, Walt!" This apparently has the effect of swinging the ship from its
parallel position into an upright one, in one smooth move.
The crew then prepares to go out and explore.
The iconoclastic Kip does venture to express the opinion that they should check the ship
over and make sure it’s ready for take-off before they go out, but the others scoff
at him. Helen then invites Doug to help her into her suit. Lucky Doug. And, ah yes, those
suits. The paucity of the film’s budget is beautifully illustrated in the fact that
the producers couldn’t even scare up five spacesuits of the same type; so Walt and
Doug get metal half-canisters on their heads (and tiny oxygen cylinders on their backs),
while the other three get huge plastic bubbles, with the bottom of another bubble glued on
for a face-plate (and no oxygen at all). Obviously, whoever designed these particular
"futuristic" costumes forgot to put airholes in them because, in an effort to
hear and be heard, the three unfortunate actors must shout everything that they
say. This is particularly painful in the case of Marie Windsor. As I’ve indicated,
I’m fond of Ms Windsor, but it must be said that she had a voice which was better not
raised, since doing so turned it into a simply horrible bray.
"THESE SHOES ARE HEAVY!!" shouts
Helen, trying out her gravity boots. Laird orders his team to check each other’s
equipment, reminding them that it "must be set #2", due to "the absolute
cold of the dark side". "AND WHEN YOU GET OUT THERE, STAY ON THE DARK
SIDE!!" he orders. Kip notices Helen tucking – get this – a packet of
cigarettes into her suit (don’t you miss the fifties?). "I FEEL MORE
AT HOME CARRYING THEM!!" she explains. Laird then objects to Kip carrying a gun.
"YOU KNOW THERE IS NO LIFE ON THE MOON!!" (Not to mention oxygen – although….)
Kip insists, though, leading Helen to protest, "EITHER WE’RE ON A SCIENTIFIC
EXPEDITION, OR WE’RE A BUNCH OF BOY SCOUTS ON AN OUTING!!" (It is left to the
viewer to judge which of these two groups she thinks should be carrying a gun.)
Laird then feels obliged to admonish his crew for their "infantile romanticism"
(pronounced "in-fan-till"), a line which prompts the single intentionally funny
moment in the entire film, as Doug sheepishly whips his gag "Los Angeles City
Limits" sign out of sight.
The crew makes its way slo-oo-owly out
of the ship, and we have a chance to admire the film’s moonscapes, which look
distinctly like the work of Chesley Bonestell (and were probably swiped from Destination
Moon). However, where all the stalagmites came from is a bit of a puzzle. Helen
insists on going in a particular direction, and the increasingly suspicious Kip asks her
why? "THERE’S A CAVE IN THE SIDE OF THE CRATER OVER THERE!!" she bawls.
"I NOTICED IT WHEN WE WERE SETTING UP!!" Kip makes a sarcastic remark about
"buried treasure", provoking yet another reference to the book from
Laird. Nevertheless, they do as Helen suggests. As they file towards the cave,
"METEORITE!!!!" They dive for the ground, and the meteorite passes over their
heads, crashing at a distance. In a graphic illustration of the perils of post-production
special effects work, half of the crew gazes in horror in one direction, while the others
gaze in horror in the opposite direction.
They set out again, and as they approach
"the bright side" (and yes, there is a clear line of demarcation between
bright and dark), Laird decides it’s time for Science!! To demonstrate the dangers of
"the bright side", he takes one of Helen’s cigarettes and tosses it
over the boundary line, where it instantly bursts into flames. The others gasp in
amazement. Right along with the audience.
They then set out again, but Kip draws Laird
aside, pointing out that Helen couldn’t possibly have seen the cave from their
landing site. He continues to make sarcastic references to Helen’s
"guesses", until Laird asks him what he’s driving at? "I DON’T
KNOW – BUT I BET IT ISN’T IN THE BOOK!!" Kip jeers. Meanwhile, Helen is
discovering that the cave is just as she dreamed it – or did she? Perhaps this
is the dream…. Fearing that the little woman may have exhausted herself during that
strenuous hundred yard stroll from the ship, Laird tells Helen that they can go back if
she wishes, but she insists on forging ahead (proving that she’s under an evil
influence….mwoo-ha-ha!). Still, before long, she’s complaining about the weight
of her boots. Laird is puzzled, observing that they worked fine outside. Kip then makes a
startling discovery: water! This, in rapid leaps, leads to further deductions of atmosphere
and gravity. To prove his theory, Kip takes a match from Helen and lights it.
"It’s burning!" says Doug gleefully. "That means oxygen!"
Tragically, not one of them thinks to
bring up the little matter of the cigarette burning up over on the bright
side….
Anyway, the crew quickly struggles out of
their suits, much to their relief (and mine – oh, my aching eardrums!). So
intent upon this are they, they don’t notice the shadow that passes across a nearby
wall…. During this lull, Kip gleefully points out that none of this was precisely in
the book, while Laird (who, in case you didn’t figure it out from the little
cigarette demonstration, is the scientist of the group), struggles to find an
explanation. Helen suddenly announces that they’re "near the end" of the
cave, covering this piece of prescience with an observation that "the air isn’t
stuffy". Kip starts fondling his gun again, and so intent is everyone upon this
action that they are unaware of the hairy legs dangling nearby….
(No, of course it’s not the
Cat-Women!! Oh, sure they’re a bunch of female-only man-haters; but like all true
"lost world" wimmin, they’re also immaculately depilated, manicured,
coiffed, and made-up at all times.)
The expedition sets off again, until Helen is
suddenly attacked by one of the hardest working special effects in fifties science
fiction: The Giant Dangling Hairy Spider Puppet!!!!
Ahem. Excuse me a moment, would you?
I WANT IT!! I WANT IT!! I WANT IT!! I WANT
IT!! I WANT IT!!
Helen screams and runs away (tripping, but not
spraining her ankle, thankfully), while the men decide the best way of dealing with a
Giant Dangling Hairy Spider Puppet is to punch it to death (the poor creature bouncing up
and down on its clearly visible wires all the while). Helen continues to back away –
right into Giant Dangling Hairy Spider Puppet #2!! AAAAHHHH!!!! The men fly to the rescue,
pulling Helen free (and apparently tossing her right across the cave: the next time we see
her, she’s flying flat on her back about ten yards away). The men wrestle with #2
until finally, Kip gets to do what he’s been dying to do since they reached
the moon: he shoots something. The men then hurry over to Helen, who shamefacedly
apologises to Kip for ever doubting the necessity of carrying firearms in space. She then
begs for a little time to recover. Kip, riding high on his triumph, somehow extrapolates
the presence of Giant Dangling Hairy Spider Puppets into a need to check on their suits.
He and Walt depart to do just that, while the puzzled Laird (Laird spends a lot of time
puzzled – have you noticed?) goes with Doug to….do something, it isn’t
quite clear. But anyway, Helen is left on her own. That mysterious shadow reappears, and someone
slinks up to Helen, running a hand over her without making contact (if you get what I
mean), then gently touching her hand. Helen shrieks, and the Mysterious Stranger flees,
leaving behind – a glowing light in Helen’s palm (again, not one of your better
special effects).
Laird and Doug come running, and Laird opines
that they should go back to the ship, so that Helen can rest up after her ordeal. A
strange look coming into her eyes, Helen demands they go on. "I’ll tell you
what’s out there! Adventure! Discovery! Knowledge!" As she speaks, she
gesticulates a little too broadly with her hand, which she then snatches back
self-consciously (and indeed, Helen will continue to make "Perfumes of Arabia"
gestures for the duration). Laird agrees that they’re there for all that, but
suggests another day. "Now!" insists Helen, almost stamping her foot at
him. "If you don’t wanna come with me, I’ll go on my own!" Nyah,
nyah, nyah! Laird is forced to remind Helen that he’s still the Commander.
"Well, you’re not my Commander!" Helen yowls. "I know where I
wanna go, and I’m GOING!!" (Marie, sweetie, please – don’t
raise your voice!!)
Suddenly, Kip and Walt return with the grim
news that the suits are gone! Helen observes triumphantly that that settles it:
they’ll have to go on! "You seem very proud of yourself, Helen!"
remarks Laird bitterly. "I am!" she throws back at him. Nyah, nyah, nyah!
That said, Helen draws herself up (stomach in, chest wa-aay out) and stalks off,
the others tagging helplessly after her. She leads them into a valley (which is strangely
illuminated) and points ahead at a very traditional lost city. As for the inside---well,
that’s a little less "traditional". Let’s see: we got Grecian columns,
a stature of Buddha, another of Kali, African artefacts on the walls…. (There’s
even a carving that bears a distinct resemblance to A Certain Ebon Deity.) As the crew
gapes in amazement, Laird runs his hands through the ashes in a brazier. "Cold,"
he observes. "I’d say there hasn’t been a fire lit here for many years
– perhaps centuries. Probably an extinct civilisation…." Of course,
as you’ve no doubt gathered by now, Laird only has to say something to be instantly
squashed by his crew. Kip points out that it took "a form of intelligence" to
steal their suits. "A very high form, to build a place like this," Helen
concurs, in a wholly unjustified tribute to the film’s art director, William Glasgow
(perhaps he took that in lieu of payment). The final blow is dealt by Walt, who finds a
second brazier all ready to be lit – which (courtesy of Helen’s matches) they
do. By this time, however, Kip has had enough, and he starts grilling Helen on what she
knew and when she knew it. Finally Laird intervenes, opining that they shouldn’t
"lose their senses". Helen invites Doug to go with her, to look around. But no
sooner are they around the first Grecian column than Helen draws back, allowing Doug to be
attacked – and us to get our first good look at – a Cat-Woman! Rowr!!
Embarrassingly, Doug is unable to fight off this slenderly built creature, and winds up on
his back with her hands around his throat. Helen slips away…. Doug manages to call
for help (Lyz’s Law Of Strangulation!), and after a full second and a half of
non-reaction (heh!), the other men come running, causing the Cat-Woman to flee. Doug then
makes the thoroughly incredible assertion that he couldn’t see what attacked him (of
course not – she was only kneeling on his chest!!), then diverts attention from
himself by pointing that not only did Helen not help him – she’s gone! At
that moment, a second Cat-Woman appears in the main chamber and waves her hands over the
lit brazier. The fire goes out, and she vanishes. Noticing the former, at least, Walt
yells, "The fire!" and all four men rush towards the brazier, mouths gaping,
this incident being apparently even more startling than atmosphere on the moon, Giant
Dangling Hairy Spider Puppets, or strange women in black leotards. The men spread out to
look for Helen, and Kip is immediately jumped by three Cat-Women, who run away when he
fires his gun. Doug then redeems himself a tad by capturing a fourth Cat-Woman, but she
vanishes beneath the very eyes of the Earth men. After a stunned moment, Kip makes the
inevitable remark: "Anything in the book about that, Commander?" Seeing
that Laird has been thoroughly crushed, Kip announces that he has "a feeling"
(hey, I thought only wimmin got those!?) that Helen will be back. The men agree to wait an
hour.
Helen, meanwhile, is finally meeting up with
her moon-bound sisters (and check out those lace curtains! Heh!). "It’s been a
long journey, Helen – welcome to the moon!" pronounces Alpha, with all the
warmth and sincerity of an airline stewardess (and I can say that! – this was 1953,
remember!). Holding Helen’s hand, Alpha proclaims that she is now "one of
us" (although I suspect she means "one of those", if you know what I
mean, and I think you do). Alpha then explains that the Cat-Women can "project their
thoughts", as well as speaking "all of the Earth’s tongues",
while Beta chips in with, "Don’t forget, our generation pre-dates yours
by centuries!" – whatever that means. Helen thanks them for her
genius-level skill in "celestial navigation", and makes reference to "the
others", allowing Beta to sneer, "We have no use for men!!" (I
don’t dispute the sentiment, necessarily, but given that we learn that the last moon
men died out about twenty years earlier, this pronouncement does rather smack of sour
grapes. Although – it is fairly strongly suggested that Beta, at least,
wouldn’t have any "use" for men even if there had been some around
– if you know what I mean, and I think you do.) Alpha goes on to explain about the
depletion of the moon’s atmosphere, and the tragic misstep of their ancestors (male
ancestors, it is inferred) that left the few survivors trapped in this small pocket of
air. Their only hope was to wait and hope that a spaceship would come and allow them a
means of escape. After bemoaning the fact that there were no "all-female crews"
(right on, sister!!), Alpha tells Helen they decided to concentrate on her –
and that, now that’s she’s here, she, Beta and Lambda will return to Earth with
her. Helen points out that they need the men’s knowledge to fly the ship, and that
they (the Cat-Women) have admitted not being able to read their minds. "They will
teach us how!" smirks Beta. "Show us their weak points! We’ll take care of
the rest!" (For someone who’s never been around a man, she sure does seem to
understand them! Though I guess if she’s been reading Earth women’s thoughts all
these years, she’d have a pretty comprehensive knowledge of men’s "weak
points", if nothing else….) Helen then makes the discovery that she doesn’t
care what happens to her colleagues. "Of course you don’t – because we
don’t," explains Alpha. ("One of us, one of us….")
Back with the men, Laird is pointing out
it’s been an hour. "You were wrong, Kip!" Right on cue, Helen
arrives with her new sisters. After a repeat of the "They speak English!" trope
("Their communication system is far in advance to ours!"), Helen explains that
Kip’s gun frightened the moon women, and that she promised he’d put it away. Kip
refuses, then gets belligerent on the subject of the suits, finally provoking a cry of,
"Oh, don’t be such a boor!" from Helen. At this, Alpha squeezes
Helen’s hand, saying in a pitying tone, "It’s all right, my dear – I
understand!" (You see? She does speak the universal language! The universal female
language, anyway.) Helen then dismisses Kip with a sniffy, "Pay no attention to him
– he’s only the co-pilot!", and introduces Laird, Doug and Walt
– whose "weak points" are, we assume, rather more accessible than
Kip’s – and then Alpha, Beta and Lambda. "More importantly," adds
Alpha, proffering a tray to Laird, "this is food!" Lambda and Beta slide
across to Doug and Walt. The eyes of the two youngest lock, and – zing!
It’s lurrve! The Earth men dig in – except for Kip, who plonks himself
down in a chair at one edge of the room, spreads his legs, and starts waving his gun
around in front of his crotch. Really. Meanwhile, Walt is admiring "the layout",
while Doug and Lambda get to know one another. "Do you have a special Earth
girl?" asks the Cat-Woman (bet you didn’t see that one coming!). Doug
says no, and inquires after Lambda’s "men folk". She tells him sadly that
they died out when she was just a little girl, to which Doug responds with a big cheerful
smile. "Gee! Then it’s a lucky thing we came along!"
Having finally put his gun away (thankfully),
Kip has "rations" – paper-wrapped, no less. As he eats, he allows his eyes
to run up the length of a Cat-Woman, from her little black booties to her styled-with-glue
hair (stopping briefly at the tray she holds, which appears to be stacked with Hostess
Sno-Balls). He then screws up the wrapper in which his "rations" came and tosses
it away – thus earning himself the dubious honour of being the very first
Intergalactic Litterbug. Nice one, Kip.
Across the room, Alpha is plying Laird with
wine and flirting with him, the success of her tactics evident in Laird’s goofy grin,
his nervous "Uhhuhhuhhuh!" laughter, and his constant rubbing of his neck and
thighs. Alpha tries to pry information about the ship’s auto-pilot from him, but
Laird protests it’s too complicated to explain – and besides, he adds, clearly
as an afterthought, "It’s restricted information!" In turn, he asks Alpha
how "that girl, Lambda" (pronounced "Lamb-ba") managed to disappear,
and how they contacted Helen? With a forgivably superior smile, Alpha points out that is
rather more complicated than his automatic pilot. Laird has more wine, and then
goes "Uhhuhhuhhuh!" some more.
On the hunt for some souvenirs he can hawk
back on Earth, Walt notices Beta’s arm-bracelet. This leads to a wholly
unexpected "Gold? But it’s so common!" gambit from Beta, and a deal:
a trip to the ship, in exchange for directions to a cave of gold. The two depart.
Elsewhere, Doug is telling Lambda all about the delights of a life on Earth. (He probably
means in Brooklyn, although he doesn’t say so outright.) Kip then decides it’s
time to break up this little soiree, and Alpha responds with an affable invitation of a
place to sleep, and their suits in the morning. The Cat-Women withdraw, and Kip finally
notices that Walt is missing. Doug says he saw him leave with Beta, and Helen bursts out
laughing. "Fast worker!" This is the final straw for Kip: he hauls Helen into
the next room, and accuses her of working with the Cat-Women. In the process, he grabs her
hand, which somehow breaks Alpha’s control over her (ain’t it romantic?);
and what was shaping up as a violent row turns into one of the most hysterically
overwrought declarations of mutual passion ever committed to film (you will find a
transcript in "Immortal Dialogue" – and rightly so). However, not realising
how he’s broken Alpha’s hold on Helen, Kip releases her hand – and
next thing we know, she’s got that look in her eye again. Kip wants to do "the
right thing" and tell Laird what’s happened, but Helen convinces him to leave it
to her. They go back in, and Kip apologises to Laird for having doubted Helen (during
which, Jory and Tufts have the most amusing neck-rubbing contest).
In the ship, Beta is demonstrating her newly
acquired knowledge of how to operate an intergalactic vessel. "In other words – this
controls this, in a ratio of six-to-one; the speed control retardant; the
stabiliser; and the cut-off!" In response, Walt – this representative of the
human race, this specimen of manhood, this example of what women on Earth presumably
cannot get along without – smirks, shakes his head, and utters one of The Ten
Greatest Lines Of Dialogue In The History Of Motion Pictures:
"You’re too smart for me,
baby – I like ‘em stupid!"
(Okay. Deep breaths. Very – very –
de-ee-ee-eep – breaths….)
But Beta, with plans of her own (and her
opinion of men no doubt reinforced), only smiles, and leads the way to the "cave of
gold".
Along with all the major male
anxieties addressed in these "lost civilisation" films, Cat-Women Of The Moon
deigns to deal with a more minor, if persistent, one: just what do women do, when
they’re alone together? The answer is more horrible, more terrifying, than any man
could have possibly imagined. No, they don’t sit around talking about men; and
nor – worse still! – do they sit around not talking about men. They do
– Interpretive Dance!! Or at any rate, the Cat-Women do. This embarrassing
sequence goes on for some time, until a restless Doug rises from his bed and enters the
room, drawing Lambda from the ritual, and into a passionate embrace. They leave
together…. (Oh, okay – so life in Brooklyn is better than a life spent
doing Interpretative Dance. Probably.) Kip observes these departures, and goes back to
report to Helen that "I feel like a chaperone at a fraternity dance!" Set on her
own schemes, Helen warns Kip that Lambda is "the dangerous one!" "That
kid?" objects Kip, but agrees to go after them, observing that, "In the mood
they were in, I don’t imagine they went very far!" Because, you know, when
you’re about to have illicit sex with someone from another species, you want to stay
as close to the other members of your expedition as possible. With Kip out of the way,
Helen moves in on Laird….and I do like the business-like way she rubs her
hands together before getting down to work.
Meanwhile, in the "cave of gold",
as Walt slobbers and slavers and counts up his wealth, Beta strikes a blow for all women
of all nations, all worlds, all universes, by drawing a knife and running it slo-oo-owly
between his shoulder blades. You go, girl!!
Outside, Doug and Lambda are kissing in the,
uh, Earth-light, I guess, when suddenly Lambda breaks down, confessing the
Cat-Women’s evil scheme. Kip returns to the main building where, to his indignation,
he finds Helen cosying up to Laird. "You know," Laird observes, rubbing his neck
frantically, "I’m beginning to think there’s something to this whole
"moon" and "romance" stuff!" Helen chips in, informing Kip that
all that "poppycock" she spouted outside on the terrace was just to get him to
go away – "So go away!" she orders, rubbing herself against Laird, who
responds with a still goofier smile, and more "Uhhuhhuhhuh!"-ing. Kip walks off
in disgust. (Hey, Kip! Take me with you! Please!!)
Lambda joins the other Cat-Women, and Alpha
gives it as her opinion that four of them will be well able to conquer the Earth all on
their own. You might be tempted to accuse Alpha of getting overambitious here; but then
again, as far as she knows the best that the human race has to offer is represented
by Sonny Tufts, Victor Jory and Marie Windsor; so you can’t really blame her for
getting carried away. Lambda then makes a brave, if stupid, attempt to convince the others
that they don’t have to conquer Earth; they can just live on it.
"She’s fallen in love!" sneers Beta, and Lambda admits this to be so. Alpha
is furious, informing Lambda that when she gets to Earth, she and Beta will have breeding
partners chosen for them "eugenically" (why do I suspect that this arrangement
is even less appealing to Beta than it is to Lambda?), and will bear girl children for the
glory, yada-yada. Lambda continues her defiance, until Alpha deals her a thunderous blow
on the cheek – her hand clearly not getting within six inches of Lambda’s face.
Meanwhile, Doug rushes in to tell all to Kip, who treats him to a healthy dose of sarcasm
until he gets to the part about the women "working on" the men – Laird
included. "Laird!" exclaims Kip, light dawning. (Man, but Victor
Jory’s eyes were close together! You know, my grandmother always said you
couldn’t trust a man whose eyes were close together….) He rushes back into the
main room, where Laird is helpfully explaining the workings of the ship to Helen. Kip
accuses her of being a, uh, cat’s-paw, spills his guts about the earlier scene on the
terrace, and – finally realising the significance of the hand-holding – grabs
Helen, traps her arm under his armpit (ew!), seizes her hand in his, and breaks the spell
again. Helen moans, "Oh, thank you, Kip!’ and continues to hitch her
breath and gasp in a way that, well, let’s just say that if Kip and Helen
weren’t planning on getting married when they returned to Earth, now
they’d pretty much have to. If you know what I mean. And I think you do. This scene
ends with another Hysterically Overwrought Declaration (you know where to find it,
folks!), another Passionate Embrace – and Laird giving Kip a well-deserved punch on
the nose. Helen, the spell broken again, takes advantage of the fracas to run away.
Lambda joins the men, telling them that Helen, Alpha and Beta have left for the ship with
three of the suits; she herself hid the other two. Kip, Doug and Lambda rush off, leaving
Laird alone to wax philosophical: "There comes a time when you can’t find it in
the book! I know that now…."
Lambda gives the two hidden suits to Kip and
Doug, then dematerialises herself, rematerialising in front of the three women. (This does
kind of raise the question of why the Cat-Women didn’t just materialise themselves
onto the ship – or down to Earth, for that matter.) She first tries to convince them
that her behaviour was "a moment of weakness" and then, when they don’t buy
it, tries to break Alpha’s hold on Helen. She begins to make ground, so Beta picks up
a piece of foam rubber lying handily nearby, and taps her on the head with it, killing
her. Poor Lambda’s sacrifice has not been in vain, however: Doug and Kip catch up,
the former sinking to his knees to weep for his lost love, the latter firing his gun
wildly (Kip favours that unnerving "jerk your wrist up and down" mode of
gunplay). The camera closes in on Doug and Lambda, as Kip’s dubbed voice announces
cheerfully, "Doug, the Cat-Women are dead! Helen’s all right!"
Fade to the spaceship, where Laird has just
finished comforting Doug (we’re spared that, thankfully). Doug makes radio contact
with Whitesands, the radio operator sputtering, "What? Who? Whitesands to Moon Rocket
4 – was that you?" (No, it was Jehovah’s Witnesses! Who else, you moron!?)
Mission control then asks what happened? "That," says Doug mournfully, "is
a long story!" Doug, my boy (she said, glancing down to discover she’s written
an appalling fourteen pages of text!!), you are so right. You are so-oo-oo-oo
right….
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