You won't be disappointed!

An Exercise In Nonsense

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Tommy Kirk plays an martian (you know he's a martian because he's wearing a wetsuit with a duct tape V on the chest, along with antennae taped to the sides of his head) who is seeking earth women to take back to his home planet for breeding. One of those women happen to be Yvonne "Bat Girl" Craig, which is kind of fun, but overall this is a terrible movie that is only worth watching for so-bad-it's-good camp value, which did entertain me a fair amount.

Deliberately bad, this seems like a joke or a "Producers" like scam to take the money and run. From the start it reminds me of plot line set-ups I had seen on "Gilligan's Island", "I Dream of Jeannie" and "Hogan's Heroes". Nerdy looking aliens in bad department store "Star Trek" costumes begin abducting women who simply disappear from where they are (playing tennis, taking a shower), then have the gall to appear in person and demand more. Really bad acting by top billed Tommy Kirk and Yvonne Craig (plus a ton if unknown non-actors) , photography and sound recording join in with the absurd script that tries hard to be finny but just isn't. The writers must really have been lost in space to think that they could be taken even as a spoof. After 20 minutes of eye rolling, I was mouth exercising (through yawns) as I struggled to get into the spirit of it all. By the time you get to the creepy Martians on their ship, you'll be waiting for Santa Claus to conquer them.

I do not quite know why I had trouble following this film. That might not matter—all that much, except that it seems important that kidnap victims have "to be pretty special to qualify" for abduction, though the victims seem stereotypical to me. I think that I missed something somewhere.Some of the excellent film work fascinates me, which ought not to have surprised me since the cinematographer was Robert Jessup, who shot "The Acorn People", "Porky's Revenge", and many episodes of "Dallas", which is the location for much of this film. Night scenes here have a serious beauty—sometimes. A scene shot at a service station recalls "Les parapluies de Cherbourg" Apparently, director Larry Buchanan enjoyed making bad movies. He did make one here. Yvonne Craig almost makes seeing this awful movie worthwhile. I do not know if this was before she dated Elvis. Some awful movies deserve a look if you are up late, know all the informational programs on other channels by heart, and you have seen the rerun of "Antiques Road Show" more than ten times. Otherwise, skip this one.

Went into this movie expecting Tommy Kirk to do a reprise of his Gogo the Teenage Martian role from 1964's 'Pajama Party'. Instead, we get Dop, a seriously serious 'medical missionary' from the dying red planet, who needs five voluptuous young earth women 'unmarried ... of good health ... and possessing the common indicators of fertility and reproduction'.The boys from Mars had tried the usual method of standard alien abduction in the movie's opening scenes, snagging a tennis-playing ingenue, a woman taking a shower, and a girl in a restaurant waiting for her beau to get back from the cigarette machine. WE NEVER SEE THESE THREE WOMEN AGAIN. Dop explains this ominously but matter-of-factly to blustering Army Colonel Robert 'Bob' Page: "We have attempted to seize three women by transponder. We have been unsuccessful." Could be the problem was using a transPONDER instead of a transPORTER -- since transPONDERS receive radio signals, not flesh-and-blood females.So the five Martians decide on the sensible, low-tech direct approach -- hypnosis and kidnapping. And Dop is nonplussed when Colonel Page considers this "an overt action of ... war!" The Martian fellow (successfully) transports himself back to his ship and prepares for their one-UFO invasion.In the words of the nameless network news announcer " ... the most powerful nation on earth is humbled by five men in a space cylinder hurtling toward the approximate vicinity of ... Houston, Texas."For the next few minutes, we get to watch exciting stock footage of the X-15 and fighter jets trying to intercept the Martian craft, while Colonel Bob and his aide stare blankly at a loudspeaker explaining all the action. The aliens land secretly and cautiously debark from their saucer, armed with Ray-O-Vac flashlights and harpoon guns. No wonder they misused the transponder.Their immediate invasion plans call for securing "earth apparel, an automobile, currency, and a city map" of Houston. Martian operative 'Fellow 3' successfully appropriates the needed currency and map by raiding the nearby Phillips 66 gas station.The boys' criteria for appropriate female specimens is not unlike Dr. Bill Cortner's search for the perfect body on which to attach his fiancé's severed head in "The Brain That Wouldn't Die". They round up an airline stewardess, a buxom co-ed artist, a homecoming queen (who bears a haunting resemblance to Marilyn Quayle), a stripper (played by local Texas burlesque legend, Bubbles Cash), and Pulitzer Prize-winning geneticist Marjorie Bolen, who, as 'Fellow-2' puts it, "happens to be blessed physically, too -- anatomically-speaking."Dr. Bolen is played by the 'physically-blessed' Yvonne Craig, who is more recognizable in her skin-tight Batgirl costume from the '60s Batman TV show. Dr. Bolen melts at the insightful DNA questions that Dop asks at her news conference. Soon the Pulitzer-Prizewinner and the Invader from Mars are holding hands at a planetarium, where Dop delivers a heartsick soliloquy about his dying planet.This movie is ripe with inadvertently funny lines delivered in dead seriousness, like:"Do not -- repeat -- DO NOT eat any of the earth food.""You are now, for all practical purposes -- earth men.""Our time is short ... considering that in the next 20 hours, each of us must survey, choose, examine the medical records of, and abduct a female meeting the exacting qualifications of Operation Sleep-Freeze.""Dr. Marjorie Bolen turned out to be a stunning brunette, who found it hard to hide her charm behind her horn-rimmed spectacles.""Tonight: 'Sex and Outer Space' -- A News Conference On Extra-Terrestrial Reproduction by Dr. Marjorie Bolen, One of America's Leading Authorities On Space Medicine, in the Coronado Suite, 10:00 P.M. Only Newsmen with proper press credentials admitted.""The exotic dancer is secured."'Mars Needs Women' owes a lot to other great cheesy movies, like the aforementioned 'Brain That Wouldn't', and especially 'Teenagers From Outer Space', and even anticipates 'Revenge of the Nerds', when the geek geneticist wins the day with LUV. Watch this, then chase it down with 'Pajama Party', for a real 60's spaceman/bodacious babe overdose. 4 of 10.