Writers: Curtis Harrington, Aleksandr Kazantsev, Pavel Klushantsev
Composer: Ronald Stein
Starring: Basil Rathbone, Faith Domergue, Marc Shannon, Christopher Brand, John Bix, Lewis Keane, Gennadi Vernov, Georgi Zhzhyonov
More info: IMDb
Plot: In the year 2020, cosmonaut Marcia (Domergue) orbits the planet Venus while five astronauts and a robot journey on the surface. Professor Hartman (Rathbone) is also on hand to observe the exploration from a distance. The explorers are attacked by prehistoric beasts, and then lose their robot (and nearly their lives!) in a volcanic eruption. They discover signs of a lost civilization and an artifact indicating that the Venusians had looked human. But what of the strange singing sound they often have heard during their exploration? Do the anthropomorphic Venusians still exist?
My rating: 5/10
Will I watch it again? No.
This is nothing more than a re-dub of the Russion classic, PLANETA BUR (1962), directed by Pavel Klushantsev. My preference is going to be the original film over this or any other re-use of it. But if you don't want to read subtitles or if you're a Basil Rathbone completists (in one of his last films) then knock yourself out. Rathbone is barely in it and he's in a single room for all of his scenes. It's a complete waste of this great man's talents and it's a role that just about anyone could've done. The ground-breaking special effects are fantastic and are worth the price of admission alone but they were created for the original Russian film. I can't recommend enough the documentary, THE STAR DREAMER (2002), which tells the story of the director and the mastermind behind these marvelous effects (Klushantsev) and how he struggled behind the Iron Curtain to maintain his integrity as a filmmaker. That's a far more interesting story (as is PLANETA BUR) than this American cheapie taking advantage of it. But hey, it's money. I get it.
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