PLANETA BUR

(vt Planet of Storms; vt Storm Planet; vt Cosmonauts on Venus)

   Russian Film (1962). Leningrad Studio of Popular Science Films. Dir Pavel Klushantsev, starring Kyunna Ignatova, Gennadi Vernov, Vladimir Yemelyanov, Georgi Zhonov. Screenplay Alexander Kazantsev, Klushantsev. 85 mins, cut to 74 mins. Colour.

   Cosmonauts land on Venus, accompanied by a robot that plays dance music (thus proving that funny ROBOTS are not peculiar to US CINEMA). A well paced adventure story follows as they search for intelligent life. In an interestingly realized alien landscape they encounter dinosaurs, dangerous plants and a volcanic eruption, but the sole intelligent Venusian appears only at the end, watching unnoticed as the crew departs. By Western standards the film is a little slow and overtalkative (long conversations between the ground crew and the woman controlling the command ship), but it is always watchable. The best Russian sf film until the 1970s, it is, like other Russian sf films of theperiod (Niebo Zowiet (1959) and Meshte Nastreshu (1963)), stronger on production design than on plot.Much footage from the Venus sequences was used in a Roger CORMAN production, Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965), which includes new US material written/dir John Sebastian(pseudonym of Curtis Harrington), starring Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue, but is little more than a partial remake. PB footage was used again in Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1966; vt Gill Woman), also a Corman production, along with new material dir Peter Bogdanovich (in his directorial debut), starring Mamie Van Doren and Mary Park. Thenew feature here was the inclusion of telepathic Venusian women who send the crash-landed astronauts home again.

   JB

   See also: RUSSIA.