Movie #9: Mars Needs Women

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100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

"Mars Needs Women" (1967) is a made-for-TV movie written & directed by Larry Buchanan, a director that made many sic-fi & horror TV movies in his career such as "Zontar: The Thing From Venus" & "Curse of the Swamp Creature." 

The film stars Tommy Kirk, who starred in the 1956 "Hardy Boys" TV series as well as  "Old Yeller" "The Shaggy Dog" & "The Absent Minded Professor." He did a lot of Disney movies & TV shows. 






The Female Lead in the film is Yvonne Craig who played Barbara Gordon/Batgirl in the 3rd season of the 1960's "Batman" TV series.

The story is an extremely cheesy one, so brace yourself, you have been warned.
Mars is in trouble. Something has happened and now Martians are only producing male offspring. So, the brilliant Martians come up with an idea that they will go to Earth and get 5 beautiful women to come back to Mars and help them repopulate. Earth intercepts a signal from space and decodes it... it just keeps repeating the words "Mars Needs Women." At first, a Martian approaches the government and explains their situation and asks for Earth's help. After the Earth turns them down, the Martians decide to covertly carry out their plan. The Martians put on business suits and blend in with our population and begin kidnapping strippers, hot co-eds, and other women. to help with their cause. Their prime target is a space genetic researcher (imagine that) played by Yvonne Craig. Problem is... the lead Martian (Played by Tommy Kirk) has fallen head-over-heels for her and doesn't want to kidnap her. Time is running out! As the government and Yvonne Craig herself are closing in on the Martian's hideout, Tommy Kirk must reveal who he really is to  Batgirl and decide if he is to turn against his fellow Martians and stay behind for love, or kidnap her and return to the red planet a hero.

The special effects are horrible (the director over uses a fog machine to cover up the lack of sets,) the acting is wooden, and the plot is sillier than silly putty (remember silly putty?) 
The Martian costumes bombed so bad. They looked like the headpieces were made by pouring liquid rubber into a mold and letting it harden. You can see lots of air bubbles in them. The rest of the costume was  like grown men running around in their jammies.


Yvonne Craig was the only good thing about this film. But to me, it's one of those "so-bad-it's-good" kind of films. Although it was made in the late '60s, it had a '50s B-Movie look and feel to it. I enjoyed watching it. I think it would be better in black & White though.

- Patrick Shawn Bennett
Broadcasting from a secret Martian hideout that needs women (to fix me a sammich.)

xxx