Queen of Outer Space (1958)

[Scott]

QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE (1958) - Found this one in a local department store bin on VHS for $2.99. Always wanted to see this film after reading and seeing movie poster images for the film. Zsa Zsa Gabor stars as she helps a crew of earthlings escape the queen who wears a mask to hide her hideously radiation scarred face. The queen and her followers also have a big ray gun that the queen is going to use on earth, but her plan backfires. Classic B-Movie in Color distributed by Warner Bros. You'll like the rocket launch and how the crew is strapped in for this voyage and how they crash land on a planet full of women. It has the feel of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO GO TO MARS (1953) Notice the female outfits look a bit like the ones from the original STAR TREK.

[Yaddo42]

Aren't the men's uniforms the same ones from "Forbidden Planet"?

Also this is the inspiration for the main movie spoof from "Amazon Women on the Moon. But QOOS is quite corny in its own right since everyone plays the material straight, good for some laughs no matter what.

Plus it's weird to think that there was a time that you would actually promote the fact that Zsa Zsa Gabor was in your film.

[trekgeezer]

Kinda like the helmets from Starship Troopers, they keep turning up everywhere.

I thought Zsa Zsa was from another planet.  Remember when she got in trouble for slapping a cop who gave her a ticket?

[Scott]

Yes, Zsa Zsa is definately from another planet as her facial expression in this film is also kinda spacy.

[raj]

Wait, Zsa Zsa acutally did something in her life, besides get married and go on talk shows?  Who knew?

[Dave Munger]

Love this one, the doomsday device looks like a gingerbread house. Those uniforms really did get around, I saw one on a superhero in the late 80s or early 90s, on a TV pilot that didn't make it. They change some small details once in awhile, like they add a cape. They must be sturdy. Does Zsa Zsa actually have two roles in this one? I think that might be another reason for the queen having a mask.

[Scott]

The queen is supposedly played by another actress named Mitchell I believe. The reason I know is because I suspected the same thing.

[Yaddo42]

The Gabor sisters were kind of the Hilton sisters of their day when they first came to America. Orchestrating publicity for themselves based on hype, their looks, and their love lives rather than talent or noteworthy acting. Zsa Zsa has a small role in "Touch of Evil", and doesn't really mess things up. Eva's best known for "Green Acres" of course, but that was later on. Magda is "the other one", who acted little if at all.

But they were definitely some of the first "professional celebrities", people mostly famous for being famous. Zsa Zsa and Magda both married actor George Sanders many years apart, which must make him a masochist or a candidate for sainthood. Actually I read that Zsa Zsa said the problem with her marriage to Sanders was that she was in love with George Sanders, and so was he. Toomuch ego from both of them, I guess.

[BoyScoutKevin]

While neither of the Gabor sisters were great actresses, they did appear in some decent films. Zsa Zsa was in "The Story of Three Loves," "Lili," "Road to Hong Kong," "Boys' Night Out," etc.  And Eva was in "Artists and Models," "My Man Godfrey," "Gigi," etc. She also voiced the character of Miss Bianca in Disney's animated "The Rescuers" and "The Rescuers Down Under."

[James]

  Whatever. As far as the two chicks in this movie are concerned (red and blue uniforms that Scott posted), they are both a far cry better looking female staffers  than Star Trek EVER had. In either Star Trek version. With Kirk  or  Prichard. umm whatever his name is.

[peter johnson]

One of the problems with the George Sanders "marriages" was the same problem with the Charles Laughton/Elsa Lanchester "marriage:  Sanders, like Laughton, was a raging Queen of Outer Space himself.
Being from the old country, the Gabors were taken with Sanders' cultured bearing and witty demeanor & thought his attraction to young boys was just one of his hobbies.  They thought surely with their beauty and aplomb they could reform him.   Nope.
Laughton and Lanchester became the embodiment of the Hollywood "Marriage of Convenience".  She became very knowing and understanding of Laughton's predilictions & by all accounts accepted them.  She even comforted him through his numerous cruelly failed affairs with younger men.
As for "Queen of Outer Space" -- man, wotta stinkah!!  The best use of this film I ever saw was its use as an anchor for what was called in the '70's "2001 Minutes of a Splice Odyssey", a clipshow reel that made the rounds of the college campuses of the day.  They showed the whole movie, but interspersed with "Crusader Rabbit" clips and "Rifleman" clips, etc., arranged to make jokes.  Sort of Mystery Science without the bots.  Anyway, it was a marathon showing primarily aimed at folks who took drugs -- no shortage of them in those days!!
I loved how Gabor's "horrible" radiation burns weren't even that horrible --
peter johnson

[Yaddo42]

Thanks for the info, Peter, while I didn't actually know that about Sanders, it doesn't really surprise me. I guess he just reminds me of the exchange between the Englishman and a hooker in the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie "Legionnaire", (paraphrasing from memory):

"What's the matter, don't you like girls?"
"Of course not, I'm English."

[Ozzymandias]

My question is did Eric Flemming ever smile.  I used to watch Rawhide reruns as a teenager and he always frowned.