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Queen of Outer Space
Warner Archive // Unrated // September 25, 2018 // Region 0
List Price: $21.99 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
I'm your Venus!
I'm your fire!
What's your desire?
A team of seasoned astronauts, lead by Captain Neal Patterson (Rawhide's Eric Fleming), is ferrying Professor Konrad (Paul Birch) to the space station he designed. No sweat, right? Well, maybe if a mysterious ray hadn't just blown the station to smithereens, snuffing out the lives of untold hundreds of scientists and crew members. Worse still, whoever or whatever fired that ray beam is aiming it perilously close to their ship.
Whisked away at who knows how many hundreds of miles a second, the ship crashes on an unrecognizable alien world. The professor theorizes that they're on Venus, but...wait, it's supposed to have a surface temperature approaching some 870 degrees. How is it snowing? With that impenetrable cloud cover, how can the planet sustain such lush vegetation? And, oh, no one at Mission Command said anything about a Venetian monarchy populated entirely by women in proto-Star Trek skirts.
Masked, maniacal Queen Yllana (Laurie Mitchell; Missile to the Moon) isn't falling for their ruse. Surely this was all a reconnaissance mission to assess Venus' military might prior to a full invasion. Confess! Confess!
Thankfully, not all Venetians are under this despot's sway. Secretly mounting a rebellion is brilliant scientist Talleah (Zsa Zsa Gabor), and she and her most trusted allies have vowed to save the Earthmen from the grisly fate that awaits them. Then again, if Yllana has her way, there won't be an Earth for them to return to.
Even though I was first introduced to Queen of Outer Space decades ago, I didn't realize until today that it was penned by Charles Beaumont – the man behind many of the most beloved episodes of The Twilight Zone – and maybe Academy Award-winning writer Ben Hecht (Notorious; Kiss of Death). That sort of pedigree is easy to miss watching a movie this unapologetically campy. Queen of Outer Space lobs out one cornball joke after another, to the point where it's as much a comedy as it is an outer space adventure.
It's also jaw-droppingly sexist, although that does cut both ways to some extent. Yllana is a misandrist whose forces were able to overtake Venus' men because they were never viewed as a serious threat. But, y'know, at the end of the day, the women of Venus just want to be loved by men, and Captain Patterson and company just want to ::ahemCOUGHLooney Tunes wolf howl, maybe punctuated by an "aaoooga!"::.
There's no more depth or nuance here than any other flick in the "astronauts stranded on an alien world consisting solely of beautiful women" sub-sub-sub-genre that had a surprisingly strong foothold in theaters back in the '50s. Its message at the end of the day is "women can't be happy without men", which isn't just subtext but is literally a line of dialogue delivered at the end. What passes for special effects includes wiggling a model spaceship on a wire while a fan blows confetti or something towards it. Its take on suspense generally involves a handful of characters ducking behind a corner or inside a closet. And hey, remember that line in Forbidden Planet where Morbius sneers that "you'll find the household silver in the dining room and my daughter's jewelry on her dressing table"? I guess one of Queen from Outer Space's production designers followed those directions because:
The ray guns, the uniforms, even Altaira's dress that's the loveliest, softest thing Robby the Robot had ever made for her...! Forbidden Planet is far from the only sci-fi classic from which Queen of Outer Space plunders, but those sorts of Easter eggs are all part of the fun. And, of course, "fun" is the operative word here. Queen of Outer Space may not be good in the sense of...yeah, but its campy, slapdash charms haven't diminished in the slightest on this, its sixtieth (!) anniversary.
Queen of Outer Space is part of Warner Archive's September wave of off-beat genre cinema, which also includes The Cyclops, Looker, and The Swarm. While you'll never find any lasting meaning in your life if you limit yourself to just one of those, if you do find yourself in such a precarious position, your best bet is always the one starring Zsa Zsa Gabor. Highly Recommended if you're cursed with the same wonderfully terrible taste in movies that I have.
Video
Queen of Outer Space is...hmmm, what's the word I'm looking for?
Oh, right! A knockout. This newly-remastered presentation is nothing short of spectacular. Its filmic sheen is rendered beautifully, steering clear of any compression artifacts and showing no signs of heavy-handed noise reduction. The presentation is immaculate, devoid of any wear or damage whatsoever. Beyond being so crisp and sumptuously detailed, Queen of Outer Space boasts an unbelievably gorgeous palette. I could keep rambling on, but you know that whole thing about pictures, thousands of words, and all that:
There is some anamorphic distortion, of course:
Queen of Outer Space takes what looks like 1.37:1 footage of an Atlas A rocket launch and squashes it to 'scope, which isn't terribly convincing:
Some posterization is briefly visible in one early shot, but that's the only issue anywhere remotely along those lines that I could spot:
But hey, those are observations, not complaints. Queen of Outer Space has been given the same white glove treatment that Warner Archive lavishes upon everything they bring to Blu-ray, and the end result is as perfect as I could hope to see.
As if you couldn't tell from the dozens of screenshots scattered throughout this review, Queen of Outer Space is presented at its theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Despite the film's lean runtime and limited video-based extras, Warner Archive ensures that the AVC encode is given all the headroom it needs with a dual-layer disc.
Audio
Presented in two-channel mono, Queen of Outer Space's 24-bit DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack is more than respectable. The background noise that's present is too light to distract, and no overt flaws like pops or dropouts ever once rear their pesky little heads. The film's dialogue shows its age but is reasonably clean and clear:
Eric Fleming's baritone line readings in particular are wonderfully bassy and full-bodied. The score by Marlin Skiles score comes through well, and while it doesn't embrace electronic tonalities the way Forbidden Planet does, the filter sweep representing Queen Yllana's digital bloodhound still sounds phenomenal after all these decades. Though less astonishing than the visual end of Queen of Outer Space's presentation, I can't imagine anyone being the least bit disappointed with what Warner Archive has delivered here.
Also included are an audio commentary (lossless as well because...why not?) and a set of optional English (SDH) subtitles.
Extras
Not that this has anything to do with bonus features, exactly, but I do want to point out how much I adore the menu design, showcasing the original six-sheet for Queen of Outer Space – complete with fold lines!
The Final Word
Sing it, sister!
I've been waiting for Queen of Outer Space to Bochino! Bochino! to Blu-ray for more than a decade now. Warner Archive has made sure this disc is well-worth the wait. Showcasing a top-shelf presentation and a marvelous audio commentary, Queen of Outer Space is a borderline-essential purchase for schlock cinema fanatics. Highly Recommended.
 |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
I'm your fire!
 |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
What's your desire?
 |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
A team of seasoned astronauts, lead by Captain Neal Patterson (Rawhide's Eric Fleming), is ferrying Professor Konrad (Paul Birch) to the space station he designed. No sweat, right? Well, maybe if a mysterious ray hadn't just blown the station to smithereens, snuffing out the lives of untold hundreds of scientists and crew members. Worse still, whoever or whatever fired that ray beam is aiming it perilously close to their ship.
 |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
Whisked away at who knows how many hundreds of miles a second, the ship crashes on an unrecognizable alien world. The professor theorizes that they're on Venus, but...wait, it's supposed to have a surface temperature approaching some 870 degrees. How is it snowing? With that impenetrable cloud cover, how can the planet sustain such lush vegetation? And, oh, no one at Mission Command said anything about a Venetian monarchy populated entirely by women in proto-Star Trek skirts.
"Professor, what do you make of all this? There's nothing but women!"
"Perhaps this is a civilization that exists without sex."
"You call that civilization?"
"Frankly, no."
 |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
Masked, maniacal Queen Yllana (Laurie Mitchell; Missile to the Moon) isn't falling for their ruse. Surely this was all a reconnaissance mission to assess Venus' military might prior to a full invasion. Confess! Confess!
"The ray that destroyed the space station and knocked us off our course may have originated right here."
"Oh, come off it. How could a bunch of women invent a gizmo like that?"
"Sure, and even if they invented it, how could they aim it? You know how women drivers are!"
Thankfully, not all Venetians are under this despot's sway. Secretly mounting a rebellion is brilliant scientist Talleah (Zsa Zsa Gabor), and she and her most trusted allies have vowed to save the Earthmen from the grisly fate that awaits them. Then again, if Yllana has her way, there won't be an Earth for them to return to.
 |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
Even though I was first introduced to Queen of Outer Space decades ago, I didn't realize until today that it was penned by Charles Beaumont – the man behind many of the most beloved episodes of The Twilight Zone – and maybe Academy Award-winning writer Ben Hecht (Notorious; Kiss of Death). That sort of pedigree is easy to miss watching a movie this unapologetically campy. Queen of Outer Space lobs out one cornball joke after another, to the point where it's as much a comedy as it is an outer space adventure.
 |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
It's also jaw-droppingly sexist, although that does cut both ways to some extent. Yllana is a misandrist whose forces were able to overtake Venus' men because they were never viewed as a serious threat. But, y'know, at the end of the day, the women of Venus just want to be loved by men, and Captain Patterson and company just want to ::ahemCOUGHLooney Tunes wolf howl, maybe punctuated by an "aaoooga!"::.
"26 million miles from Earth, and the dolls are still the same!"
There's no more depth or nuance here than any other flick in the "astronauts stranded on an alien world consisting solely of beautiful women" sub-sub-sub-genre that had a surprisingly strong foothold in theaters back in the '50s. Its message at the end of the day is "women can't be happy without men", which isn't just subtext but is literally a line of dialogue delivered at the end. What passes for special effects includes wiggling a model spaceship on a wire while a fan blows confetti or something towards it. Its take on suspense generally involves a handful of characters ducking behind a corner or inside a closet. And hey, remember that line in Forbidden Planet where Morbius sneers that "you'll find the household silver in the dining room and my daughter's jewelry on her dressing table"? I guess one of Queen from Outer Space's production designers followed those directions because:
 |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
The ray guns, the uniforms, even Altaira's dress that's the loveliest, softest thing Robby the Robot had ever made for her...! Forbidden Planet is far from the only sci-fi classic from which Queen of Outer Space plunders, but those sorts of Easter eggs are all part of the fun. And, of course, "fun" is the operative word here. Queen of Outer Space may not be good in the sense of...yeah, but its campy, slapdash charms haven't diminished in the slightest on this, its sixtieth (!) anniversary.
 |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
Queen of Outer Space is part of Warner Archive's September wave of off-beat genre cinema, which also includes The Cyclops, Looker, and The Swarm. While you'll never find any lasting meaning in your life if you limit yourself to just one of those, if you do find yourself in such a precarious position, your best bet is always the one starring Zsa Zsa Gabor. Highly Recommended if you're cursed with the same wonderfully terrible taste in movies that I have.
Video
Queen of Outer Space is...hmmm, what's the word I'm looking for?
 |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
Oh, right! A knockout. This newly-remastered presentation is nothing short of spectacular. Its filmic sheen is rendered beautifully, steering clear of any compression artifacts and showing no signs of heavy-handed noise reduction. The presentation is immaculate, devoid of any wear or damage whatsoever. Beyond being so crisp and sumptuously detailed, Queen of Outer Space boasts an unbelievably gorgeous palette. I could keep rambling on, but you know that whole thing about pictures, thousands of words, and all that:
 |  |
 |  |
| [click on any of these thumbnails to enlarge] | |
There is some anamorphic distortion, of course:
 |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
Queen of Outer Space takes what looks like 1.37:1 footage of an Atlas A rocket launch and squashes it to 'scope, which isn't terribly convincing:
 |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
Some posterization is briefly visible in one early shot, but that's the only issue anywhere remotely along those lines that I could spot:
 |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
But hey, those are observations, not complaints. Queen of Outer Space has been given the same white glove treatment that Warner Archive lavishes upon everything they bring to Blu-ray, and the end result is as perfect as I could hope to see.
As if you couldn't tell from the dozens of screenshots scattered throughout this review, Queen of Outer Space is presented at its theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Despite the film's lean runtime and limited video-based extras, Warner Archive ensures that the AVC encode is given all the headroom it needs with a dual-layer disc.
Audio
Presented in two-channel mono, Queen of Outer Space's 24-bit DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack is more than respectable. The background noise that's present is too light to distract, and no overt flaws like pops or dropouts ever once rear their pesky little heads. The film's dialogue shows its age but is reasonably clean and clear:
Eric Fleming's baritone line readings in particular are wonderfully bassy and full-bodied. The score by Marlin Skiles score comes through well, and while it doesn't embrace electronic tonalities the way Forbidden Planet does, the filter sweep representing Queen Yllana's digital bloodhound still sounds phenomenal after all these decades. Though less astonishing than the visual end of Queen of Outer Space's presentation, I can't imagine anyone being the least bit disappointed with what Warner Archive has delivered here.
 |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
Also included are an audio commentary (lossless as well because...why not?) and a set of optional English (SDH) subtitles.
Extras
Not that this has anything to do with bonus features, exactly, but I do want to point out how much I adore the menu design, showcasing the original six-sheet for Queen of Outer Space – complete with fold lines!
- Audio Commentary: Carried over from the 2007 DVD release is this feature-length commentary with film historian Tom Weaver and the titular Queen of Outer Space herself, Laurie Mitchell. While this track is screen-specific at times, it's better described as a conversation rather than a traditional commentary. Despite some occasional, lengthy lulls, it's still a tremendously entertaining listen, and not just because Mitchell can't quite spit out "Beta Disintegrator" the way she did back in the '50s.
Weaver delves into the muddled and frequently conflicting history of how Queen of Outer Space came together, the critical reception in 1958 being wildly different from how the film is perceived these days, Patrick Waltz taking an all-too-real scrape to his forehead, some of the other movies from which it drew inspiration (and props and wardrobe!), and undergoing a title change so as to sound less like a beauty pageant. I just can't get enough of how warm and cheery Weaver and Mitchell's rapport is, which extends to re-enacting passages of dialogue snipped out from the final cut and gifting an appreciative Weaver a replica of Yllana's iconic mask. Weaver also takes the opportunity to speak at length with Mitchell about her life and career as a whole. As much fun as Queen of Outer Space is on its own, it's that much better having such a strong commentary riding shotgun.
 |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
- Trailer (2 min.; HD): The theatrical trailer for Queen from Outer Space also appears to have been newly scanned in high-def.
The Final Word
Sing it, sister!
 |
| [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] |
I've been waiting for Queen of Outer Space to Bochino! Bochino! to Blu-ray for more than a decade now. Warner Archive has made sure this disc is well-worth the wait. Showcasing a top-shelf presentation and a marvelous audio commentary, Queen of Outer Space is a borderline-essential purchase for schlock cinema fanatics. Highly Recommended.
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