Fire Maidens from Outer Space

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fire Maidens from Outer Space
One-sheet for American release as Fire Maidens of Outer Space
Directed by	Cy Roth
Produced by	Cy Roth
Written by	Cy Roth
Starring	Anthony Dexter Paul Carpenter Susan Shaw Harry Fowler Sydney Tafler Jacqueline Curtis Rodney Diak
Cinematography	Ian D. Struthers
Editing by	Lito Carruthers
Distributed by	Eros Films Ltd. (UK}; Topaz Film Corp. (USA)
Release date(s)	September 6, 1956
Running time	80 min
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
IMDb profile

Fire Maidens from Outer Space, released in the USA as Fire Maidens of Outer Space, is a 78-minute 1956 black-and-white science fiction feature film. It was a British "quota quickie", written, produced and directed by American filmmaker Cy Roth as a collaboration between Cy Roth Productions and Criterion Films, and distributed in the UK by Eros Films and in the USA by Topaz Film Co.. It has sometimes been cited by critics as one of the worst films ever made. The film starred Anthony Dexter as the lead astronaut, Susan Shaw as a "fire maiden" who befriends him, Paul Carpenter as the expedition captain, and Jacqueline Curtis as the "fire maiden" leader. There were 13 additional "fire maidens". The music score featured cues excerpted from the opera "Prince Igor" by Alexander Borodin.

[edit] Synopsis

The story involves the discovery of signs of life on the 13th moon of Jupiter (which, in real life, wasn't discovered until the late 1970s) and the sending of a crew of five British, chain-smoking male astronauts, armed with handguns, to investigate. On the moon, they discover a dying civilization composed entirely of women (save for a single middle-aged man, who claims to have fathered all sixteen women present) and the leader of the women determines to hold them captive to use as mates. A strange, humanoid creature, however, lurks outside the women's city's walls and, when it breaks into the city, is killed by the earthmen, as a result of which the women decide to let them return to earth. One of the women returns with them, and the astronauts promise to send spaceships back to rescue the rest.

[edit] Trivia

The film featured a creature (given no actual name in the film), a male hominid around six feet tall from Jupiter's 13th moon. Described in the movie as a "man with the head of a beast", the creature is slender, with dark, pitted skin and is impervious to bullets. The anonymous actor playing it wears dark, tight-fitting clothing with clearly-visible zippers.

In November 1992, Fire Maidens of Outer Space was featured as an episode of movie-mocking television show Mystery Science Theater 3000.