Interestingly, the original title, "I criminali della galassia" translates "It-a so crummy gave-a me gassa". In the 1960s, school kids enjoyed twilight of the Saturday matinée at local movie theaters. Soon television technology - big screens and better color - would end this vestige of a gentler, more homespun America. But by that time, instead of wholesome singing cowboys and super heroes in saggy long underwear, we were treated to lightweight erotica and poorly staged violence of all cheapies foreign and domestic. Dime-store sword and sandal extravaganzas, schlock science fiction and bargain-basement spy adventure were favored genres. Somehow, all that sizzling excitement is sprinkled on the bubbling cinema pizza that is "Wild, Wild Planet". Let me add my two cents on this two-bit wonder with this proviso: I saw it in its element almost a half-century ago, so give me some slack. There are joltingly bad martial-arts battles in which tiger women in granny-pants underwear attack and fight to the death for no discernible reason. (Actually, it's not to the death - they just sort of... disappear... leaving cheesecloth negligees to float to the floor.) This is topped only by terrifying super-villains with mannequin limbs hideously attached to their black-vinyl overcoats - creating horrifying effect of four inefficiently operating arms! Heroes look like the head puppet from contemporary Saturday morning fave "Fireball X-L5"; they are impossibly square-jawed and blondie-blond. I wanted to beat them half to death myself, with four arms or even just a forearm. The Italian movie has a lot of familiar faces from Euro peplum films of the era, so any minute you expect Steve Reeves to bolt through a scene in his gladiator jock strap. Another element borrowed from those masterpieces is lurid color that seems to jump right through the screen and pound your eyeballs to full-spectrum jelly. An absolute must-see!
Review of The Wild, Wild Planet
