Cat-Women of the Moon (1953) User Reviews

It's terrible....and that's why you should see it!

[MartinHafer · 2/10 · 29 December 2008]

CAT-WOMEN OF THE MOON is a truly terrible movie, but it is so bad and so horribly produced that it is a must-see for bad movie fans. In fact, it was so bad that it was the inspiration for the main plot for AMAZON WOMEN ON THE MOON. However, oddly, the plot idea was actually originally in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO GO TO MARS!

The film begins on board a space ship bound for the moon that is captained by the great Sonny Tufts. In typical schlocky sci-fi fashion, the inside of the ship looks ridiculous--with lots of inappropriate equipment, no zero gravity, etc.. However, the real action didn't begin until the ship landed on the moon--at which point it's painfully obvious to everyone but this brain damaged crew that their female crew member (Marie Windsor) is working for the aliens living on the moon. It seems they have used their superior intellects to steer the ship there--in the hope that they could steal the ship and invade the Earth. Considering there only appears to be about four of these "cat women", such an undertaking does seem a bit silly, but this is a film you best watch without thinking too hard! Eventually, after battling horrible giant spiders suspended from very visible wires as well as watching the cat-women's exotic and seductive dance, the humans are able to escape their imprisonment and return to Earth safely--minus one crew member who was stabbed. How did they manage this? Well, one of the men is heard yelling off screen that he killed the cat-women as you hear gun fire! Wow, talk about sparing no expense in the final showdown!!

This film epitomizes schlocky 50s sci-fi. The plot is childish, the sets silly and the space suits comical--so much that the film turns out to be a great comedy--unintentional, of course. Bad, silly, poorly done in every way--this film is one of the worst films of the decade BUT is also strangely campy and worth watching--especially if you are a bad movie freak like me.

PS--I still have no idea what a cat-woman is. The film didn't explain this at all and I saw nothing feline in the film.

Cat Women Bare Their Claws

[bkoganbing · 2/10 · 25 November 2011]

After watching Cat-Women Of The Moon I am convinced that Victor Jory signed for this film so that for once he gets the girl so to speak. The girl is Marie Windsor and she and Jory are part of an expedition of five that are going to the moon.

Armstrong and Aldrin never found anything like what Jory, Windsor, Sonny Tufts, Williams Phipps and Douglas Fowley found. In the caves beneath the surface and just inside the dark side is an Amazonian civilization who haven't seen men in hundreds of years. Despite the obvious things they're missing the women have a high degree of civilization developed and they can communicate with Windsor telepathically which they've been doing even while she was on earth.

Marie is doing her usual thing that she does in all the films she was featured in on earth, lead the men to their doom. The women plan to steal this first spaceship and return to earth to conquer. Their underground atmosphere is petering out and they need air as well as what men can provide.

The only thing of note about this silly film is that it was shot in 3-D and got a bit of box office for that reason. Otherwise it's one hoot of a camp science fiction classic.

Camp 101

[Michael_Elliott · 24 July 2008]

Cat-Women of the Moon (1953)

** (out of 4)

Five astronauts (four men and a woman) land on the moon only to discover that there's oxygen on the thing but not only that but there's some "cat women" who want to steal their ship and go to Earth. For every masterpiece like The Day the Earth Stood Still you had fifty movies like this one and if you have a sense of humor towards bad films then you should enjoy this one. The film runs a very short 63-minutes and it's the type of film where you keep waiting for something to happen and it never does. I'm really not sure what the idea behind this film was other than to cash in on the sci-fi genre as the screenplay offers up nothing. I guess the so-called story deals with the cat women wanting to get back home but none of this really takes place until ten minutes to go and everything leading up to that point is just the astronauts walking around being amazed at what they see. There are some really campy moments including one sequence where the group walks into a cave only to be attacked by giant spiders on strings. Other campy moments include the cat women trying to seduce the men as well as a laughable scene where the astronauts learn that there is oxygen on the moon. Another funny thing is that there are several instances where the astronauts come off so stupid you really have to wonder if they were just homeless men on the street who were picked up and sent on a space mission. Another error happens in the gold cave when the actress accidentally calls the character she's talking to under the actors name. Heck, even future Oscar winner Elmer Bernstein did the score here. If you hate low budget, bad films then you'll hate this one as well but if you like bad movies then there's enough here to make this one "so bad it's good".

Cheesy, dated, fun

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 5 December 2017]

CAT-WOMEN OF THE MOON is one of those cheesy little science fiction flicks of the 1950s about a race of powerful women colonising outer space; they seemed to have designs on the Moon, Mars, anywhere else you can think of. This film's story has the usual group of astronauts heading off to the Moon, where they're captured by a black-clad race of warrior women who have designs of them. A giant spider also pops up at one point. It's all very straightforward and ineffectual, not quite cheesy enough to be a so-bad-it's-good classic, but lively enough that it never becomes a bore. Marie Windsor, of NARROW MARGIN fame, plays one of the crew and is the best thing in it.

When the moon hits your cat like a big baseball bat that's a bad film!

[mark.waltz · 2/10 · 28 September 2015]

Howlingly bad dialogue dominates this obviously intentionally badly made science fiction film about, as the title says, cat women on the moon.with the crew of astronauts lead by Sonny Tufts, Victor Jory, and Marie Windsor, the mission to the moon is about as intelligent as the children's nursery rhyme about the cow who jumped over it. While there are certainly no dish running around with a spoon,the dishes who run around desperate for men look like something that popped out of the air ducts on the Starship Enterprise.as juvenile as the times when Abbott and Costello and the Three Stooges took separate trips to outer space, this up there with some of the worst films ever made. There is a reason why Sonny Tufts is considered one of the worst actors of all time, and his performance here doesn't betray that reputation. Windsor, with her cat like eyes, could have played the leader of the cat women, who plays an Earthling instead. Here she looks like a poor man's Loretta Young, although her hairstyle is closer to June Allyson. The presence of giant spiders bring on laughter, not fear, and I was grateful that I wasn't sipping anything at the time.

The first shot of the cat women is them actually stroking Windsors legs, giving indications that they've made do without men in other ways. Then there are the dwellings of the cat women, replica of ancient cities and looking like something you'd find in a biblical epic rather than in the outer space science fiction movie. what is truly amazing in this film is the fact that the actors actually speak their lines seriously, not even cracking the slightest grin which it would be very difficult for me considering how blame the majority of the dialogue was.so if you are in the mood for something so thoroughly beyond silly, come join the cat women on the moon. This just seems to get more deliberately bad as the film goes on as the moon women get more crazy. One scene involving a stabbing is so phony that I had to rewind it several times to confirm what I had just seen. The writers may have had craters in their head, but I will give them credit for one thing; it is still a slight notch above plan 9 from outer space.

"Yes sir, this is a nice layout!"

[classicsoncall · 3/10 · 8 July 2021]

It's hard to believe grown men and women could take part in a movie this dumb, but a host of character actors from B movies of the Fifties actually signed on to this thing and made a go of it. An early tip off as to how far off the wall this flick is occurs when co-pilot Kip Reissner (Victor Jory) produces a hand gun he brought along on the spaceship for protection, and Helen Salinger (Marie Windsor) whips out a pack of cigarettes! Once on the moon, the Cat Women make their appearance with leader Alpha (Carol Brewster) in charge, explaining her telepathic link with Helen even before the space cadets landed. Throw in a couple giant sized tarantulas and a cave made of gold to whet the appetite of lusty engineer Walt Walters (Doug Fowley), and you've got the makings of a camp classic that just begs for the MST3K treatment. Walters actually had the most prolific line of dialog in the film when he remarked to moon babe Beta (Suzanne Alexander) - "You're too smart for me baby, I like 'em stupid".

1953 must have been a good year for interplanetary space travel movies, with "Abbott and Costello Go To Mars" coming out the same year. That picture also had it's share of beautiful girls who were out of this world, and the boys didn't even have to leave Earth to meet them. It's certainly the better of two movies under consideration here, although both of them on a twin bill would make for an interesting combo.

Woah...

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 25 January 2021]

Any of the women-dominated science fiction societies in films can be traced back to this movie, an independently produced 3D film produced by Jack Rabin and Al Zimbalist (the man who also brought us Robot Monster and King Dinosaur). It was directed by Arthur Hilton, who was better known for his TV career.

Scientists on a trip to the moon find a race of cat-women, the last survivors of a two-million-year-old civilization who live within the caverns of the lunar surface. They have it all - sharp black fashion, great makeup and sweet beehives hairdos. Oh, and a giant moon spider or two to take care of the guys who get in their way.

Their leader, Alpha, has the plan to head to Earth and subliminally control our women, starting with Helen Salinger (Marie Windsor, who was 5'9" and usually towered over the actors she played against), the only woman on the moon mission. After violence doesn't work, seduction pretty much does, which nearly strands the men on the moon. Luckily, one of the cat-women, Lamba (Susan Morrow, Macabre), tells one of the men that she's in love with him but must kill him. Hijinks, as they say, ensue.

This movie recycles the costumes and sets from Project Moonbase and Destination Moon. It's pretty much a green movie, as it was also recycled and remade as Missile to the Moon.

The only thing that can stop the cat-women from building a matriarchal utopia? One American man with a gun. Think that one over as you watch all sixty some-odd minutes of this.

Good Start Unfortunately Collapses

[dougdoepke · 16 June 2018]

Please, if you're an MIT graduate, maybe you can explain the plot to me. Between mysterious feline powers, the Greek alphabet, who wants what, and giant moon spiders, I'm still scratching my head. Okay, after all what can be expected of such a catchpenny title, certainly not Citizen Kane or even Citizen Clunk. Actually, I thought the first part was pretty good, more like Rocketship XM (1950) than a Roger Corman shlock-fest. The rivalries among the rocketship crew are engaging and pretty well done. But then the cast is more distinguished than usual-- Jory, Windsor, Fowley, and Phipps, while even perennial joke Sonny Tufts manages a good turn. But once the ship reaches the moon, things pretty much fall apart. It's like the script has no firm idea of where to go from there; so they make it up as they go along. Whatever the case, the movie's a mess from that point on. Maybe what really bothered me was the cat women had no change into bikinis which I was expecting. The black leotards are form fitting, but why give us a guy-stuff title unless you give us good titillating guy-stuff visuals. Anyway, the movie's too good in the first part, but too bad for most parts to qualify as laughable camp. So I guess I won't be traveling to the cat woman moon, after all.

(In passing-- sadly, actor William Phipps (Doug) passed away just the other day (June, 2018) at age 96! He was merely one of those unsung Hollywood grunts who carry the industry on their backs. RIP, Bill.)

Just terrible but somewhat amusing

[preppy-3 · 1/10 · 25 September 2015]

Bottom of the barrel sci-fi. It's about a manned mission to the moon with three guys and one beautiful woman. You have to love any movie where they land and the first thing the woman does is check her make-up and hair! On the moon they find a race of beautiful women who dress like cats. They treat the men like royalty but secretly plan to steal their rocket, fly to Earth and take over.

It's just bewildering how bad this movie is. The sets are cheap and the special effects are the worst I've ever seen. The "giant" spider was so pathetic I broke out laughing :) Also there's an incredibly fake stabbing and an even worse faked slap. Really rushed ending too. Acting doesn't help. Top billed Sonny Tufts is lousy. Only Marie Windsor gives a good performance. She later admitted this was the only film she was ashamed of...and she was in hundreds of B movies! It's not unwatchable but it's pretty poor. A 1 all the way.

MIS-MATCHED MOVIE MAKING...BRAIN-PAIN PICTURE PERSONIFIED

[LeonLouisRicci · 5/10 · 11 August 2021]

The Actors are Woefully Mis-Cast...

Sonny Tufts and Victor Jory are so Ill-Fitting as Astronauts and Prowling, Pawing Lovers that Their mere Physical Presence on Screen is Jarring.

Marie Windsor, Best Known for Her Femme Fatale and Film-Noirs, such as Kubrick's "The Killing" (1956) and "The Narrow Margin" (1952).

Ditto, is so Out-of Sync as an Astronaut Sci-Fi "Babe" that it Stops the Show Frequently.

The Movie was Made in "3-D", but One is Hard-Pressed to Find Anything "3-D"-ish, other then 1 Shot of an Incoming Meteorite.

The Sets, Space-Suits, and Reason to Exist are Recycled from Other Movies.

There are 2 Noted and Respected Professionals Associated with this Dime-Store-Ditty...

Elmer Bernstein Composed the Score.

Renowned "Space Artist" Chesley Boswell's Moonscapes are Present and Add a Bit of Interesting Aesthetics to the Proceedings.

The Dumb Dialog and other Scripted Expositions are Sophomoric at Best and Unintentionally Humorous Most of the Time.

The Virtually Immobile Horned-Spider-Marionette is a Fan-Favorite.

The Story's Feminist Slant of Powerful Felines, that is Females, Determined to Take-Over and Control Male Domination was a Running Theme of the Sci-Fi-Horror Genres in the 1950's.

It was Trending Against the Grain of the "Sit-Com" Female's Place in Suburban Households being Promoted and Idealized in the Eisenhower Era.

It Adds Up to Gourmet-Ghoulish Dining Served-Up for Hungry Bottom Feeder Fans and Critics.

Some laughs, but not a classic of its genre

[Wizard-8 · 23 February 2010]

"Cat-Women Of The Moon" is an unusual entry in the "male explores find a civilization with women but no men" for a couple of reasons. One is that one of the explorers is a woman, and the other is that it was filmed in 3-D. But nothing much is done with those two bursts of originality - the woman explorer could have been a male with very little rewriting, and there is almost no effort made to exploit the 3-D filming process. (I'm not asking to be hit in the face every few seconds, but some carefully composed shots would have been nice.)

The lazy efforts on those parts can be felt in other parts of the movies. Oh, there are a few things that made me laugh - the interior of the moon rocket, wobbily scenery, people shouting when in their spacesuits, and the "stabbing" scene. But most of the movie is kind of dull. It takes about 2/3 of the movie before the explorers directly interact with the cat women, and before that point (and afterwards), there is talk talk talk, little of which is amusing. I was kind of glad that the movie lasted just barely over an hour, but the ending is so sudden, so "That's it?!?" that part of me wished they went on a little longer to end things properly.

If you want to see a funny example of this genre, I suggest you watch "Queen Of Outer Space".

"You're Too Smart For Me, Baby! I Like 'Em Stupid!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 1 January 2019]

A rocket zips along, hurtling its occupants toward their destination, while they relax in standard issue patio chairs. The interior of the ship resembles an old shed with a few instruments from a high school electronics class. Helen (Marie Windsor) checks her makeup, while the men do man things.

Uh oh!

An emergency nearly scuttles the mission! Thankfully, the rocket is able to land. Awesome spacesuits can only mean that our heroes are about to disembark. Adventure and danger await.

CAT-WOMEN OF THE MOON is gloriously, deliriously ridiculous! From the giant, screeching spider-puppets, to the titular, feline females (played with gusto by The Hollywood Cover Girls), it's a rib-tickling extravaganza! The romance! The jealous rages! Let the lunar cat-dancing begin!

Huzzah!

Heavenly hooey with no meaning whatsoever!...

Technically awfull...however has their enchants this cult trash! !!

[elo-equipamentos · 5/10 · 23 July 2019]

Revisiting this cult trash picture, should be better if they had enough money to fix some blatant flaws, on the Rocket, usual desk office, the chairs weren't duly locked, cigarette on space, a locker room affront our intellect, when Kip (Victor Jory) extinguished the fire on chamber bellow, he climbs the ladder, but he unwittingly hit the head on the roof that moved so easy, probably it was made by wood, should be re-shot, but wasn't, endless incoherence spoils the wisely plot, in other hand it was a enjoyable picture, the storyline is true smart, the dark side of the moon, a cave providing some enough oxygen to able to has a life, ancient people living there for thousand years, the Cat Women has some strange powerful skills, such as mind control, dematerialization process, great awesome sets, innovative approach of a superior human race, sadly it was too sort, just 64 minutes, lack of money to put a better production is my humble understanding, deserves more foundness from the cinephiles, regrettable not available here in Brazil!!!

Resume: First watch: 2015 / How many: 2 / Source: DVD-R / Rating: 5.75

"I love you, Doug, and I must kill you!"

[bensonmum2 · 6/10 · 29 April 2008]

Talk about déjà vu. I feel like I've seen this movie several times recently. It may be older than either Missile to the Moon, Queen of Outer Space, or Fire Maidens from Outer Space, but I saw those first. So for me, watching Cat-Women of the Moon is like watching what is essentially the same movie for the fourth time. And despite the familiarity and a whole slew of other weaknesses, I found myself enjoying it. The 2.5 IMDb rating seems a bit harsh – especially when you consider the rating for Missile to the Moon. Not only does Missile to the Moon follow almost the exact same plot, but it appears to even reuse some of the props (giant puppet spiders) from Cat-Women of the Moon.

The story – five astronauts blast off for the moon only to meet a race of women whose world is slowly being destroyed. The women (known for some inexplicable reason as Cat-Women in this movie) want to use the astronaut's spaceship to take them to Earth to find a new world to conquer.

Maybe I'm just weird, but I get a kick out of some of the same things that a lot of other comments bang on. Weak set design (metal rolling office chairs with a seat belts used in the "spaceship"), poor special effects (once again, the giant puppet spiders), bad acting (could Sonny Tufts be any worse), and bad science (just watch as a cigarette burns on the moon!) – you'll find them all in Cat-Women of the Moon. But it's this naiveté to the whole thing that I can't help but enjoy. It might not be for everyone, but I'll give it a 6/10 even with all its flaws.

The cheesiest of cheesecake but mildly entertaining and surprisingly influential

[jamesrupert2014 · 5/10 · 8 June 2019]

The crew of an atomic rocket to the moon find a dying underground civilization of beautiful, telepathic cat-suited women who harbour nefarious plans for the mother planet. Other than some effective lunar backgrounds (using images created by Chesley Bonestell), the special effects are dire: the rocket's 'atom chamber, sector 5' is a repurposed submarine-movie set (hence the periscope), at least two distinct rocket models are used during the flight, the lunar city is an unconvincing painting decorated with left-over pseudo classical props, and the giant spiders, while endearing, are obviously puppets. The acting is typical for a low-end B-movie, with a somewhat dissolute Sonny Tufts ineffectually barking orders to his nondescript crew. The premise is thin and silly: despite landing on an airless, lifeless orb, the crew (almost sheepishly) take along a revolver, cigarettes, and matches, all of which are later needed to move things along. Fortunately, the perfunctory plot runs its expected course at a brisk pace and the off-camera demise of the conniving cat-women is surprisingly abrupt and mater-of-fact. Despite the daft story and obvious production weaknesses, the film is imaginative with some interesting ideas: engineer Walters (Douglas Fowley) is constantly looking for ways to cash in on space flight (he makes an in-flight plug for an oil company worth "hundreds of thousands"), presaging the flurry NASA-related space-based marketing in the 1960s. 'Cat Women on the Moon' was the first of a series of films featuring a dying civilization of women looking for men to replenish the race and has a slightly harder distaff edge that than later entries: Alpha (Carol Brewster), the lunar leader is an unapologetic tyrant who plans to take over Earth by controlling women's minds and subjugating men, and then ensuring only girl babies are produced (clearly a plan with some long-term flaws). Any feminist agenda in the film is undercut by the figure-hugging lunar lingerie sported by the titular felines, the negation of Alpha's telepathic control over Earth-women Helen (Marie Windsor) when the latter is holding hands with the man she loves, and one of the classic moments of 'women in space': the first thing Helen does after surviving the crushing acceleration of Earth departure is to get out her make-up mirror and touch-up her hair-do. The score is by soon-to-be A-lister Elmer Bernstein (or Bernstien as he is credited) who, grey-listed for possibly being a commie, wasn't in a position to be picky about the projects he took on. The music is reminiscent of that in the legendarily awful 'Robot Monster' (1953), which was also scored by the struggling impresario. The plot (such as it is) and some of the props were partially recycled as 'Missile to the Moon' (1958), an inferior remake with all of the weaknesses of its antecedent and none of the novelty. While cheap and silly, 'Cat Women on the Moon' is watchable fluff and noteworthy for birthing the subgenre that gave us, among others, the classic Zsa Zsa Gabor opus 'Queen of Outer Space' (1958) and the bottom-of-the-barrel 'Fire Maidens from Outer Space' (1956).

Very few laughs to be had in this z-grade junk.

[Infofreak · 2 January 2003]

'Cat-Women of the Moon' has a reputation as one of the worst science fiction movies ever made, and it probably is. It's certainly one of the dullest, with very few laughs to be had. The legendary Sonny Tufts leads a cast which includes future Kubrick star Marie Windsor and Victor Jory who went on to 'Papillon'. The three play crew members of a space ship lured to the Moon where much to their (and supposedly our) surprise they find a civilization of exotic dancers, err "cat-women", whatever. The movie goes for just over an hour but it seems like three. Not even some ridiculous giant spiders can make this z-grade junk watchable. A movie to sit through once and once only.

Inadvertently funny...

[JoeB131 · 5/10 · 14 December 2008]

One might remember the parody "Amazon Women on the Moon". It made fun of all those 1950's films where astronauts travel to a body in the solar system and discover a race of women with no men (and therefore, no standards, to a 1950's Sci-Fi geek, a true paradise.)

This was the first such film, and many of the elements Amazon did for fun were originated here. The moon with a breathable atmosphere, a crewman looking for a way to satisfy his greed only to lead to his demise. Fem-aliens who do exotic group dances like showgirls for no apparent reason. (Incidently, it is interesting in how standards for erotic have changed. these gals are much chunkier in the hips and smaller in the bosoms than their contemporary counterparts.)

This film is cheesy fun, and if you approach it from that point of view, you can enjoy it.

True, good Science Fiction was being made about this time, like "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "War of the Worlds". But sometimes the cheese stands alone.

Find Something Else to watch

[arthur_tafero · 1/10 · 27 July 2018]

Anything else. This film is kaka. There was a reason this civilization was on the dark side of the moon; it was meant never to be seen. Early sexploitation of sci-fi, exceeded in bad taste only by Flying Saucers Over Istanbul (really, there was a movie by that name; the worst film ever made). Victor Jory was dead three years before this film was made; they just used his corpse...oh wait, that was the talented Victor Jory. Maybe this was another man by the same name.

Some mild quality + some questionable content = passing amusement

[I_Ailurophile · 5/10 · 10 November 2021]

It says so much about the production that an early scene in which a character ascends a ladder is capped off by the actor hitting his head on the ceiling of a chamber in the spaceship - at which point the ceiling very obviously moves. The film is easily dated: black and white photography, meager practical or special effects and props, characters and dialogue written from a male-centric perspective on gender, and so on. 'Cat-women of the moon' is direly ham-handed, as one would surely expect of a genre picture from the 1950s. Still, if you can overlook the indelicacies of the timeframe, this isn't half bad.

The set design is actually quite fine, and I appreciate the consideration for details like hair, makeup, and costume design. Though coerced into a certain overtness by the writing and direction, I think the assembled actors give performances that are quite suitable. It's noteworthy that celebrated film composer Elmer Bernstein wrote the score for this slice of cinematic tomfoolery, one of his earliest credits in a long and fruitful career. The music undeniably echoes similar sci-fi fare of the era, but - though I admit bias - I think there's a subtlety and cleverness that shows the beginnings of what Bernstein would go on to achieve.

The scene writing and overall narrative are terribly gauche, but not outright terrible; I've borne witness to far worse screenplays. You'll never see me call this "great," however. Because for whatever strength there is in the concept, 'Cat-women of the moon' also creates a distinct dichotomy in which men are heroes, and strong, independent women are villains. But oh, wait, of course the power of love can overcome the influence of evil. Moreover, the climax is written and executed with extreme, curt, unconvincing inauthenticity, and at that, there are no surprises here - the plot is very predictable. Were this movie made in the 70s or later, one could easily imagine more inventive, subversive directions the tale may have taken - but with rare exception, we just weren't going to get that in the 50s.

Not absolutely bad, but not really good, the movie just languishes somewhere in the unremarkable middle. Surprisingly, there's enough here to keep us mildly engaged and amused, but I think it would be a stretch to claim any greater sense of entertainment. There's no reason to seek out 'Cat-women of the moon' (and no, there are no actual felines here), but so long as you can abide dubious writing and the shortcomings of the decade's technical craft, there are worse ways to spend an hour.

cretin comedy dressed up as a humorous fairy tale

[Cristi_Ciopron · 4/10 · 7 December 2015]

This is the movie where Jory and Marie Windsor are in love; he's in very fine shape, though perhaps just a bit put off by the undignified slapdash, yet at ease.

At 1st, I believed they supposed that the Moon had atmosphere and gravity, since the crew members could hear each other and were walking normally, there was the cigarette gimmick; but then it turns out they're surprised there's oxygen, atmosphere and gravity. Later, there's a scene with the sky with clouds.

The architecture on the Moon is ancient European, and Asian.

But the movie, meant occasionally humorous, is, despite three actors, in the hands of the cretins. And these cretins are worse than indifferent: they are wrong, and their minds are sleazy. The storyline has two ideas which could have worked: one is generic (the fight with the spiders), and it failed; the other one, the objects (the cigarettes, the gun, the box). Women are cats because they are sneaky. They also look like cabaret fetishist fantasies. The result of the travel to the Moon is that the Terrestrials loose the engineer, but murder all the Moon survivors. The story ends with the swiping out of the last Moon people. Greed and altruism alike lead to death. The matter of this tale is sleaze.

'Cat-Women …' is watchable, because it's moderately amusing, the actors save it (though Marie Windsor seemed to go with the bombast of the thing); the scenes in the Moon city are the less appealing. The producers tried to bluff it somehow, giving clumsiness as nonchalance. It's a bombastic movie, deprived of any emotion, an outing of uninspired hacks; and there's shamelessness in this absence of any affection or care for their movie. There's no thrill, no dramatic drive, no suspense whatsoever. The fact that the scenes, the dialogs are contrived has nothing to do with the budget. It's badly scripted and badly directed (but nicely acted and scored): the encounter with the giant spiders didn't need to look so ridiculous, and the cat-women themselves, and the seductions, and the ciphered dance. Because there are some silly inadvertence, some wish to attribute most of the movie to thoughtlessness; but this is to misinterpret the movie, which actually indulges in goofiness, in word-plays, etc.. Some things aren't errors, but meant to be amusing (the cigarettes, the gun and the box, which are funny, good for characterization (the copilot is brave and combative, the woman is addicted, unreliable, manipulated, vulnerable, the 3rd person is greedy and selfish), and later useful (the gimmick with the cigarette, the gun-play); Jory anxious to find out whom does Marie Windsor love). This might not be top humor, but shouldn't all be attributed to carelessness and stupidity.

Jory has a love scene with Marie Windsor.

It's also a cautionary tale. Tufts and the engineer fall prey to the crassest seduction, the pilot is practically degraded by his misconduct; and the one who wishes to be shown the golden cave is the most severely punished.

'I'll show you the cave of gold.'

"You can't turn love on and off like a faucet"

[hwg1957-102-265704 · 5/10 · 21 October 2021]

It's either a bad movie that some people dislike for certain reasons or a bad movie that some people like for the same reasons. Admittedly not a good movie but I liked Elmer Bernstein's musical score (some pretty tinkling), Chesley Bonestell's atmospheric moonscape paintings and Marie Windsor's astronaut Helen Salinger lured to the moon by the mewing of the titular cat-women. Ms. Windsor was always watchable in whatever film she was in. Other members of the cast include Sonny Tufts as the very laid back commander and contrastingly Victory Jory as the intense second in command. The cat-women looked nice but acted poorly. Definitely worthy to be a cult film.

Surprise and danger on the Moon

[chris_gaskin123 · 7/10 · 13 April 2005]

Cat-Women of the Moon is another of those movies that is so-bad-it's-good. I quite enjoyed it.

A crew of five people, four men and one woman go on an expedition to the Moon and during this expedition, they face several dangers including meteorites, giant spiders and the Cat-Women. These people plan to hijack the ship and take over Earth! All are killed at the end and a member of the crew dies too.

The special effects on the Moon are actually quite good considering the very low budget. The music score is by Elmer Bernstein, who of course went on to do the music for huge hits like The Magnificent Severn and The Great Escape. Well, he had to start somewhere!

The cast includes Sonny Tufts (Serpent Island), Marie Windsor (The Jungle, The City That Never Sleeps), Victor Jory and The Hollywood Cover Girls as the Cat-Women.

Another thing: Cat-Women of the Moon certainly has nothing to do with the 2004 movie Catwoman, so don't expect to see Halle Berry!

This is a must for any 1950's sci-fi or bad movie fan. Great fun.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

Great Cinema!

[artzau · 10/10 · 9 March 2001]

Don't believe the detractors. This is great cinema. See Marie Windsor (Always worth the price of admission), Victor Jory as a good guy (with his constant 'I'm a bit constipated,' broken smile) and catch a glimpse of rich boy turned bad boy Sonny Tufts (scion of the Tufts family of Tufts University fame)on the down slide from hero roles of the late 40s. The F/X are dazzling, the ... well, OK. It's, shall we say, not quite up to some of the other sci-fi thrillers of that era, e.g., When Worlds Collide, War of the Worlds, From the Earth to the Moon, Rocket X-9, the Man from Planet X, etc., but it's a lot friendlier. And, the cat ladies dancing are great too. This movie is fun...and Marie Windsor is still a delight to see!

Lame little low-buck sci-fi flick

[bux · 2/10 · 11 November 1998]

Things begin going downhill at break-neck speed about the time our hero is forced to wrestle what is obviously a giant rubber spider. While the idea that the dark side of the moon resembles Hugh Heffner's penthouse is appealing, this is one of those movies, made in the early 50s, that made an evening at home in front of the TV seem like a better choice. The FX, such as they are, are transparent, almost as much as the acting. I suppose this could be a 'good watch' if one wanted to see what we had out there during that time frame. This picture was released both in 3D and 'flat' simultaeneously, so Dad took us to see it twice, so we could 'compare.' I think he really just had a thing for the lovely Ms. Windsor.