Mighty Movie Podcast

Mighty Movie Podcast


Temple of Bad: MARS NEEDS WOMEN

January 04, 2013

Hello, Cleveland!: Tommy Kirk (second from left) rocks a spandex outfit with gaffer's tape accents in a dramatic moment from MARS NEEDS WOMEN.


Oh, the Sixties, was there a way in which you weren’t one of our most fraked-up decades? War, assassinations, riots in the streets, MY MOTHER THE CAR on TV — never was there a time when it more seemed that society was shredding at the seams. Fortunately, director Larry Buchanan, the mastermind behind such cinematic spectacles as ZONTAR: THE THING FROM VENUS and ATTACK OF THE THE EYE CREATURES (Wiki it), was willing to tackle the tumult head-on, countering the rise of women as a political force with a clutch of Martians, including Disney escapee Tommy Kirk, who are seeking out a small sampling of the fairer sex — a grouping that includes soon-to-be-Batgirl Yvonne Craig — purely for their function as prime breedin’ stock./Yes, it’s the science fiction classic MARS NEEDS WOMEN, and new novitiate Steve Biodrowski joins seasoned celebrants Andrea Lipinski, Kevin Lauderdale, and Dan Persons in the Temple of Bad as they explore how leering double entendres, broken tape recorders, and many, many close-ups of P.A. systems could be rallied to create one of the most potent, cinematic documents of those troubled times. If you ignore SEVEN DAYS IN MAY. And WOODSTOCK. And DOCTOR STRANGELOVE. And pretty much everything else. (Yeah, MY MOTHER THE CAR included.)