El Planeta de las Mujeres Invasoras

aka Planet of the Female Invaders

1967
Written by Emilio Gómez Muriel and Alfredo Ruanova
Directed by Alfredo B. Crevenna

Space ladies have come to Earth, and they’ve come for our m- lungs. They’ve come for our lungs. Not just our lungs, but the lungs of tiny tots, because kid lungs are the best, having not been ruined by decades of smoking (Hey, this is the 1960s!) Once full of Earth Kid Lungs, the Space Ladies will then take over the planet, because what else are you going to do after you steal lungs from a bunch of kids, open an accounting office? Please, like you would get any business, and you’d have to deal with angry mom groups protesting all the time. At least until you blast them with your satellite-directed murder ray. But I digress, the important thing is we got us a cool film with Space Ladies and it’s funky and amazing and direct from Mexico.

El Planeta de las Mujeres Invasoras is a direct sequel to Gigantes Planetarios, including the same main cast, and even being slightly mirrored to its predecessor (as discussed in the review of Gigantes Planetarios!) But El Planeta de las Mujeres Invasoras is more fun, has cooler alien enemies, cooler costumes, cooler threats, and even is better written. The ladies do their deeds under the orders of an evil queen, but she has her own problems, a good identical twin who acts as a moral taunt. The Queen cannot bring herself to kill her sister, because of an old superstition that twins share the same soul, and if one is killed, the other will die. So Alburnia gets to be free, much to the annoyance of Queen Adastrea.

El Planeta de las Mujeres Invasoras is much more well known than its predecessor, largely due to the presence of Lorena Velázquez, Elizabeth Campbell, and Maura Monti as Space Ladies walking around in short shorts and wearing funktacular space helmets that make Daft Punk wish they were cool. The eye candy helped boost the film’s prominence both at home and outside Mexico as it became a cult title.

Part of the fun of El Planeta de las Mujeres Invasoras comes from the goal of the Space Ladies not being anything releated to finding husbands or needing men in order to repopulate their all-female society. They just want some body parts so they can take over the planet. The men are barely an afterthought. Daniel Wolf and the criminal vie for Queen Adastrea’s feelings (Daniel Wolf doing so while under cover), but her interest in them is partially business related (they will aide the invasion) and she only shows feelings towards Wolf’s character. It could be excised entirely with only a few changed lines.

If you only have time to watch one of the pair, El Planeta de las Mujeres Invasoras is the better choice, but you should make time for La Nave de los Monstruos/Ship of Monsters as it manages to out crazy both of these films, in the best possible way.

Alfredo B. Crevenna was a German director who left Germany in 1938, and at first attempted to get work in the US. After being unable to secure a visa, he immigrated to Mexico and worked on film there, though not without interference from the US. He went on to work on over 150 films, covering a wide variety of genres, from dramas to comedies to lucha libre to horror. Some of his more fantastic works include Santo Contra la Invasion de los Marcianos, Neutron vs. the Maniac, and Adventure at the Center of the Earth. A cool biography about him can be found here.

Queen Adastrea (Lorena Velázquez) – Queen of Sibila who is preparing an expedition to Earth to take over and leave their dying world. To do so they need the lungs of healthy children. Has a twin sister Alburnia, who she doesn’t kill due to an ancient belief that twins share the same soul and if one dies, so does the other. Alburnia (Lorena Velázquez) – The good twin in that she’s not doing evil things and acts as Adastrea’s conscience. Both parts are played by Lorena Velázquez, but she gives each one distinct slight mannerisms to where you can tell them apart even after they’ve switched clothes. Lorena Velázquez, a former Miss Mexico (second place in 1958, winning in 1960), who refused to represent Mexico in the Miss Universe pageant (I could not find out why!) She is a second generation film performer, the daughter of actor Víctor Velázquez (and older sister of actress Teresa Velázquez.) Lorena Velázquez was also one of Las Luchadoras (appearing inThe Wrestling Women vs. The Aztec Mummy), as well as Santo Contra los Zombies, Santo vs. las Mujeres Vampiro, and La Nave de los Monstruos. Martesia (Elizabeth Campbell) – One of the first wave of Space Ladies sent to Earth, captures the initial batch of humans that includes Silvia and Marcos. Helps abduct a school full of children. Elizabeth Campbell was an actress who gained fame in the Mexican film industry in the 1960s. There is a lack of information on her before she entered the Mexican film industry in 1961, and what happened after she departed in 1968. Elizabeth Campbell was one of Las Luchadoras, known in the US as the Wrestling Women, in films like The Wrestling Women vs. The Aztec Mummy. She can also be seen in Operación 67, and Peligro…Mujeres en Acción. Eritrea (Maura Monti) – One of the first wave of Space Ladies sent to Earth, captures the initial batch of humans that includes Silvia and Marcos. Helps abduct a school full of children. Maura Monti was an Italian model/actress who gained fame in the Mexican cinema scene during the 1960s. She’s probably best known for her role as Batwoman in La Mujer Murciélago, as well as appearances in Santo Contra la Invasion de los Marcianos, The Vampires, La Muerte en Bikini, Con Licencia Para Matar, and SOS Conspiracion Bikini Professor Daniel Wolf (Guillermo Murray) – The famous professor is back, now more famous than ever. He’s once again tricking space women into trusting him with his fake bad boy persona, and defeating alien invasion threats. Silvia (Adriana Roel) – Daniel Wolf’s secretary is still his secretary, but now she’s dating Marcos. But their first date results in them both being kidnapped by aliens! That’s like the fifth worst first date I’ve seen. Marcos Godoy (Rogelio Guerra) – Marcos has restarted his boxing career, but now instead of throwing fights, he just takes money for throwing fights and scams the scammers. This is sort of dumb, as now they want him dead. But at least he gets a date with Silvia, before that whole being kidnapped by aliens thing happens. Rey Taquito (José Ángel Espinosa “Ferrusquilla”) – The manager is slightly more respectful now, in that he’s still doing bad stuff but feels guilty about it. Alerts Professor Wolf to Marcos and Silvia’s kidnapping and joins the trip to go rescue them.

The terrible truth on where migraines come from!

Space Ladies Eritrea and Martesia land on Earth at a fair that’s closed for the day, head to the “Ride to the Moon” ride, and zap the operators with their lasers! They’ve taken over the ride. Space alien carnival hijacking, that’s not the kind of thing you expect to see in a movie, but when it happens, you got to admire it!

Tonight is Marcos’s return to the boxing ring (boxing is to these films like wrestling is to a lucha libre film, it just has to feature it!), and he’s all hyped up, enough he asks Silvia on a date. She accepts, provided he wins the fight. Which is unfortunate, because he’s also accepting a huge bribe to throw the fight, a bribe the idiot mob guy pays upfront. Marcos declares he’s an “honest fraudster!” You are correct in assuming Marcos wins and the mob goons are upset. Their first attempt to kill them is to just fire their guns randomly without even aiming in his direction, then not even chasing after when he runs.

Not far, as Marcos still goes on his date with Silvia, to the fair. The very fair where the Space Ladies are. To the very ride the Space Ladies have hijacks. They’re joined on board by a family with a young boy, and three mob goons who are itching to kill Marcos. Luckily, the Space Ladies take over and they all fly away.

Taquito tells Professor Daniel Wolf what is up, and Wolf uses a computer to somehow see the UFO in deep space. He figures out they are going to planet Sibila! Luckily, Wolf also has cameras on Sibila that transmit to Earth faster than the speed of light, so he sees the ship arrive in real time. Despite all this, their ship from the last film is still being repaired, so they have to wait a bit before they can chase after them. It’s non-urgent urgency of the finest form!

On planet Sibila, it’s the Planet of Eternal Light, thus everyone has to wear eye protection or you’ll go blind. Just like in real life during the day. Queen Adastrea tells them they are all captives, and resistance is futile, else you face the necroluminic spears of her guards. The entire planet Sibila is all women, and all of them seem to be employed by Queen Adastrea as guards. What exactly they are guarding the Queen from is never explained. In addition, there is a mandatory siesta period during the brightest part of the day. The only one not employed by the Queen is Queen Adastrea’s identical twin sister, Alburnia.

The captives are shown to their quarters, where in their room the Queen lectures them via a huge viewscreen Big Brother style, telling them she’s in charge and they are her slaves, and to be nice OR ELSE!! At times all we see of the Queen is her eye or mouth, giving the screen an avant guard feel.

The Space Ladies remove the lungs of one of the mob goons, who was shot by their weapons for pulling a gun. A second mob goon then flees, running outside without any eye protection, which causes him to go blind and he’s bleeding all over his chest for reasons unknown. Anyway, he’s recaptured and gets his lungs ganked as well.

The Space Ladies want the lungs so they can go to Earth and take over, as their planet sucks, what with the blinding sun and boredom. Queen Adastrea and her twin Alburnia argue, Alburnia condemning her sister’s recent actions. Alburnia befriends the captives, especially Silvia and Marcos. Alburnia will sneak her confidant Fitia back to Earth with a message for Professor Wolf – To bring eye guards and nuclear weapons to rescue the prisoners. Queen Adastrea retaliates by sending Eritrea and Martesia to go gun Fitia down. Eritrea and Martesia are equipped with the lungs taken from the two dead gangsters, so have all the time in the world to track down Fitia, who has but a limited time before her lungs fail on Earth.

Fitia’s quest ends in disappointment, Professor Wolf’s house is empty, her note is destroyed by Eritrea and Martesia, and when she’s found hiding in the trunk of Wolf’s car by Taquito, she dies before she can deliver her message. But we got to see Space Ladies running around, so it’s not a total loss. Even still, Eritrea and Martesia discover their adult lungs will eventually fail, and the Space Ladies deduce that only the lungs of kids will work as permanent solutions. Luckily, they kidnapped a young kid already…

By now Professor Wolf and Taquito are on their way, the Queen first letting their ship land, believing the inhabitants will be destroyed. But they are okay, and Taquito and Wolf pretend to be hard edge men wanted for crimes on Earth and eager to team up with the planet here. The Queen is taken by Daniel Wolf (much to the chagrin of the surviving mobster, who has tried to become part of her crew), and Wolf pretends to not know any of the captives, but does communicate with them in code. Their secret meeting is being watched, but somehow the Queen can’t hear the very loud whispers of information, thus she now trusts Wolf completely.

The Queen shows off her satellite weapons, with deflects blasts from the Thunder Ray to targets on Earth. Eritrea and Martesia are instructed to kidnap 20 Earth children, and kill all adults they encounter. We get some cool satellite sniping scenes where teachers are picked off via pinpoint accurate Thunder Rays, and Eritrea and Martesia command the children to go with them. The kids do, because they are dumb.

The humans try to escape (except the criminal, who goes turncoat) Eventually, they manage to capture the Queen, and pull a switcheroo with the good sister Alburnia dresses as her as they sneak into the castle and soon kill Eritrea and Martesia via Thunder Ray, and blast the guards who come in. The heroes head to the rocket to escape the planet, but the Queen confronts her sister. Both refuse to kill each other due to superstition, but the mobsters shoots Alburnia. Which causes Queen Adastrea to also die, because that’s the rules. Just ask any twin.

As we are out of Space Ladies, it’s time to return to Earth, until our next adventure!

Oh, there are no more adventures. But there is plenty other Mexican Science Fiction, so that will be our next Adventure, here on TarsTarkas.NET!

Rated 8/10 (bad goon, art deco, Maltese Falcon??, deflection time, cave hiding, rocket landing, and the children shall lead by having their lungs ripped out, terror of knowing there won’t be another sequel)

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