Planeta Bur

Planeta Bur
Cover of the Lenfilm DVD Release
Directed by Pavel Klushantsev[1]
Produced by L. Presnyakova
Vladimir Yemelyanov
Written by Aleksandr Kazantsev
Pavel Klushantsev
Starring Vladimir Yemelyanov
Georgiy Zhzhonov
Gennadi Vernov
Yuri Sarantsev
Georgi Teich
Kyunna Ignatova
Music by Johann Admoni
Aleksandr Chernov
Cinematography Arkadi Klimov
Edited by Volt Suslov
Production
company
Release date
 1962
Running time
 72 min
Country Soviet Union
Language Russian

Planeta Bur (Russian: Планета Бурь) is a 1962 Sovcolor Soviet science-fiction film scripted by Alexander Kazantsev from his novel, and co-scripted and directed by Pavel Klushantsev.[1]

In English, the film is often informally referred to as Planet of the Storms, Planet of Storms, Planet of Tempests, Planeta Burg, and Storm Planet, though it was never actually released in the USA in its original form until the 1990s, via home video. It is better known to American audiences via two American television movies which featured special effects and some primary footage from it: Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women.

Synopsis

Three Soviet spaceships, Sirius, Vega, and Capella, are on their way to the planet Venus. The Capella is struck by a meteorite and destroyed. The remaining two ships, Sirius and Vega, continue on, despite the fact that the planned mission required three ships. A replacement spaceship, the Arcturus, will be sent from Earth, but will not arrive for two months.

The cosmonauts aboard Sirius and Vega decide that some sort of landing and exploration is better than waiting. Ivan and Allan go down from Vega in the glider, leaving Masha in orbit. All contact is lost after they land in a swamp. The Sirius lands nearby and the three-man crew set out in their hovercar to find them.

During their travels they hear an eerie woman's song in the distance and encounter prehistoric beasts both benign and threatening. Ivan and Allan, meanwhile, must fight off some man-sized T. rex-like beasts as they head to meet the men of Sirius. The two fall ill with a fever. Their robot, John, stands watch.

The Sirius crew must submerge their hovercar to escape a pterosaur. In doing so, they discover what might have been an ancient city. Alyosha finds a strange triangular rock and a statue of a pterosaur with rubies for eyes.

Once on dry land, the Sirius crew contact the robot John and tell him to administer an anti-fever drug. Ivan and Allan recover just as a volcano sends down rivers of lava. They order John to carry them across, but he malfunctions halfway there. The hovercar shows up just in time to rescue them while John is lost to the lava.

All five return to Sirius, but worry that Masha had landed the Vega somewhere, stranding them all. An earthquake and flood from rain threaten to strand the Sirius, so they must take off immediately. Alyosha discovers that his odd triangular rock is really a sculpture of a woman's face, proving that there might still be intelligent life on Venus. They blast off and find that Masha remained in orbit and together they head home.

Personnel

Cast

Production Team

Crew

American adaptations

In 1965, producer Roger Corman acquired rights to the Soviet film and gave it to film student Curtis Harrington to prepare for American release. Harrington added several American-made scenes starring Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue, which replaced scenes of two of the Russian cast, and dubbed the rest of the material. The dubbed result, under the name Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, went directly to television via American International Pictures. In the cast and credits, Soviet personnel names were removed; only the crew of Harrington's footage and the dubbing cast were identified. were "renamed" with non-Russian names [1]

In 1968 Peter Bogdanovich (under the name Derek Thomas), again at Corman's behest, created a different American version, adding new scenes involving Mamie Van Doren and several other attractive women in shell brassieres, which was titled Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women; the "new" scenes also included minor footage from another Russian SF film, Mikhail Karyukov's Nebo Zovyot. This version is essentially the first film retold, with the parallel viewpoint of the telepathic women whose god (a pterosaur) is killed by the men from Earth. There is an ironic twist at the end when the women find a new god. This version may have had some limited theatrical release on the drive-in circuits in the American south, but primarily also became a "TV movie" through American International Television.

Reception

In a retrospective on Soviet science fiction film, British director Alex Cox remarked that "in its final minutes, Planet of Storms takes an extraordinary turn. ... I shall not spoil the secret, but it's worth the wait."[2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Евгений Харитонов. Космическая одиссея Павла Клушанцева
  2. ↑ Cox, Alex (June 30, 2011). "Rockets from Russia: great Eastern Bloc science-fiction films". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved August 22, 2016.
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