"Probably just a touch of Space Madness." "It ain't true, there can't be another world in the bowels of the moon. / That's exactly what it is." Well first of all if you're one who expects to be entertained by the movies you watch, don't expect that here. In light of the over-all lameness of this movie you'd be much better off looking else where."Cat Women of the Moon" is an early entry in the Sci-Fi genre and unfortunately once you get past the snappy title, this film has very little to offer it's audience. As you'll quickly deduce this is a Sci-Fi adventure film of very modest make, it was filmed in black and white on a minimal budget and runs in at just over an hour in length. Having little in the way of frills, Cat Women of the Moon generates very little in terms of excitement or intrigue and ultimately it fails to make much of an impression. Though in it's favor it does star the lovely Mary Winsor (who no doubt was cast because of her distinctive cat-like eyes) and upon it's release in 1953 I have no doubt that this movie was thought of as being "hi-tech" or "cutting-edge", but by the standards of today the outlook is not too favorable, due to the fact that absolutely everything about it looks laughably dated; and to say that it shows it's age (antiquity) is an understatement. Having recently seen this little bit of badly-dated Sci-Fi cheese/throw-away entertainment, it would seem to me that most of it's budget went into the sets and honestly speaking for a low-budget Sci-Fi film from the early 50's they look pretty good, which includes a modestly impressive rocket-ship control-room and an opulent palace set made of white marble columns and a checkerboard floor. The cast of Cat Women of the Moon is capable one, but hardly distinctive, the film features a small gaggle of B-lister's who aren't anything remotely memorable and who are for the most part completely interchangeable, with the exception of the distinctively unique beauty Mary Winsor. If one were to speak of the movies atmosphere and mood Cat Women of the Moon seems to project a cold and sparse atmosphere, which to me has a look and feel to it that is very similar to that of an early black and white episode of Star Trek (which this film predates by several years). For the added element of tension, there is dissension among certain members of the crew and it's chain of command is often in question. Also tucked into the flow of things is the spark of romance, which as you'll see blossoms into a sort of "lunar-based love triangle", which all to predictably involves Mary Winsor's fetching character. If there's one scene that I must mention specifically it would have to be the scene involving the giant lunar spiders. This is some really pathetic stuff right here, first off these so called spiders are hilariously cheap and fake looking and secondly once they've been dropped to the ends of their strings they exhibit very little in the way of movement. Apparently the films director thought by merely adding lots of shrill yelling and lot's commotion (and by underlying the scene with a cartoon "tippy-toe" sound-effect, combined with Bernstein's music which kicks into high-gear), that the sound aspect of the film would distract the viewers attention away from the ridiculously phony-looking giant spiders. In any case, it didn't work and apart from that laughably lame minute's worth of cheap frills, this film has precious few in the way of stand-out scenes.Now on a musical note this movie is great and it's score is easy it's strongest point. For this particular Sci-Fi excursion, it's producers secured the services of the famed Hollywood-maestro Elmer Bernstein (Cat Women of the Moon is only one of several Sci-Fi films he would go on to score throughout his long career) and ultimately Bernstein put together an extremely catchy and impressively varied score. One which, as these ears hear it at least, is way "too good" for this otherwise completely unremarkable movie.Sadly what you have here with "Cat Women of the Moon" is a bad movie (which is also very dated), with great music and going by that logic it would seem that Elmer Bernstein is the films real star.

"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".

I picked up a copy of this because of its alleged stereoscopic content. Much of the tape had such poor registration that the stereo effect was lost. A couple of scenes were close enough so that one could see a little depth, but not most of them.In the copy of the Rhino videotape, there was the tape and two sets of anaglyph glasses. For standard color anaglyph presentations, the left filter is red; the right, blue or cyan (or sometimes green). This one has it reversed, and on the glasses it says to use them in the red-right orientation to see this film, and the standard way to see Robot Monster or The Mask. Well, it's cheaper than redoing the film recording, but if they'd done that, they might have avoided the misalignment.The film story is pretty weak, and rather silly. In the opening scene, the rocket, which looks similar to a radiator hood ornament, is blasting along, and someone at White Sands is trying to contact the ship. The crew starts to recover from ... what? ... the strain of takeoff? ... without responding for the longest time. Eventually, the commander responds with the equivalent of, "We're okay, now shut up." The rest of the crew objects so strongly that he lets each one of them report his or her conditions, but advises them to keep it short.As has been observed, the command area of the ship employs office furniture. Each crewmember has a locker, like those found at high schools.When they go to explore the lunar landscape, it's interesting to see that the space suits are of two different designs. How hot the lunar surface is can be seen by dropping a cigarette onto the surface, where it bursts into flame. Pretty good trick for a part of the moon that ostensibly had no atmosphere.The technical gaffes ... no, make them howlers ... are so great that it propels the film immediately from science fiction into pure fantasy. Children's fantasy at that.This is not a film to be taken seriously. If you like honest camp, though, you might find it fun.

What we have here is a good old 50's sci-fi B movie that's a great example of the expression "It's so bad it's good". The conflict here is that when this movie was made, it was meant to be serious stuff. Man breaking the confines of the earth, exploring the moon and encountering hostile alien life forms. It's not exactly how the movie seems today. You have a hard time taking a space ship equipped with lockers, a desk, and old office chairs too seriously. There are all sorts of scientific bloopers in this film. Three men and a woman embark to land and explore the moon. What last minute preparations do you make? Well, naturally the woman has to fix her hair and another astute astronaut is thinking of selling souvenirs when he gets back home. It gets even funnier; they bring along cigarettes and for protection against who knows what, a revolver. The conversations are equally amusing. They sound as if the space explorers were picked up off the streets and asked, hey! you want to go on a trip to the moon? The landscapes and backgrounds are mostly painted but actually they did a pretty good job at that. They're not bad at all. Times have changed though and this film doesn't quite hit the mark that it was once intended to attain. If you try watching this as a serious sci- fi drama, You will be extremely disappointed. You can find faults and pick this movie apart until it is shredded to bits and you would be rightfully so in doing it. I suggest watching it with the understanding that it's a part of sci-fi movie history. View it with an easygoing fun attitude. Look for the blunders. Laugh at the cheapness and corny dialogue. How can you not love a line like, "You're too smart for me, baby, I like em stupid". I mean, come on, it was made in 1953 and the title is "Cat-Women of the Moon" what do you really expect? It's a fun movie. Relax and enjoy it for what it is.