Eros was a typical British B movie production/distribution outfit of the 1950s who naturally drifted towards horror and sci-fi, a field in which their output ranges from the highly-regarded Fiend Without a Face to cheap, cheerful and not very highly-regarded films which is where 1957’s The Woman Eater (mad scientist and bongo playing ‘native’ feed buxom women to a carnivorous tree) and this comes in.
In keeping with the British B movie producer’s optimistic reasoning that casting an overseas lead will ensure a worldwide sale here we have American actor Anthony Dexter as the leader of a group of astronauts sent into space to explore the thirteenth moon of Jupiter. The rest of the crew consists of British actors saddled with false American accents. They’re not that bad considering, even if it is slightly odd seeing Harry Fowler who specialised in playing Cockney wide-boy types sprouting Americanisms. The blurring of US and British origins also extends to the awkward opening in which stock footage of a plane is captioned ‘New Mexico’ and ‘New York City’, meaningless name dropping considering the plane in question is on the way to London, where the subsequent space mission is inter-cut with scientists chain smoking and trying to look concerned at the ‘American British Astronomical Station’. British Sci-Fi films from the 50’s/60’s have a reputation for being notoriously dull (Stranger from Venus, The Body Stealers, They Came from Beyond Space, Spaceways immediately spring to mind) and the first twenty minutes of Fire Maidens from Outer Space doesn’t bode well with the director’s idea of excitement consisting of the ship bound cast watching a large screen meant to be showing them the wonders of the cosmos outside. `Reminds me of my wife when she’s mad’ remarks one of the astronauts after witnessing a meteor storm. By the time they touch down on the thirteenth moon of Jupiter things seem to get more interesting though and it also becomes clear that Fire Maidens from Outer Space is a sci-fi film that due to lack of funds or lack of imagination contains very little by way of sci-fi trappings. HQ keeps in touch with the spaceship via a standard telephone and the men don’t even have spacesuits. Even so nothing can prepare you for the shock that the thirteenth moon of Jupiter looks exactly like a beauty spot in the leafy English countryside -somewhere in Surrey being the most likely locale- with absolutely no attempt made to evoke an alien terrain. `The atmosphere on the thirteenth moon of Jupiter is similar to that on Earth’ comments one of the men, never have truer words been said.
Another plus for the men is that the planet is populated by the titular fire maidens who’ll throw themselves at any passing astronaut (`by the law of Atlantis I am yours’) and do much posing and running about on cardboard sets. Their leader Prasus claims to be descended from the last survivor of the city of Atlantis. He’s an old goat who has clearly been putting it about a bit, since the fire maidens- all 16 of them -are meant to be his daughters. Contemplating a vulgar painting of a blonde starlet that looks as if it belongs at the front of a strip-club, he then -with a remarkably straight face- tells the astronauts `she was my mother’s mother’. Prasus is portrayed as a bit of a drunk- giving a rousing speech then collapsing into an alcoholic stupor- a character trait possibly introduced to ease over some shameful overacting. In an unexpectedly highbrow touch the fire maidens also perform ballet –and remarkably well it has to be said- to Borodin’s Polovetsin Dances. Thankfully a mutant, or rather `the man with the head of a beast’ is also on hand to terrorise Planet Surrey and bring some much needed dramatic conflict inbetween bouts of Borodin.
Needless to say Fire Maidens from Outer Space is an absolute hoot, not played completely for comedy, but not without a sense of its own absurdity either. After Prasus tells the men of his Atlantis origins one of them accurately notes `this guy’s batty’. In its own coy, Playboy hidden inside a copy of a scientific journal way this is also the 1950’s predecessor to The Sexplorer and especially Michael Cort’s Zeta One. All short skirts and blank expressions the alien beauties come across like cocktail hostesses and accordingly the men behave more like slimy bachelors on the prowl than astronauts. The men are fairly contradictorily characters actually, spending much of the film eying up the women and making crass comments yet when it is suggested they could help repopulate the fire maiden’s race one of them protests `wait a minute I’m a happily married man’. Social historians will have a field day analysing the film in terms of 1950’s sexual politics, everyone else will be intrigued as to how Prasus has managed to father 16 daughters despite the notable absence of any mothers of the fire maidens from outer space.
