Mars Needs Women

Mars Needs Women is as bad or as good as its title suggests--either way, you're going to marvel at this mess-terpiece. The red planet has a female shortage due to "a critical recession of the Y chromosome," so Tommy Kirk (stalwart of '60s Disney flicks) leads a trio of fellow Martians to recruit fertile Earth chicks, including a stripper (of course), a stewardess (er, flight attendant), and a brainy reporter (the latter played by Yvonne Craig of "Batgirl" fame). Filmed in Texas on a budget of (apparently) a few hundred bucks, this bad-movie milestone incorporates Air Force archival footage, a time-capsule glimpse of Dallas nightlife (you'll spot The Fortune Cookie on a marquee), and plenty of Martian snobbery about "the environmental naiveté of the Earthmen." To say it's all a hoot is an understatement; Mars Needs Women is an enduring artifact of the pre-Easy Rider era--a drive-in disaster that won't (and shouldn't) go away. --Jeff Shannon