REMEDIAL SF 101: Queen of Outer Space

In spite of the title...in spite of stealing most of the costumes and props from Forbidden Planet...in spite of some hokey science...in spite of starring Zsa Zsa Gabor as the Chief Scientist...this is actually a pretty good film.
 
It was written by Ben Hecht, one of Hollywood's most prolific and talented screenwriters, with assistance from sci-fi screenwriter Charles Beaumont and comic screenwriter Elwood Ullman.  (If you want your jaw to drop, check out Hecht's Wikipedia biography.  This film is in good company.) 
 
This candy-colored anti-feminist romp seems to be a male fantasy come true.  Four handsome young astronauts (okay, three are good-looking, the fourth is a scientist who looks like Fat Shatner) crash-land on Venus, which is populated solely by goregous babes in miniskirts and high heels.  They got fed up with their menfolk being so warlike, so they banished them all to a penile--er, I mean, penal colony, and have been running things on their own for ten years.
 
Ten...lonnnnng...years...
 
The movie starts off with some rather well-integrated stock footage of rocket tests and launches.  The story is set in the early 1980's, when Earth has a torus ring space station in orbit, the brainchild of Professor Konrad, the Fat Shat lookalike.  Our three astronauts--who were all cast to look like the leads from Forbidden Planet-- are a bit disappointed to learn that their next mission is a "milk run" to ferry the good Professor to the space station.
 
En route, however, they observe strange rays of light or engergy coursing around outside the ship and, to their horror, watch as one of the bolts strikes the space station, blowing it to bits.  A few seconds later, they realize that their space ship is the next target, and despite putting the engines on full thrust, they cannot escape, and sustain damage that sends them careening wildly out of control. 
 
All this before the opening titles (which also mimic the titles from Forbidden Planet.  Noticing a pattern, here?)
 
Film-making note: although they get good marks for using a set on hydraulics to simulate the shaking, and grimace very well to simulate the effects of G-force, it would have been nice had their rocket ship actually resembled, even minimally, the Atlas rocket filmed blasting off from the launch pad.  Instead they re-cycle the rocket model from Paris Playboys, a Bowery Boys comedy.  It's a sleek rocket model.  It's a pretty rocket model.  But it doesn't look a thing like an Atlas.
 
When watching this film, it helps to keep in mind that this was designed to be a satire, but it's played so subtly that huge swathes of plot go by without it giving any hint of being a comedy.
 
Anyway, after what appears to be more stock footage of a probe's fatal encounter with the Moon, they crash-land in a very elaborately-constructed snowfield model, which, sadly, is on screen for all of seven seconds.  The astronauts have no idea where in the galaxy they are, so the Professor suggests they go and explore "below the snowline."
 
Now, only on the Big Island of Hawai'i can a person go from a snow line to a dense jungle within a few hours' walk, but these chaps deduce instead that they're on the planet Venus.  What about Venus being uninhabitable? asks one of the Lieutenants.  The Professor replies that he used to think the same way, but now he's a bit closer to the question--this said as he studies a weird-looking fern.
 
The men notice that they can't hear so much as an insect buzzing in the forest, when suddenly they hear some strange sound which the Professor believes is electronic in nature.  It turns out that it's a security system, which they had triggered, and in the morning, they awaken to find themselves surrounded by a dozen leggy beauties in velour tunics which barely cover their bottoms.  The colors of the tunics have a strange similarity to the red, blue, and gold color scheme used a half-dozen years later by Star Trek.
The gorgeous dames are also armed with disintegrator ray guns (borrowed from World Without End) that make short work of convincing the Earthlings that they should come along quietly "batchino."  Which I take from the context means "RIGHT NOW, DORK!"
 
They are brought to a rather beautiful citadel (if the matte painting is any clue) the interior of which is decorated in pink and blue (so you know it's run by women, you see) and stand around puzzling about their situation in the Audience Chamber as they await the arrival of Yllana, the Queen