February 6

Happy Birthday to Zsa Zsa Gabor, Ramon Navarro, Ronald Reagan, Babe Ruth, Rip Torn, Francois Truffaut and Mamie Van Dorn.

I did not have anyone listed for the 5th so I thought of watching directorial films of Ida Lupino (2-4) but her items were so popular they were all checked out. I then thought to celebrate baseball to counter the Super Bowl by watching Babe Ruth films. There are several films were he was himself, because who else could he be but Babe Ruth. I thought I have a silent film DVD of baseball theme cartoons, shorts and feature film. Babe Ruth was in Speedy by Harold Lloyd so I watched the few minutes of that. I then went in a totally different direction and watched season two of Parks and Recreation. I watched all the episodes, specials and commentaries. I really like that show and am SO happy it is finally back on air.

For Zsa Zsa Gabor I watched Queen of Outer Space. Zsa Zsa who stars in the film is not the Queen. She is a scientist who wears stunning evening gowns and fabulous jewelry. She changed gowns several times and looks great. Astronauts are going to the space station to check out some disturbing things (they don't say what the disturbing things are). Along the way there are these paths of light, that look like shooting stars. They eventually hit the space station and it explodes. The rocket is caught in either the explosion or the path of the light and is taken off course and it ends up on another planet. When they explore the planet they are taken over by women. When they are taken into the building they notice it is all women, no men. After they meet the queen and her court, who are all covered with masks and find out they are on Venus. They are then taken to a cell. At this cell Zsa Zsa comes in and wants to help them. She explains that there was a war and most of the men were killed. The queen basically took over because the men underestimated her because she was female (I have to admit this is my favorite scene). She got rid of the men, but kept some men, scientists, mathematicians and put them in a penal colony somewhere on the planet. The queen takes a fancy to the Captain and he goes to her rooms where he takes off her mask and she has radiation damage to her face, which is why she blames and hates men and determines the captain and his men must die. The men escape but are recaptured. The women are running around trying to find the men with heels, they don't run that well. The queen plans to blow up Earth and makes the astronauts watch. The machine has been compromised and explodes, killing the queen. Zsa Zsa then becomes queen in a glorious gold gown with red ruby earrings, necklace and tierra. The astronauts have to stay until a replacement ship can be sent. Needless to say the men and the women are happy with this result. They don't say anything about what is going to happen to the men in the penal colony.

This film was made in 1958. The crew who worked on the original Star Trek series must have either seen this film or worked on the crew. The costumes the women in the army wore were red, blue or tan. The same exact shade of the uniforms of the Star Trek crew. The outdoor and inside backgrounds were very similar to what was on the series. The soldiers had silver diamonds as their emblem. They even had a televiewer and weapons that were similar. The DVD packaging does say that sets, costumes, and effects were from Flight to Mars, Forbidden Planet and World Without End so it could be that NBC made due with what was already created.