Mars Needs Women (1967)

But it WANTS men. Oh oh!

“I’m Fellow Two for First Alert…”

Mars Needs Women (1967)
Directed and written by Larry Buchanan

A girl is playing tennis with a dork—when she vanishes! A pudgy, middle- aged guy goes to get some cigarettes—and his date disappears! A blonde is taking a shower—then suddenly, she’s gone! Either aliens have discovered the secret of stop-motion photography or else women have learned how to ditch annoying men and avoid showering on camera. Meanwhile, an Air Force colonel races to NASA’s secret decoding and U-Store-it site, where he is briefed on the message from space they have been receiving for the past three days.

“It’s just three words,” advises the lab-coated extra, in what sounds frighteningly like a song cue. In fact, the message reads: “Mars needs women.” The Colonel looks rather dubious about this being our first contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, but the movie title confirms it: yes, Mars Needs Women. And Mars apparently felt that NASA would be in a position to understand their situation, seeing as it’s staffed mainly by former members of the AV Club.

After being briefed on the terse interplanetary pick-up line, the Secretary of the Hair Club for Men picks up the Hot Line to inform the President about the horny Martians. The President presumably feels the Martians’ pain.

The Colonel and NASA’s four remaining employees (apparently everybody else quit when they figured out that NASA was unable to get anyone women) are loitering in NASA’s combination recording studio/lunch room when Tommy Kirk materializes to reaffirm that Mars needs women—and pretty damned quickly, as they are getting really tense and cranky. He states that he and his crew are “medical missionaries” who have come to Earth to pick up chicks. See, the Martians have been having problems with their DNA, and now the ratio of men to women is 100 to 1, which makes it very hard for an average guy to get a date for New Year’s Eve.

Tommy mentions that before the opening credits, his team attempted to seize three women by “transponder”, but this was unsuccessful. (Translation: they struck out, and are looking around for some fresh women who aren’t lesbians.) All Mars is asking for is five healthy, fertile, female volunteers to help repopulate their planet, or to have lots of sex while trying.

The Colonel is unwilling to part with even five of Earth’s women, since Colonels need women too and he hasn’t been doing too well at the Officers Club mixers himself. “Your suggestion is insane!” he shouts.

Tommy says fine; they’ll just get some girls without NASA’s help! And he pops out using the Martians’ advanced Bewitched technology.

After a Batman dissolve, we see some USAF stock footage of airplanes. The four NASA employees gaze at the ceiling while this is being run in order to convey the idea that planes fly in the air. We then stare at a speaker for several minutes while a voice informs us that the Martians have jammed our radar and such. It’s a FedTro speaker, and it seems to work very well for channeling voices from stock footage. So, when Earth is under attack from Mars and you’re in the market for speakers, choose FedTro!

After crippling Earth’s defenses, the aliens are free to land their craft, a copper wok, in an abandoned ice plant in Houston. The Martians, sporting wet suits and earmuffs made from yo-yos and car antennas, make it easy to understand why their own women won’t have anything to do with them.

The Martians have less than 24-hours to find and nab suitable subjects for “Operation Sleep Freeze,” their code name for the plan to abduct frigid women who will refuse to sleep with them. And since their only weapon is the power of hypnotism (which they acquired from reading those “How to Seduce Any Woman” books advertised in the back of Swank), their mission seems hopeless. But they vow to give it their best shot, on behalf of losers everywhere.

Tommy starts his girl hunt at the Holiday Inn. He pretends to be a humorless, gay medical reporter from Seattle, since Martian research has shown this is catnip to women. The first step in his plan to capture a mate is to stay in his hotel room and watch TV. While so engaged, he catches a story about Dr. Yvonne Craig, Ph.D., a “stunning brunette” with a Pulitzer in Space Genetics (her horn-rimmed glasses verify her academic credentials). She has come to Houston to help the government deal with the libidinous Martians. When Tommy sees a poster advertising her upcoming lecture on Space Sex (admittance only to accredited journalists and others willing to pay $4.99 a minute), he decides to attend, in hopes of meeting Adam West.

Yvonne’s press conference isn’t going as well as she had hoped—the audience consists solely of three doughy guys who make sexist remarks and flirt with each other instead of her. Yvonne takes off her glasses and prissily informs them that unless somebody can ask a pertinent question, the conference is over! This was just the opening Tommy was waiting for, and he throws out something about gene mapping, chromosome research, and how occasional impotence can happen to any man. Yvonne is very impressed by Tommy’s question and tells the other reporters they should all try to be more like him, causing them to give Tommy a wedgie and steal his lunch money as soon as the lecture is over. But Yvonne is smitten by Tommy’s total lack of manliness and asks him out. So, Tommy and Yvonne walk to the planetarium, where they watch stock space footage and fall in stock love.

Meanwhile, the other Martians pursue their dream girls. “Fellow Two” knows exactly what kind of women Mars needs and immediately heads for a strip joint. His choice for the mother of the new race is a rather matronly gal in an evening gown whose act consists of poking out her butt and waving her arms in circles. But she seems really smart.

“Fellow Three” grabs a stewardess, since they are almost as genetically superior as strippers.

“Fellow Four” finds his candidate at stock footage of a football game—she’s the Homecoming Queen, and so the “ideal woman” of drunken frat boys everywhere.

“Fellow Five” is running out of time, and decides to take any girl who can pass that drawing test from the Art Institute of America. He meets a girl who can sketch a tree, and he’s done! So, everybody has a girl stashed in the flying saucer except Tommy, who still isn’t quite sure what he’d do with one once he got her home.

The authorities, as represented by the four NASA employees, the Colonel, and space sex expert Yvonne, assemble in the NASA room to discuss the interplanetary situation. They instantaneously deduce that four women are missing, that the women were all “built like goddesses” (although the film can’t really back this up), and they were kidnapped by Martians using hypnosis (which is, after all, the most common cause of missing women). Then, by putting pins in a poster of Julie Newmar, Yvonne concludes that the Martians are hiding in the old ice plant!

She also states that the Martians are planning on freezing the stolen women, to keep them fresh and crispy during the journey (she doesn’t have horn-rimmed glasses for nothing!) The Colonel announces they’ll raid the place that night, and then swears everybody to secrecy.

Of course, Yvonne loses no time in telling Tommy that they’ve located the Martian base and plan to attack it in about an hour (she needed something to break a lull in the conversation). She and Tommy race to the ice plant, where Tommy warns the Martians of the Earthlings’ imminent raid. He says they must take off for Mars immediately, leaving behind the girls, who have only had time to get slushy and so would probably spoil in transit. It’s at this point that Ph.D. scientist Yvonne figures out that Tommy isn’t really a medical reporter from Seattle...although he may actually be humorless and gay.

Anyway, Tommy wants to stay on Earth, but the other Martians say that either he or Yvonne must go with them to Mars, since they are the only two name stars in the film and SAG rules are very strict about things like this. So, Tommy sacrifices himself and returns to Mars, where there are 100 men for every woman...and 99 men for every other man. As she gazes up at the stock footage of the Milky Way, a tear slides down Yvonne’s cheek. Yes, Tommy Kirk was the best she could do, and yes, he got away. But not without stealing her heart, and not without giving her space VD. The End.

Who can’t empathize with the Martians’ predicament? Alone in the darkness, just looking for a little love, a little warmth. Reaching out to Earth for help, only to be rebuffed. But NASA scientists were hardly the right people to contact if Mars needed women. No, the Martians should have approached a group with a long history of helping the unfortunates of this world, men with big hearts, big bucks, and plenty of chicks to spare: Hollywood celebrities. We like to think that stars like Russell Crowe and Tom Cruise would have immediately donated their slightly used women (Tom’s would have been just like new).

Or how about Mars Needs Women: The Musical! It could help revitalize Broadway while also generating enough box office and cross-promotional merchandising to just buy each of the Martians a hooker.

Here’s the number sung by the Martians as they leave the space ship and head out to grab some girls:

All: We’re young Martians, and we must procreate!
With girls who will mate on the very first date!
Tommy: We’ll each find the best girl that Earth has to offer
Fellow3: We’ll surprise her!
Fellow4: Hypnotize her!
Fellow5: And then we’ll boff her!

All: We’re young Martians, searching for dames.
They must have good bodies—we can do without brains.
Fellow2: I want a girl with refinement and class.
So I’ll head to “Boobs ’n’ Butts” to look for my lass.

All: We’re young Martians, ready to breed.
We’re young Martians, and we’re bursting with seed!
Fellow3: I want a smart girl who can serve coffee in space.
We can join the mile-high club as we found a new race.

All: We’re young Martians, manly and brave.
And despite all appearances, it’s women we crave!
Fellow4: A beauty queen of some sort will be my sweet honey.
Fellow5: I just want a girl who can draw Bugs Bunny.
All: We’re young Martians, needin’ to score,
And without Earthly babes our chances are poor.
Tommy: I’m seeking a girl who’s not bossy or vain,
And if she looks like Burt Ward, well I won’t complain.
All: We’re young Martians, do you like what you see?
We’re young Martians, we’re HIV-free!
We’re young Martians, desperate for sex
We’ve got lousier love lives than Oedipus Rex!

And here’s Tommy’s big second act showstopper:

It’s sad-making, mad-making,
It’s crummy an’ harsh an’,
Worse, leading the life of a Single White Martian.
I’ve tried every bar
On our rouge-colored planet,
But we’ve got all of five girls,
And they all told me to cram it.
They’ve got girls on earth, and it gives me a yen.
Sadly, however, that yen is for men.
But I am First Fellow, and I’ve got a duty,
To tap me a piece of terrestrial booty.

I must do the girl,
Not Third Fellow’s arse,
I’ll just close my eyes,
And think hard of Mars.

Mars Needs Women: The Musical. Now and Forever.

The lessons one can draw from this movie seem to be that hypnotism and hypothermia are effective seduction techniques, but NASA will charge you with a Mann Act violation if you attempt to transport women across interplanetary lines for immoral purposes. Sadly, this rules out kidnapping—despite the fact that certain peoples’ best hope for true love is probably the Stockholm Syndrome.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, Scott Needs Booze (2025)

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