Captive Women |
USA • 1952 • 64m •
  • Directed by: Stuart Gilmore. • Starring: Robert Clarke, Margaret Field, Gloria Saunders, Ron Randell, Stuart Randall, Paula Dorety, Robert Bice, Chili Williams, William Schallert, Eric Colmar, Douglas Evans, Marshall Bradford, Tom Daly. • Music by: Charles Koff.    In a post-apocalyptic New York City, three tribes of mutants (the Norms, the Mutates and the Upriver people) battle each other to survive.
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Review:
Too bad the movie itself is a bit of a dud.
I'm not just saying that because I am accustomed to the pacing, budgets, and more expansive conventions of later science fiction films. I saw "The Man From Planet X", also from 1952, with many of the same actors, and thought it was a great little film - its only real flaw was that it lost some focus and momentum for about 15 minutes in the 2nd half. Despite its very original idea for a plot, "Captive Women" isn't nearly as good.
Having come up with an amazing scenario for post-nuclear existence, the screenplay proceeds to fritter its capital away with stilted fake Elizabethan dialog, lots of walking scenes, flat acting, half-baked fight choreography, and a confusing jumble of events and character decisions that make little sense. In fact, watching this, I was strongly reminded of the work of noted movie "hack" Roger Corman - specifically his turgid and indigestible movie "The Undead". I'm sure Corman hadn't started his film career when this movie was made, but as my friend remarked when I brought this up, "Yeah...it's like Corman watched this movie and said to himself, "Oh boy! I CAN DO THIS!!!"
My favorite quibble with the slapdash, shoddy way this movie is put together is the way it handles "religion" and the search for meaning; one character from the "Uphill Tribe" mentions in a line of dialog that his tribe abandoned God and now "worships Satan(!!!)" instead. That's a very radical revelation, one that could potentially set up a clash of world views that could generate amazing conflict and contrasts. And yet the screenplay just lets that assertion gather dust for the rest of the movie. Instead, it becomes all about getting the breeding pairs, er, "Captive Women" back.
Also, the seemingly exploitation oriented title is a misnomer...the "Captive Women" are captured in a raid all right, but after one group captures them, the first group captures them right back. The UK title, "3000 AD" was a lot more true to the film's real intent, what little there was.
I'm not sorry I took the time to watch this, but I'm pretty sure that even back then, this dull little number probably got trounced pretty throughly as a piece of 2nd rate film making.
Review by lemon_magic from the Internet Movie Database.
Movie Database