Im Staub der Sterne (In the Dust of the Stars) (1976)
IMDb meta-data is 1 for and 35 minutes runtime rated 5.4 by 399 cinematizens.
Genre: Sy Fy
DNA: Romania, Rumania, or Roumania
Verdict: Huh
Tagline: Did someone say Gulag?
It starts on the flight deck of a spaceship with no credits or preliminaries. After that fast start everything slows down.
The crew of four women and two men is commanded by one of the women who reminds them of the importance of their mission to save a planet from….? They don’t know what just yet but these six are planet savers – ah huh, in their baby blue onesies.
The women are young while the two men are not. One has gone pear-shaped and the other squints as he brushes his grey hair out of his eyes. These six are from the planet Cynro. Does that make them Cynrovians? Cynroese? … [I could go on…] They are bound for Tem-4. Evidently it usually only takes six Cynros to save a planet.
There is nothing to see when they arrive for the Tem-4s live underground. However Pocahontas drives up in a Legomobile to welcome them. Off they go to a reception where they learn their six year trip was for naught. The distress call was a mere test of a now obsolete radio system. Oh. Well time to go then. But no, before departure, they attend – in matching latex outfits – a frat party to end frat parties.
What follows is some repressed Romanian script-writer’s idea of a debauched western LSD party. It goes on and on, and then on. The Fraternity Brothers found it tame compared to Greek Row on homecoming Saturday night.
Meanwhile the Host is revealed to be (1) up to no good and (2) receiving orders over the earbud from Boss. The purpose of the party is to ensure that no more Cynroses come a-calling so they are drugged to forget everything except the need for colour coordination in clothing.
We meet the Boss having his sparse hair done. He is that script-writer’s idea of a homosexual without being too explicit. He is a little round guy who commands – well, it is fiction – the whole show. His thugs sport Roman tunics and have bulging muscles for women to ogle.
Being slow-witted enough to be U.N. Peacekeepers, the Cynrovians have at last figured out something is amiss. Instead of barking orders the Commander listens to what the others say, including Mr Suspicion who has been off on his own going where he was not supposed to go and seeing what he was not supposed to see. Gulp!
What he saw was a cast of scores of Romanian extras practicing for the Gulag by breaking rocks while being beaten by Nicolae Ceausescu. (See The Mole People [1956] for details.) By now the six Cynroites have read the script and realise that Host and Boss and their associates are from Tem-3 and have conquered Tem-4, enslaving the population to mine minerals to dye the Boss’s hair, or something. Should they intervene or just leave? Tough one. Crisis of conscience renders them numb. Me, too, by this time.
I voted for leaving, but they stayed when Host tried to sabotage their rocket, a low-budget shoot out of sorts follows. Boss is done for.
After explaining Bucharest fashions to the slaves, the Cynroists blast off.
Yes, it is silly. But it is also noteworthy for its omissions: there is no mention of Earth or Earthlings in a universe of humanoids irritating each others, nor are there any ray guns, nor hairy spiders, not a single scream from one of the women. It is notable for a lot of scantly clad women on Tem-4, for those matching onesies (inspired by ABBA?) worn by the crew, for a couple of crises of conscience.
No Yankee crew ever worried about blasting some strangers with a ray gun after stomping on a hairy spider or two while the damsels shrieked.
It is most notable of all for a female commander comrade in 1976 who does the job without either hysterics or histrionics!
The Fraternity Brothers kept rewinding to the scantily clad Romanians. I wondered about the slaps.
It is a pan red production spoken in German but with Czech, Serbian, Rumanian, East German, Polish cast and crew. For once Stanislaw Lem did not write the novel, screenplay, or lunch menu.