The Doomsday Machine (1972)

Red China has a doomsday machine capable of destroying the Earth that is set to be detonated in 72 hours. The U.S. hurriedly sends up a spaceship going to Venus and replaces three members of the male crew with women. In case Earth is destroyed, they want the human race to repopulate. Directed by Harry Hope and Lee Sholem. This low budget piece of cheesy science fiction is incredibly bad. The special effects are jaw dropping awful and the production values are cheap. It should be more fun than it is but you can't help but be embarrassed for the actors. It's the kind of film where when one of the female scientists (Ruta Lee) removes her glasses, the hero (Denny Miller) says, "You look beautiful!"! The film makes no sense whatsoever. Why would Red China set off an atomic device that would destroy the entire world including itself? The ship's meteorologist (Lorri Scott) looks 16 years old and walks around in a bath towel. Who wrote this stuff? The film began in 1967 but ran out of money and was finished 5 years later without the original cast. The new scenes are obvious when the film's finale is shot in darkness and not only do we never see the actors' faces, their voices belong to different people! For connoisseurs of bad movies, this is a favorite. With Mala Powers, Grant Williams (in the film's worst performance which is saying something), James Craig, Bobby Van, Henry Wilcoxon and Mike Farrell.