Mars Needs Women - Production

Production

John Ashley, who had just made The Eye Creatures (1965) for Buchanan, says he was meant to play the lead role but got busy on another project and Tommy Kirk stepped in instead.

Kirk had previously played a Martian seeking Earth women in AIP's Pajama Party (1964). He had made his mark as a Disney child star, but after being fired, was hoping to revive his career with Mars Needs Women treating it as a serious project, to the extent of rewriting some of his dialogue.Reportedly, Buchanan allowed Kirk to create his own soliloquy for his scene in an astronomical observatory as he explains that his world is dying.

The other notable lead, Yvonne Craig, had starred in several films, and numerous television roles.

Over a two-week shooting schedule, Buchanan staged principal photography for Mars Needs Women in his hometown, Dallas, with the Southland Life Insurance Building visible as the Martians drive among the humans; other prominent local landmarks including the Southern Methodist University were also featured. The locale shooting in Houston had the George Bush Intercontinental Airport, then known as the Houston Intercontinental Airport, standing in as a military airport.

Mars Needs Women is padded with long sequences taken from stock footage (the North American X-15 spacecraft being launched from its Boeing NB-52B Stratofortress mother ship and General Dynamics F-111 fighter-bomber in particular). Due to poor lighting, parts of the film were made by undercranking the camera and having the actors move more slowly, sometimes shooting at 18 or 12 frames per second instead of the usual 24. Actors also stretched out scenes with long sequences with no dialogue, either walking or doing menial tasks.