Pavel Klushantsev, who directed more Russian SF films than he's credited with here, found himself propelled from obscurity into sudden demand by the Soviet authorities when the production of his 1958 SF debut, 'Road to the Stars' coincided with the launch of Sputnik. Although he languished in almost total obscurity in the West, his films were enormously popular in the USSR, and, as a recent documentary noted, many of his cinematic innovations were 'borrowed' 10 years later by Kubrick in '2001'.

Planet of Storms is not a great movie, but compared with most of the SF which the USA was churning up to this time, it's positively stellar. It's weakest points are its sketchy characterizations, and rather poor pacing, but hard SF luminaries like Gernsback and John Campbell would probably have admired its attention to detail, and relative lack of sensationalism. The film actually begins with the disclaimer "Venus may well be entirely different to this" (or some such), and what follows is a serious attempt to depict a Venusian expedition - marred perhaps by the odd dinosaur, but surprisingly free of Soviet chest-thumping.

Planet of Storms won't blow your mind, but you'll find yourself being charmed by the ingenious photography, sets, creatures, etc. There's also a straight out hilarious scene where the Robot gets rained on, and goes off his head. While his two human companions are lying on the ground, dangerously ill from fever, he's babbling on about building a concrete highway to reach the other half of the expedition, who are are about 20 miles away. Contacting him via radio, they are somewhat alarmed to hear him tell them "According to quotes from the Smith corporation, the cost of building a highway to the Sirius is 37 million dollars". I don't know if this was a dig at capitalism, but it cracked me up anyway.

Excerpt from Lupercali from Tasmania review on IMdb located HERE