Mars Needs Women is a 1968 independently made American made-for-television science fiction film from Azalea Pictures.

[2] The film was produced, written, and directed by self-proclaimed schlock artist/auteur Larry Buchanan, and stars Tommy Kirk, Yvonne Craig, and Byron Lord.

Once here, their team intends to recruit Earth women to come to Mars to mate and produce female offspring, saving their civilization from extinction.

The military eventually views the Martians as invaders, so the team takes on the guise of Earth men, acquiring human clothes, money, maps, and transportation.

They finally select their prospective candidates, setting their sights on four American women: a homecoming queen, a stewardess, a stripper, and, most especially, a Pulitzer Prize-winning scientist, Dr. Bolen (Yvonne Craig), an expert in "space genetics".

[5] 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, so Kirk then stepped in.

[9] 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.

[1][10] Reportedly, Buchanan allowed Kirk to create his own soliloquy for his scene in a planetarium (at Dallas Fair Park) as he explains that his world is dying.

Over a two-week shooting schedule, Buchanan shot Mars Needs Women in his hometown of Dallas, pretending it to be Houston.

Additional footage was shot at Dallas Love Field, where a man is shown reading the Houston Chronicle, and at the Gypsy Room on Harry Hines Blvd.

Due to poor lighting, parts of the film were made by undercranking the camera and having the actors move slower, sometimes shooting at 18 or 12 frames per second instead of the usual 24.

[1] A review of the film in TV Guide reported that "Cheap, amateurish, and dull are words that don't even come close to defining this sci-fi mess.

[16] Samples from the film appear in the track "Mars Needs Women" by Meat Beat Manifesto, the B-side of the God O.D.