Film: Attack of the Sci-Fi Sirens

Map It:  L'Enfant Plaza   L'Enfant Plaza 

YOU TRAIN YOUR WHOLE LIFE to become an astronaut, only to crash-land on Venus and be captured by English-speaking hotties in miniskirts pointing ray guns at your head, and the only voice of reason belongs to Zsa Zsa Gabor.

Thus is the plaint of Captain Patterson and his crew in the 1958 camp classic "Queens of Outer Space," which screens at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden on Thursday as part of its "Summer Camp" series, "Barbarella-Q."

Through the end of June, the museum opens its doors to rocket ships, moon men, intergalactic sex symbols, tentacled space beasties and tight jumpsuits, and you're invited. (Tight jumpsuit not required, but it would be great if you wore one. Do it for us.)

Sure, a film scholar, David Wilt, will be on hand to discuss the phenomenon of the sci-fi sex symbol, but we all know what we're here for: to see some sci-fi sex symbols, not to hear some egghead talk about them. That's what said egghead wants, too, really.

Next weekend, the Hirshhorn presents "Attack of the 50-Foot Woman," starring D.C.'s 1949 Miss America Pageant representative Allison Hayes. (That should bring some freaks out of the woodwork.)

And the week after that, it's the "Citizen Kane" of space-siren flicks, "Barbarella," whence we as a culture got the name Duran Duran, the legacy of Roger Vadim's excellent taste in wives and Jane Fonda in thigh-high boots.

» Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Independence Avenue and 7th Street SW; Thursdays through June 28, 8 p.m., free; 202-633-1000. (L'Enfant Plaza/Smithsonian)