ALL SCI-FI

[The Spike]

This Queen plans to stay young.

The Wasp Woman is directed by Jack Hill and Roger Corman and written by Leo Gordon and Kinta Zertuche. A Roger Corman production, it stars Susan Cabot, Anthony Eisley, Michael Mark and Barboura Morris. Music is by Fred Katz and photography by Harry Neumann.

Janice Starlin (Cabot) is the owner of a large cosmetics company, once a successful operation, the company is starting to lose customers who can see that Starlin is beginning to show her aged years. But hope may be at hand form scientist Eric Zinthrop (Mark), who has been experimenting with the royal jelly from a queen wasp, creating a serum that reverses the aging process. She strikes a deal with Zinthrop to fund his research as long as she can be his first human subject...

Schlockmeister Corman obviously took notice of the success of Kurt Neumann's The Fly from the previous year, for here he tries to bring us the female variant on the sci-fi mix up movie for half the budget. It marks the last time that Susan Cabot would appear in film, this also being the last of six films she made with Corman. For a low budget schlocker it's not half bad, the berserker insect/human science is good fun and there's potent thematics within involving the search for eternal youth, drug addiction and the cautionary warning about man pushing science too far.

Even the effects, whilst cheap and rightly kept in the shadows for the most part, have an antiquated charm about them. If only the film wasn't so static, so ordinary, for two thirds of its relatively short running time, then this would be talked about as one of Corman's better offerings, especially since the cast are actually fine, particularly the pretty and stoic Cabot.

Most of the film is played out from the offices of a high-rise office complex, this is unusual but gives the film a little uniqueness, with Neumann and his directors managing to set the ambiance at uneasy. But it's mostly talky stuff, meaning mood is built up to the point that when the picture does shift into creature feature gear - budget restrictions mean expectations can't possibly be met; even if what little horror is in the picture is actually pretty spicy: though the makers do miss a trick because it's explained to us early in the piece that the Queen Wasp eats her mate!

But Janice has no love interest here, shame that! Fred Katz's music is deliciously mad, at times sounding like Wacky Races on LSD, at others some gentle jazz beat fusion, it's in the right movie, just not used at the right times! The accompanying buzzing sound affect for a Wasp Woman attack, though, is most agreeable. Corman would use the score again for Little Shop of Horrors the following year.

Nobody, you would like to think, would be viewing The Wasp Woman expecting a sci-fi classic, but it's a frustrating watch in many ways, even to the fans of cheapo B movie schlockers. 5/10
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The quality of mercy is not strnen.

[Bud Brewster]

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It's easy to make a good film sound good, and a bad film sound bad -- but a well-written review makes the reader appreciate what is good about a bad film while warning him about what's bad.

It also makes the reader want to watch the movie, because suddenly he's in the mood. If you're in the mood, folks, download it from YouTube —

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— and watch this aging executive —



— turn herself into this lovely lady —



— with a very fine pair of legs —



— and then into this creepy creature.



Ironically, the poster shows just the opposite of the movie: instead of a woman with a wasp's head, it shows a wasp with a woman's head!


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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Being a movie star — even a lovely one with great legs — is not all glamour and fame. This IMDB trivia item has given me a new appreciation for the exciting climax of the The Wasp Woman.
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In one of the final scenes, a bottle of acid is thrown at Susan Cabot; her reaction of throwing her hands up when it strikes her is not acting, however — someone had filled the 'breakaway' bottle with water and it was so heavy that when it struck her she said, "I thought my teeth had been knocked through my nose!".

The fake smoke used to simulate the acid also choked her; after falling through the window, unable to breathe, she tore the makeup off, along with some skin, leaving a huge purple mark on her neck.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Gord Green]

Wasn't there another film with a similar story, only the serum was an extraction from the pinel gland in the brain added to an exotic flower called nippee found only in an African jungle.

The cosmetic owner travels to Africa with her husband and a guide where they encounter the tribe and an old woman who demonstrates how it's done. The white woman steals the plant, kills her husband and the guide and comes home rejuvenated as her niece where she must kill to get more brain juice.

She puts the moves on her young lawyer and has a cat fight with his fiancee', a gorgeous brunette.

I can't recall the name of this film, but it sure sounds similar to THE WASP WOMAN.
Anyone have an idea?

[alltare]

That would be "The Leech Woman"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054020/

It's on THE CLASSIC SCI-FI ULTIMATE COLLECTION VOLUME 2.

[Gord Green]

That's the one! With the lovely Gloria Talbot as the fiancee'.

[Bud Brewster]

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"Jeez, be careful, Gloria! You could put out an eye with those things!"

Here's the link to our thread for The Leech Woman.



As for Miss Talbot, I've always wondered why she didn't pluck her eyebrows and let those bangs grow longer! I modified the picture on the left below to show what I mean in the picture on the right.


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Gord Green]

I'm surprised you noticed Bud. You are after all a "leg" man!

[Bud Brewster]

[Maurice]

Her eyebrows are fine.

Sheesh.
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"The absence of limitations is the enemy of art."
― Orson Welles

[Bud Brewster]