50 Movie Pack: SciFi Classics: Part 8 -The Wasp Woman

In December of 1986, Los Angeles police responded to an alleged breaking & entering and discovered the body of a woman practically bludgeoned to death. The woman was Susan Cabot, an actress who spent only about ten years in film, and retired in 1959, believing that a prevailing prejudice against short women was keeping her from getting good roles. In the meantime, she had fostered affairs with most of the leading men in Hollywood, and was at one time engaged to King Hussein of Jordan. Imagine an alternate reality where the two got married despite her Jewish heritage, (birth name: Harriet Shapiro) and the Arab and Western worlds were not at war! It seems that she was always on the precipice of greatness but never achieved it, (not that marrying Arab kings denotes success, but certainly Hollywood stardom does!) and the easiest thing to focus blame upon was her height.

I mean, she fucked Marlon Brando. Sure, at the time it may have been the equivalent of taking part in an elementary school atom bomb drill, but looking back on it now, it’s incredible. She was intensely part of the cultural zeitgeist for a burning moment, and left the public eye nearly as quickly. Her death was as intense as her burst of fame, and among the hoarded mess of her Hollywood compound, the police discovered none of that early gravitas, and only the discarded remnants of her life, scattered around the mansion. The only person who could possibly come into suspicion was her son, Timothy Roman, who claimed that a gang of ninjas had broken into the house and killed her.

The reality of the matter was that her son, possibly sired by Brando or King Hussein, had been injected with, and most likely addicted to, Human Growth Hormone and other steroid-like substances to increase his height. He was born a dwarf, and his mother believed that her failures would be visited upon her son if he remained that way. She had him poked and prodded in every possible way by doctors around the world, and it partly worked. By the end of her life he was over five feet tall. Unfortunately, the years of substance abuse and weird motherly affection had turned Timothy. After examining the body, the coroners stated that she had been brutally beaten in the head, and the police claimed that Timothy had been the killer, using either a barbell or nun-chucks.

Now, other than the obvious lessons learned about a life that is left to rot over years of decline, confining oneself to her property to never leave, and raising a son primarily on dangerous chemical substances - I think there are other lessons to be learned here from Susan Cabot’s sad story. The ability to maintain enough self-confidence to make it through life, to believe that you’re OK with who you are, is crucial to living. Ironically, one of Susan Cabot’s final films explores her character’s similar self-doubt. The Wasp Woman explores the need for a successful woman to maintain that success, though the attribute here that bars her from staying on top is her age instead of her height.

At some nondescript field a man collects a wasps’ nest in full beekeeper’s regalia and plants it firmly in a lockbox. After bringing the wasps to a beekeeper he is warned of their ability to sting a man to death, and possibly break his heart. Of course our professor takes it in stride. “They know who their friend is,” he calmly retorts. When the bee manager, Mr. Barker, makes his way out to the fields, he informs his underlings that the main office is running “smooth as honey.” I can only hope more bee puns are on the way.

Mr. Barker quickly discovers that the bee nests have been invaded by wasps. He quickly goes after the man behind it all, Dr. Zinthrop. Zinthrop informs his employer that he’s been extracting the queen’s jelly from the wasps. Using SCIENCE he has been able to discover an anti-aging cream. Showing Mr. Barker a dog and a puppy, he claims that the pup is the same age as the old German Shepherd. Mr. Barker immediately fires Dr. Zinthrop, stating that he understands “science and progress,” but an elixir of youth is fantasy. Dr. Zinthrop immediately begins talking to his wasps, telling them “we have a lot of work to do together.”

In the city, a board meeting is discussing the languishing status of their corporation. Ms. Starlin, the president of Starlin Products, is immediately sexualized by her board, being informed that her looks are the reason her cosmetics company is failing. Without her looks, new models have been brought in to model the cosmetics, and the public is absolutely refusing these new faces. She’s informed that Dr. Zinthrop is waiting to see her. She discusses the health benefits of queen’s jelly with one of her executives who both have read the details of the letter Zinthrop has sent to Starlin, and buzzes Dr. Zinthrop into her office.

Dr. Zinthrop is here to prove the reality of his letters. Presenting two ragged LITERAL guinea pigs to her, he injects the jelly extract into one, and asks Ms. Starlin to watch the de-aging process. The guinea pig is turned into a completely different animal – a rat – though I’m sure it’s supposed to be a young guinea pig. He injects the second guinea pig. Ms. Starlin is pleased. They work out a deal, and Dr. Zinthrop declares a verbal contract is enough for him. Janice Starlin tells Dr. Zinthrop that she will be his first human guinea pig, and after little protest he agrees. And a science montage begins! How I’ve missed these science montages, the last one appearing in The Amazing Transparent Man.

Starlin’s secretaries discuss their lives as Zinthrop comes in to see Ms. Starlin. While throwing out some classic one-liners, they tell Zinthrop that Starlin will have to come down to see him later, then call him a regular “two-eyed Dr. Cyclops…with the bow and everything.” I have no idea what that means, but they quickly discuss his crackpottery that the board and others around the company have been leery of. He tells Starlin that today will be her first injection, and he prepares the needle. As time goes on, Zinthrop informs her that he’s come up with an even stronger tonic that will be perfect for creating a lotion-based form of the youth elixir. She practically squeals as she imagines her advertising department eating crow.

One of her secretaries finds Zinthrop’s formula, and brings it to the ad department. Now I’m bored. I thought this movie was about wasp-people, not some old-fashioned version of Wall Street with a wasp-sheen. Actually that would be awesome. Remake this with Martin Sheen as a wasp-man. Corporate espionage aside, I chug along, hoping that soon we will see Starlin’s mistake that leads to her becoming THE Wasp Woman.

And it quickly becomes apparent that she will make that mistake. Sneaking into Zinthrop’s lab, she injects herself with the stronger version of the extracted wasp jelly. Unfortunately, she pays no heed to the cat test subject with bulging tumors and frazzled hair, caged immediately left of Zinthrop’s test tubes. She appears at work the next day, looking younger than ever, informing her board that she will begin modeling her products yet again. Confiding in her secretary, she asks her how old she looks. “23, maybe 22?” What a bitch.

Zinthrop enters his lab, and examines his test subjects. He is attacked by the kitten and quickly murders it. Probably the worst kitten murder I’ve ever witnessed on film. Zinthrop hides the cat in a testing machine and stumbles out of his lab. That kitten must have bitten him with some kind of wasp powers. I was really hoping that the kitten would have had wings, but no such luck. One of Starlin’s ad men enters Zinthrop’s lab and looks for clues, still doubting the power of the wasp jelly. He looks like a regular Roger Stirling. Janice Starlin enters the lab, looking for Zinthrop, but leaves when he’s not to be found. Stirling’s pretty good at hide-and-seek and avoids detection. Out on the street, Zinthrop stumbles into traffic off-camera and is knocked back onto the street, vehicularly man-slaughtered.

Starlin’s concerned about the missing doctor, and calls in the police. They investigate her desk for the original letter from Zinthrop, only to discover that her secretary had stolen it. They interrogate the secretary, Mary, and eventually find a copy of the letter, and Zinthrop’s known address. Unfortunately, their combing of the streets is not fruitful. Eventually, they discover a John Doe that matches his description in critical condition at the hospital. He’s endured brain injury, and Starlin demands the best surgeon in New York to operate on Zinthrop.

After she discusses Zinthrop’s coma with her ad man, Starlin sneaks down into Zinthrop’s lab and injects herself with more of the tonic. The Roger Stirling look-alike runs down to the lab after discovering some scientific breakthrough, and prepares to run an analysis on the wasp jelly sample. Starlin, now completely wasped out, rushes from behind the wasps’ nests and attacks Stirling. In the next scene she appears normal, but suffering from headaches. She dismisses a board meeting after they throw down her plan to have the youth elixir branded as a type of medicine, telling them that they will not destroy the company’s most sellable product.

Starlin brings in a nursing staff to take care of Zinthrop on the premises, and she begs him to make more tonic, as she’s down to her last injection. Mary and her ad-man boyfriend, Lane, discover Stirling’s pipe and surmise that he has been killed. They also figure that the fat night watchman must have been killed by the same person. Zinthrop witnesses Starlin turn into the wasp woman and kill his nurse. When Mary and Lane, the ad man, find Zinthrop, he is too shocked to speak. Lane tells Mary to call the police. Not realizing that Starlin is the murderer, Mary approaches her and asks her to call the police. After Mary has left, Zinthrop can get the words together to inform Lane that Starlin is no longer human.

Starlin transforms into the wasp as Mary sits in her office, and she attacks her. Lane rushes up the stairs to catch Starlin dragging Mary’s body into Zinthrop’s lab. Zinthrop happens onto the scene, and he’s attacked by Starlin. Using a wooden stool, Lane pushes Starlin away, and Zinthrop is able to rise and hit Starlin with a bottle of acid. As she reels in pain, Lane slams the stool into her stomach, pushing her out the open window, and Starlin plunges to her death. Lane grabs Mary and holds her as a smoldering image of Starlin’s wasp-face closes the film.

So in the end, the monster that Cabot’s character created through medicine and chemistry destroyed her. Eerily shadowing her real life, this aspect of the film really hit me hard. I mean, most of it is the standard 1950s sci-fi drivel, but in hindsight it really depicts her character to be exactly like she was – so weak and terrified of her own image that she felt she had to change it – and I think it spoke to me about the hard, fast changes we all wish we could take, and sometimes do. A film entitled Black Oasis is in development about Cabot’s life and would star Rose McGowan. I hope it explores this aspect of artificial change and the detrimental events that can be caused by it, because today’s pop culture could certainly stand to learn that same lesson.

Rating: 3 out of 5 Wasp Jellies

50 Movie Pack: SciFi Classics: Part 7 - Horrors of Spider Island

Are you fucking kidding me? I’m on Horrors of Spider Island? Do not fret, dear readers, I checked the box multiple times to confirm that I am indeed about to watch a film entitled “Horrors of Spider Island.” Considering Karl Pilkington’s past endeavors on the Ricky Gervais podcast to describe a real-life Spider Island, I can feel only excitement in anticipation of this viewing. A quick IMDB search yields that after being filmed in Germany with the title “Ein Toter Hing Im Netz,” translated to “A Corpse Hangs in the Web,” the film was released to the U.S. with an Adults-Only rating in 1962, only to have its nude scenes removed and re-released in 1965 as “Horrors of Spider Island.” The film features the “German Jayne Mansfield,” Barbara Valentin – here credited as Barbara Valentine – in one of her first roles. And with bated breath, I begin my journey.

The credits are already titillating. “Introducing Barbara Valentine as Babs.” Sexy. The film opens in L.A., with visions of palm trees and classic cars until the barren German set is revealed as a car pulls up to a bleak building front. Mike Blackwood is the talent finder of a pin-up studio, wherein the girls discuss a journey to Singapore and the “30 nightclubs down there,” as well as their burgeoning racism. “Listen up, girls, when they take those turbans off they’re just the same as any other man.”

Gary Webster is the manager of this operation, and he’s ready to check out the dancers. He and his assistant, Georgia, enter Blackwood’s office and begin to select girls for their dance troop trip to Singapore. He rejects almost every girl who actually dances for him, but takes the exotic dancers and strippers, and chooses them by the crossing of his legs. I assumed Mr. Webster had no interest in seeing the girls dance until he hires a jazz dancer. For some reason he explains his leg-crossing trick to his underling, Blackwood, which at this point had become completely fucking obvious to the viewer.

And they’re off to Singapore by plane. Quickly, the plane calls mayday and attempts an emergency landing, by falling out of the sky in a fiery death crash. The girls scream as they plunge into the Pacific Ocean. This is pretty much the plot of LOST. Put a bunch of attractive women on a plane and let them crash into the ocean. On the life raft, the girls cry as they await their rescue. The discussion of rationing is broken off when they discover a bird and soon enough land. They paddle their way to the rocks, and disembark from their raft. The film is now about Gary Webster manning it up and keeping nine questionable women in line. This film is already getting tons of points for misogyny.

Webster finds a hammer and immediately surmises that it must be used for mining (most likely uranium). I didn’t know they used tiny hammers for that, but I’m also no uranium miner, so I won’t stay on this. They find a cabin, and inside the German titular corpse hanging in the web. The women run off, but Georgia and Webster investigate. They carry the man off and make the cabin corpseless and hospitable. As the women walk back into the cabin, a 2-foot-wide spider is seen scurrying in the bush. TERRIFYING! By rifling through the corpse’s belongings, clothing, and diaries, they discover that the man living in the cabin was a professor searching for uranium with one tiny hammer.

Cabin life begins to resemble The Real World as the women get ornery about food, dishes, clothing, and the heat. As Gary is seduced by one of the women, Georgia walks onto the scene, and chastises Gary. He complains of the heat, and of not knowing what he’s doing anymore, and walks off into the jungle to let off some steam. The spider-thing follows him. It attacks from a tree and strangles him. Gary is able to remove the spider and shoot it with the professor’s revolver. But it’s too late! Gary has been bitten, and begins to resemble a spider. The next day, Georgia grabs some of the women and they begin to scour the island. She forces Gary’s seductress, Linda, to stay behind at the cabin. As two of the women search, Gary watches from the jungle, his spider face scowling. He nearly grabs one of them, but she pushes his claw away from her hair, not noticing it at all. Back at the cabin, Linda enjoys some cool water, and is attacked by spider-Gary. She is found drowned in the pond. The women bury her and become concerned about their safety and the month-long supply of food they have found in the cabin. Eventually, they make it for a full month on the island, apparently surviving by merely standing around in bikinis and giggling.

Two men arrive on the island, who identify themselves as the professors’ lackeys, and grumble about their lot in life. While one drinks a bit from their supply of whiskey, he hears the survival-necessary giggling of the women while they swim. What I don’t understand about the women is that there is an obvious spider-thing scouring the island, and they still swim around and goof off. I know they’re upset that they haven’t been rescued after a month, but shouldn’t they be engaging in more useful activities? I guess I have a lot more to learn about survival on an abandoned island. One of the women screams, and is apparently grabbed by whiskey grumbler, and while the other women search for her they find the location of Gary’s spider shooting and transformation. Eventually they discover that whiskey grumbler a.k.a. Bobby was the reason for her disappearance. Soon enough they find his partner-in-crime, Joe, and they tell them their sad slightly spider-related, but much more bikini-related failed sojourn to Singapore.

With these two men comes the promise of rescue. And as a ship is contacted by the men’s radio, the women decide to throw a dance party. As they cajole and cavort, there is only a feeling of foreboding dread. Why do people insist on having dance parties on an island inhabited by Spider-Gary? Why not just wait until you are ON the boat? These are the kinds of questions that won’t be answered. Bobby, the whiskey grumbler, intends to head off into the woods with one of the women to make time, and it’s obvious that only trouble is in his future. His buddy, the quiet one, falls for one of the women, Anne, and flirts with her near the cabin. He informs her of his feelings, an almost love-at-first-sight situation. Bobby hardly has time to make time with any girl, as he is continuously distracted from one to the next. So apparently the only trouble befalling him is too many women.

Bobby and his friend eventually fight over his friends’ love for Anne, something Bobby sees as silly, and though I have to agree with Bobby - considering they’ve been on this island with the women for less than 24 hours - I can understand how his words upset his friend. They fight for a bit, until they decide how silly it is for them to be fighting, and Bobby goes off to find Gladys, the girl he “really wants.” Gladys finds Bobby, bitten on the neck, with Spider-Gary nearby. Spider-Gary grabs Gladys and drops her off a cliff, and Joe chases after Spider-Gary, confronting him, until he has time to run back to the cabin. He uses Georgia as bait, who for a time is able to soothe the beast, until Joe makes a sound and Spider-Gary chases him around a table. Joe grabs a flare and chases Spider-Gary out of the cabin.

They chase Spider-Gary into the jungle, and surround him with the frightening flares. They are able to push Spider-Gary towards the quicksand, and he drowns in it, with Joe muttering, “He’s not dead, he’ll continue living.” I’m no biologist, but I’m pretty certain that Joe is wrong. The film ends as a boat is seen sailing towards the ocean, and yet another terrible movie has wasted my time for a little over an hour.

Before I grade this movie, I must admit that it probably would have been better with nudity, though there were plenty of embarrassing scenes left. The 15 minute dance party was completely pointless, and any of the points that may have been made about love and women’s rights were completely negated by the fact that they were ON A FUCKING ISLAND WITH AN EVIL HUMAN-SPIDER HYBRID LURKING IN THE JUNGLE. The five-minute long catfight that takes place at one time during the film was so embarrassing, that added nudity could have only helped. At least it eventually ended, and I was able to forget the “Horrors of Spider Island.”

Rating: 1 out of 9 Whores of Spider Island

50 Movie Pack: SciFi Classics: Part 6 - The Atomic Brain

"Is the next step the transplantation of the human brain?" Dr. Otto Frank, a scientist with the moral acumen of Donald Rumsfeld, wants to answer this question, and many others. Using the funding of a dying spinster, he conducts experiments in a mansion basement, placing the brains of animals into dead human bodies and reanimating them using “atomic fission produced in a cyclotron.” Yes, this 1964 drive-in trash film explores the evils of atomic power, but does so by presenting it as most of our evils truly exist: they can both benefit and destroy us. The original title of this film, “Monstrosity” is perhaps a more fitting one than its change for television broadcast to “The Atomic Brain.” In its most offensive and exploitive way, it really is examining the monster that can exist within the human psyche, and how man will go to all lengths to succeed, even if the path is a murderous one.

The film begins with the doctor’s testing of his technology. Before the process of human brain transplantation can occur, he must first attempt the transplanting of larger and more intricate animal brains. Dr. Otto Frank uses one of his already created animal-human hybrids to carry out bodies from the local cemetary. We quickly discover that the old woman and the doctor are at odds over what’s more important: the science or the application of this technology. When Hetty March discovers that Otto Frank is becoming less cautious during his grave robbing, she has concerns over her dream of living forever being discovered by local authorities, whereas the doctor merely sees a hurdle he must leap over. However, Mrs. March is more concerned with the quality of the group of women she has chosen as her own stable of expendable human cattle.

Three women arrive in L.A. and are picked up by Mrs. March's lap dog of a boyfriend/companion/and for some reason the narrator describes him as a gigolo, Victor. These three women are all in line for what they believe to be a domestic position. The narrator describes the situation:

Three new bodies. Fresh, live, young bodies. No families or friends within thousands of miles, no one to ask embarrassing questions when they disappear. Victor wondered which one Mrs. March would pick. The little Mexican, the girl from Vienna, or the buxom blonde? Victor knew his pick, but he still felt uneasy, making love to an 80 year old woman in the body of a 20 year old girl; it's insanity!

This drive-in film is not pulling any punches in the objectification of women. As the women first arrived at the airport the camera even follows their gait from a close behind shot, with the score emphasizing their very important rhythmic movements. As the doctor makes his medical investigation of the women, Mrs. March quickly sends one of the women away for having a birth mark on her back. The blonde woman exclaims, “I have the same measurements as Marilyn Monroe,” giggling incessantly. She is quickly decided upon by Mrs. March over Nina, the Austrian girl. Nina and Anita are sent to their rooms, which are in the attic and the basement, respectively. Bea, our buxom blonde, is sent to her luxurious quarters and prepares herself for what she believes to be a life of servanthood.

That night, Anita meets her doom at the hands of the wolfman hybrid, the same one that helped Dr. Frank accomplish his grave robbing. Nina and Bea discuss the disappearance of Anita while polishing silver. Mrs. March quickly scolds Bea for abusing what she knows will soon be her very own hands. Bea’s British accent is awful, and definitely dubbed. I can barely stand to listen to it without thinking how terribly the directors of these films attempt to present different cultures.

Nina and Bea decide that something’s up and investigate the basement of the mansion. They hide while Dr. Frank passes by with his favorite cat, which the narrator informs us of for absolutely no reason. Soon the cat’s brain will be in the body of Anita. Why there is a progression from wolf to dog to cat brain is unapparent to me. It would seem to me that placing any animal brain inside the body of a human being is equally difficult, but the doctor insists that he is forwarding his research. While the doctor is working, a dog-brain girl makes her way out of the lab and into the rest of the house. Mrs. March searches for Bea, concerned that the two women are spending too much time together. She locks them into Bea’s room. Why do old people’s houses always have doors that lock from the outside?

Anita, now fully transplanted with the brain of the doctor’s favorite cat, eats a mouse in front of Mrs. March. She also is extremely friendly with the doctor, as his cat was. While dog-brain girl is out in the yard, Bea and Nina witness her getting attacked by the wolfman hybrid from their window. The doctor prods wolfman back to the house and chains him to a tree. After witnessing this, the group is certain that the women will have no plans to leave the house, else they get attacked. Unfortunately for them, Nina and Bea plan just that, with Bea attempting to seduce Victor and get his car. Victor hears the calling of Mrs. March, and runs off to see what she needs, while he leaves Bea in the garden. There she sees Anita, who scratches her from the top of the gazebo, clawing out Bea’s eyes. Nina then sees Anita on the roof of the house, and quickly runs up through the attic to reach the roof and talk to her. As they precariously walk across the edge of the roof, the wolfman spots them and becomes excited. He begins to yell as Anita begins climbing down the side of the house, only to lose her hold on the wall and fall to her death.

Nina walks into the basement to find Bea unconscious and prepped for the transplant. But now that she’s lost her eye, she is not the perfect woman to become Mrs. March. She has Anita try on some new clothes, and the narrator interjects,

Mrs. March had not realized her future body had such a satisfactory shape. Perhaps not as spectacular as the English girl but in excellent taste. She couldn't help being amused. The stupid girl was not only modeling Mrs. March's future wardrobe but Mrs. March's future body: so firm, so nicely round in places men like.

Soon Nina approaches Victor about the true wishes of Mrs. March. Having been spurned by the old crone, Victor decides to help Nina by murdering Mrs. March and allowing Nina, the real Nina, to inherit her fortune regardless. Mrs. March’s own paranoia has already gotten to her, and she decides to murder Victor before he’s able to do anything. Dr. Frank prepares Nina and Mrs. March for the brain transplant. While Mrs. March is undergoing her portion of the transplant he stirs Nina and asks her to stay with him and Bea in the house and use the funds so that he can continue his research in peace. Nina comes to the realization that the doctor has already completed the transplant, placing Mrs. March’s brain in the body of his cat. He begs Nina to see things his way, but after she seems reluctant, he realizes that he will need to turn her into one of his willing animal hybrid slaves. He enters the chamber to prepare for the transplant.

Mrs. March is quite the cat, and interacts with the controls while Dr. Frank is inside. Very soon the machine fries Dr. Frank, leaving only his skeleton. During the commotion, Nina is able to escape from the gurney she is strapped to and make an escape. During this time, Bea hears the noise and makes her way down to the basement, only to be electrocuted by some equipment. Nina escapes the house as it quakes from some kind of nuclear breakdown, and runs through the forest, while an angry black cat watches her go.

In the end, almost everyone’s dead, which is how a good exploitative science fiction film should end. The cat and Anita are the only ones to survive, and I am hopeful that Anita does find some kind of help, that she does find a home that needs true domestic help, instead of another spinster with murderous desires. I look forward to more of the drive-in trash in this series of films, and hope they will be just as sexy and confusing. And I wonder how any young man who may have taken these movies too seriously would be able to live without these sexy, confusing themes constantly in the back of his mind. I am of course thinking of George Lucas. There’s nothing more sexy and confusing than a brother and sister falling in love in a full-on space opera.

Rating: 2 Cat-brains out of 5