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
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