THE LEECH WOMAN - Some thoughts on the piercing of the pineal gland

The Leech Woman (1960)
dir. Edward Dein
Starring: Coleen Gray, Phillip Terry, Grant Williams, Gloria Talbott

***

By Greg Klymkiw

Paul and June Talbot (Coleen Gray and Phillip Terry respectively) are just your average American couple. Paul is a scientist (mad, of course) who is attempting to discover a potion that will allow him to reverse the aging process. June is his loving, booze-swilling, abused and neglected wife. The once-loving pair face the usual problems of nuptial bliss gone sour: Paul, in spite of the fact that he’s rather ugly and old, is able to instill feelings of inadequacy in his gorgeous wife who, in turn, feels old, ugly and frumpy in spite of the fact that she’s only in her mid-to-late-30s and pretty much a babe (albeit a slightly dowdy one). If only her hubby could find a way to make his better half, a truly better half.

Such are the typical concerns of Cold War America in the 50s and thankfully we have motion pictures such as The Leech Woman to provide this revealing glimpse into the lives and dreams of Joe and Josephina Average.

Directed by the competent, but otherwise unexciting Edward Dein, The Leech Woman is yet another welcome feature entry in Universal Home Video’s magnificent DVD box-set “The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection”. While, the picture is not really science fiction, but horror, that’s probably a quibble of the least important kind. What really matters is that it’s a Universal Production – always the sign of quality for genre pictures.

Being from Universal is especially welcome because the picture boasts some really fine studio production value – albeit of the low budget variety, but the kind of studio elements that can contribute rather successfully to creating a property that soars rather than sinks. For example, the pace of the picture is totally bat-out-of-hell and ultimately just the perfect running time (under 80 minutes). This should come as no surprise since the picture was edited by the legendary Universal Pictures in-house cutter Milton Carruth who provided the magnificent cinematic sheep shearing on such timeless celluloid bon-bons as Tod Browning’s Dracula, Karl Freund’s The Mummy, the famed Jimmy Stewart and Marlene Dietrich western Destry Rides Again, all of Douglas Sirk’s classic melodramas, the archetypal 50s sex comedy Pillow Talk and my personal favourites – the Francis the Talking Mule pictures.

Another added bonus to this particular Universal production is some truly excellent makeup design from in-house wizard Bud Westmore.

Most importantly, the technical credits do not overshadow some of the more entertaining and interesting aspects of this picture – namely, the almost feminist perspective on how women are forced into certain ideals by a world dominated by men and how they can get a little self-respect and, of course, payback.

Payback in this picture comes via Old Malla (veteran Broadway actress Estelle Hemsley), a mysterious African woman who appears to have the secret to age-reversal. When hubby drags his maligned wifey into the deepest, darkest jungle in search of the ingredients to restore beauty and youth - salvation and horror alternately lurk around the corner.

And they both involve the piercing of the pineal gland.

And eventually, the picture delivers up even more Universal Pictures delights – the welcome presence of the stalwart and studly Grant Williams (Incredible Shrinking Man) and the utterly cream-wrenching Gloria (I Married A Monster From Outer Space) Talbott.

And have I mentioned the piercing of the pineal gland yet?

And, even more tantalizing are the native rituals in the jungle. What self-respecting 50s genre film would NOT have native rituals in the jungle?

The Leech Woman is a supremely entertaining entry in the 50s canon of genre pictures from Universal. It’s fun, provocative and even a bit creepy.

And, uh . . . it features the piercing of the pineal gland.

"The Leech Woman” is available in the “The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection” from Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

DR. CYCLOPS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Fun addition to work of great fantasy-adventure director Ernest B. Schoedsack

Dr. Cyclops (1940) dir. Ernest B. Schoedsack
Starring: Albert Dekker, Thomas Coley, Janice Logan

***1/2

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The director of Dr. Cyclops, Ernest B. Schoedsack, had a life that rivaled the adventures experienced by many of the characters that populated his motion pictures.

At the age of 12, Schoedsack ran away from home. By the age of 17, he was a motion picture cameraman for the legendary comedy producer Mack Sennett. At the tender age of 23, he joined the signal corps as a cinematographer and spent much of World War I in the thick of the most horrendous battles, photographing their every detail. After the armistice was signed, he paired up with another young adventurer (Merian C. Cooper) and the two of them became involved in the anti-Bolshevik movement in Russia, Ukraine and Poland.

And this was all before he became the groundbreaking director of some of cinema’s greatest adventures.

While it’s not necessary to know the breadth of Schoedsack’s considerable life experience in order to enjoy his motion pictures, there’s something that’s both moving and admirable to know that adventure fantasies such as King Kong, The Four Feathers, The Last Days of Pompeii and The Most Dangerous Game came from an imagination that was tempered with having seen and done so much as a young man. Schoedsack’s work is imbued with a sense of wonder, adventure and, most importantly, exploration. What’s especially amazing about Schoedsack’s work on Dr. Cyclops is realizing that it was made in 1940.

1940!!!

Schoedsack, endowed as he was with a great eye and a knack for special effects was – to put it mildly – one hell of a photographer and filmmaker. His work in this picture laid the visual groundwork (as Kong most certainly did) for generations of films and filmmakers to follow.

Dr. Cyclops is the fun and thrilling tale of a truly mad scientist (deliciously and brilliantly portrayed by the bald and coke-bottle-lensed Albert Dekker) who uses radium to shrink people and animals alike in a crazed attempt to rule the world. The picture not only features staggeringly gorgeous three-strip Technicolor photography, but a variety of eye-popping special effects that, for their day, would have knocked people on their buttocks and which are, even by today’s standards, quite magical.

The heroes and heroines of the piece pale, of course, beside the tragically obsessive central character who is both literally and figuratively blinded – as the title even implies – but this too is par for the course in a sci-fi melodrama on the scale of this one, and while familiar, it fits comfortably like a comfy, old sweater.

Dr. Cyclops is not the masterpiece that King Kong was, but in its own special way, it was definitely ahead of its time in terms of both special effects and political/historical considerations and it amply provides solid entertainment to anyone who loves genre pictures. The picture’s exploration of a “foreign” enemy wanting to experiment upon and ultimately subjugate American interests also pre-dates that attitudes so prevalent over one decade later during the sci-fi pictures made during the Cold War.

Dr. Cyclops is a most welcome addition to the second volume of Universal’s magnificent DVD box-set entitled The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection. It’s a gorgeous transfer of a fine little picture and while it’s certainly worth renting, the price point on this box is so reasonable that fans would be well advised to just buy it.

THE CULT OF THE COBRA - Review By Greg Klymkiw - What is Lamia? 'Tis the head and breast of a woman… and the body of a… SERPENT!!! Now you know.

HAPPY UKRAINIAN BOXING DAY! Continuing the tradition of steering you towards awe-inspiring work in this season of goodwill, Greg Klymkiw's CFC presents a KLYMKIW FILM CORNER review of…

THE CULT OF THE COBRA
(Nothing to do with Ukrainians save for the fact that this review is written by a Uke.)

Cult Of The Cobra (1955) dir. Francis D. Lyon
Starring: Faith Domergue, Richard Long, Marshall Thompson, David Janssen

***

By Greg Klymkiw

While one cannot justify delivering more than two-and-a-half stars for this copycat of Val Lewton’s The Cat People, it is a rating that doesn’t adequately represent the picture’s considerable entertainment value and its extremely interesting commentary on post-war life in America, so screw it! I'm giving this thing three stars.

Cult of the Cobra is another film from Universal Home Video’s magnificent DVD box-set “The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection” and though it lacks panache (save for the terrific cinematography of Russell Metty), it represents just the sort of picture that home consumption appears to have been invented for – a medium to deliver product that might otherwise be consigned to a slag-heap of forgotten cinematic refuse. And for Cult of the Cobra, the fate of neglect would be a shame.

In spite of Francis D. Lyon’s perfunctory direction, there’s something extremely haunting about this story of a group of young American soldiers who have survived the horrors of war and yet, when the clouds of strife are lifted, find themselves stalked and cut-down on home turf by a mysterious, evil and (naturally) foreign killer.

While some contemporary audiences get all high and mighty in their idiotically myopic political correctness when it comes to the ethnocentrism of older pictures, they should just swallow a humour pill and enjoy the fact that the film begins in Asia. Yes, Asia! The film does not specify where EXACTLY in Asia we are – all that really matters is that we are not in AMERICA and that our brawny, normal, American and WHITE heroes are in a mysterious, foreign land. Foreign, in this context equals EVIL!!!!! And even though we’re supposed to be in “Asia”, we’re really in some crazed never-never-land of cloaked, turban-adorned snake charmers.

Looking for some exotic action before returning to their normal lives back in America, our motley heroes manage to buy their way into a mysterious ceremony of snake worshippers where they witness a boner-inducing cobra-charming burlesque routine then interrupt the proceedings in that brashly rude, American way when one of them snaps a flash photo and then, to make matters worse, they engage in a brawl with these foreigners and steal their sacred snake basket. One of the soldiers at a later juncture opines that perhaps they went a “little too far”.

You bet, fella!

These goddamn foreign snake charmers don’t take to your kind at the best of times and now you’re in for one kick-ass curse that’s not only going to follow your infidel rump back to the homeland, but to your ever-loving grave.

And believe you me, bud, there ain’t nothin' Homeland Security can do about cobra curses.

The cast and the vaguely derivative (but compelling) screenplay work overtime as the picture progresses. Things get especially entertaining when our soldier boys get back to America. We primarily follow the adventures of roomies Richard Long (the eventual star of TV’s Nanny and the Professor) and Marshall Thompson (eventual star of T.V.’s Daktari) as they vie for the affections of a wholesome platinum blonde apple-pie babe (Kathleen Hughes). When she eventually picks stalwart hunk Richard Long to be her swordsman, Marshall Thompson dejectedly finds himself in the arms of the mysterious, exotic and FOREIGN Faith Domergue. Domergue plays an agent of the cobra-worshippers and her mission is to kill each and every last one of the infidel soldiers.

By the bye, Faith Domergue represents everything that was so great about 50s movie babes – nice full lips, melt-in-your-mouth curves and sex appeal that never lets up. Domergue was especially semen-draining to young, pud-pulling male movie-goers in This Island Earth.

As per usual - especially when extolling the virtues of 50s babes - I digress.

Russell Metty, the cinematographer, especially delivers the goods. Metty, who shot most of Douglas Sirk’s great melodramas and, lest we forget, Orson Welles’s Touch Of Evil, contributes marvelous lighting and some really effective cobra POVs.

One only wishes that Francis Lyon wasn’t such a dull director. His lack of voice is what keeps this movie from really soaring. Lyon was a great editor (he won an Oscar for his astounding cutting on the classic boxing picture Body and Soul), but as a director, he plays things strictly by the numbers. This workmanlike approach is not always a bad thing in a director, but this picture is so entertaining to begin with that one wants it to be better than it is.

Alas, they can’t all be masterpieces. If they were, the world would actually be a dull place. It’s probably enough that the picture exists and that it’s as fun and interesting as it is. The strange post-war ennui afflicting all the soldiers on home turf and how the strangest element of their experience overseas follows them makes for compelling enough viewing - they've survived war, but those they've made war upon are with them - whether they like it or not. That there is a supernatural element which sinks its hooks into these men is damn evocative, in spite of the ho-hum helmsmanship of Lyon.

One does wonder, however, what the picture might have been like with a livelier directorial hand – a Jack Arnold, a Richard Fleischer, a Joseph Lewis or an Edgar Ulmer – or, for that matter, a producer like Val Lewton. In fact, any one of those directors and Lyon editing (instead of directing) might have delivered the goods.

It’s still a good picture though. Seeing these hunky, fresh-faced young soldiers get mysteriously whacked by the stunning Faith Domergue will keep you on the edge of your seat.

And, you know what? I’m almost inclined to revise my two-and-one-half to three-star boost yet another half-star in Heaven's direction.

I won’t, but one can dream, can’t one?

Cult of the Cobra is available on DVD in Universal Home Video’s “Classic Ultimate Sci-Fi Collection”