WASP WOMAN
US, 1959, 73 minutes, Black and white.
Susan Cabot, Anthony Eisley, Barboura Morris.
Directed by Roger Corman.
The B Feature was a popular aspect of the double bills, especially in English-speaking countries. They were churned out by the American industry as well as by the British from the 1930s to the 1960s. The coming of television did not immediately halt their production or popularity but, at the beinning of the 1960s, with the big-budget widescreen films that were becoming more and more popular, there was little place for these films.
When the Americans began making telemovies in the late 1960s, these became the alternative to the B films.
However, there were still a number of film-makers who made genre pictures during the 1970s, often Z budget in production and imagination. Later, the successors of these films were the straight-to-video and straight-to-DVD films of the 1990s and into the 21st century.
In the United States, especially with the popular serials that took on themes of science and even space exploration, the 1950s saw a proliferation of short science fiction films, some of them now considered excellent examples of their type, others were just schlock.
One of the features of these films was the atomic age and many of the films were warnings about radiation dangers and the possibilities of mutations and monsters. Godzilla emerged from this period. Space also fascinated film-makers and audiences at this time. The first Sputnik was launched in 1957 and soon after the first astronauts went into space. The moon landing was in 1969. Many of the films (even Kubrick’s 1968 2001: a Space Odyssey) tried to imagine what space travel would be like. There was a huge spate of space films.
Unfortunately, special effects were quite limited at the time and many audiences would find these quite risible. However, taken in their time, they had their impact.
This was the period of Ed Wood and his Planet 9 from Outer Space but also the beginning of the career of Roger Corman and his many protégés who became top-class directors.
There had been a Hollywood tradition of horror since the 1930s which led to many spoofs. However, all kinds of horror made a comeback in the 1950s, not only in the shockers from the US but also from Hammer Studios in England. These films also continued throughout the 1960s and 1970s and influenced some of the poorer directors like Ted. V. Mikels with films like The Corpse Grinders. These films, along with the popularity of the blaxploitation films now show their age with their characteristic costumes and hair styles, the touch sometimes of the psychedelic and the grainy film stock.
As the 1950s went on, Roger Corman made more and more quickie B-budget features. He began with Swamp Woman and Five Guns West in 1955. This film shows a little more sophistication as the years went on. He was about to begin his series of adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher, Mask of the Red Death, The Haunted Palace … as well as making the significant film about racism, The Intruder.
This film was written by Leo V. Gordon, an actor who appeared in quite a number of westerns and who appeared to advantage as a central character in The Intruder. Gordon also wrote a number of screenplays for Corman including The Terror as well as a great amount of television material.
The film is the usual story of scientific experimentation, this time with wasps to get the jelly from the queen wasps in order to find a secret ingredient to develop youthfulness. Needless to say the effects are destructive, especially for the woman who commissioned the research. She is played by Susan Cabot (who appeared in The Viking Women).
The film, in black and white, has a contemporary feel of the 1950s as Janice Starlin (Susan Cabot) authorises a scientist to extract the jelly from the wasps. She has been the face of advertising for the company for fifteen years and her board tells her that she is the reason for lack of progress and business. Eventually, she takes injections of the jelly and, at first, they have a youthful effect. She works with her secretary who has been commissioned by other members of the board to investigate the payments to the scientist.
The film reaches a climax when the wasp jelly has an effect on Janice and she turns into the Wasp Woman. This happens all very quickly as she changes, threatens her secretary, is confronted by one of the board and falls out the window to her death.
1.The popularity of this kind of B feature? Supporting feature? (Remade in 1995 in colour?)
2.The black and white photography, the bee farm, the wasps, offices? Laboratories? Standard settings for this kind of thriller? The musical score?
3.The doctor, his investigations, the bees, the wasps? The official sacking the doctor, his going to Janice, his explanations, her giving him a laboratory? His further research? The injections for Janice? The wasps attacking him?
4.Janice, discussions with the board, the attack on her, her age, the advertising? Taking in the doctor? The research, her interest, her working with her secretary? The injections, the effect? The wasps taking her over and her becoming a monster? Her sudden death?
5.The board, their discussions, the attack on Janice? Trying to get information about her? The various members, the discussions? Confrontations with Janice? Her working with Mary, the board getting Mary to give reports?
6.Conventional material – but an interesting example of popular science fiction of the 50s?
