Freaks (1932)

Greetings, readers, Bill here with a particularly interesting piece of film history. What we have here, is one of the earliest "exploitation" films (Thomas Edison's footage of an elephant being electrocuted being perhaps the first) -- the primary draw being the exploitation of the deformed and disabled presented within the film. At the same time, these "freaks" did not always have a bad life, and many ended up representing and even "exploiting" themselves. For every success story there were many, many tragedies, however, and tonight's film can perhaps be viewed as a memorial to these astonishing individuals.

Spoilers ensue.

Meet Cleopatra, "the Peacock of the Air," a famous circus trapeze performer. Hans and Frieda (little people Harry and Daisy Earles, in real life brother and sister), a diminutive engaged couple, watch her act and Hans is stunned to watch her perform. Hans is instantly smitten with the "big person."

Cleopatra, meanwhile, is attracted to Hercules, the circus strongman. He's a boorish clod of a human being, described in the film as "a side of beef," but she loves him nonetheless. And he's more than willing to use her for his pleasure.

Throughout, we're introduced to the "freaks" -- One half of a pair of siamese twins (played by the original Hilton sisters, Violet and Daisy) gets married, an armless woman enjoys a glass of wine, Prince Randian (the Human Caterpillar, born without limbs) rolls and lights a cigarette with his lips, and of course, Schlitzie the pinhead. While most of the "normals" of the circus look at the freaks with nothing but disgust and horror, only Ringleader Madame Tetrallini and Phroso the Clown (Wallace Ford, last seen around these parts in THE APE MAN) really respect them and recognize their humanity.

When Cleopatra discovers that Hans has a very large inheritance, she's suddenly very interested in him, to Frieda's horror and dismay, and Hans marries the beautiful trapeze artist. The wedding night dinner must be seen to be believed. Cleopatra drunkenly berates her new husband and his freaky friends for being freaks, and begins to plot with Hercules to poison Hans for his money.

Overheard in their scheming, the freaks confer among themselves and decide to make good their promise to make Cleopatra "one of us, one of us..."

THE END?

I hesitate to refer to FREAKS as Freaksploitation; much like THE BRUTE MAN, the disfigured and abnormal are much more "human" than the cruel, abusive "normals" -- the monsters wear a human face. The freaks are the heroes of this little drama; not victims, not monsters, but honest, helpful, loyal people with hopes, dreams, and hearts.

The film has inspired a lot of revulsion and horror over the years -- it was banned for 30 years in the UK, and in some cities in the USA it's still technically illegal to screen this film. The real horror is not in the malformations and abnormalities on display -- it's in the mirror the film holds up to us, the viewing audience, forcing us to look at our prejudices. The viewing audience has always been very quick to judge these freaks by their outward differences - be it on the silver screen or in person at the freak-shows. FREAKS prevents us from dehumanizing its stars, from rationalizing them away as somehow less than us. We're shown them at their most human, their most vulnerable, and have no choice but to recognize them as being no different than the rest of us.

All of this is due to the masterful handling of the material by Tod Browning, perhaps best known as the director of 1931's DRACULA. As a teen, Browning had ran away from home to join the circus; here, he worked as a caller ("barker," the more familiar term, is generally discouraged by those who practice the profession) for the "Wild Man of Borneo," and also performed a wildly successful (i.e., churches tended to protest the act as blasphemous)"living corpse" act where he'd be buried alive and, days later, be dug up with no ill effects.

Fresh off the run-away success of DRACULA, Tod Browning chose to helm FREAKS, drawing on his own experience living among sideshow performers and being a "freak" himself in creating the film. The revulsion and outcry against the film upon it's release basically destroyed Browning's career. He directed a few more films -- including MARK OF THE VAMPIRE, a talkie-remake of Browning's earlier, now lost, film LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT -- though without much in the way of creative control, after which he retired and became a recluse. Throat cancer robbed him of his voice, and he passed away in 1962.

Final Analysis: A powerful, moving little film drawing strongly on the tradition of Greek Tragedies, the images of these "freaks" still shock and amaze after all these years. If you think you can handle the sight of human flesh at it's most mutable, give it a watch.

Overall, I give FREAKS (1932)...

FIVE BARRELS OF TOXIC WASTE.

The Valley of Gwangi (1969)

Greetings, readers, Bill here with another classic of the Weird West. While not a success at the time of its release (due to changing tastes in Westerns, with the wholesome West pictured here having gone out of favor, being replaced by the grittier West of Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood), it remains a fun and entertaining film, with marvelous visual effects by Ray Harryhausen.

On to the film. Spoilers ensue.

Welcome to Old Mexico, and marvel as T. J. Breckenridge's (Israeli fashion model Gila Gholan) traveling Wild West Show comes to town! During T.J.'s grand finale, jumping a horse off a two-story platform into a pool of water surrounded by a ring of fire, who should show up but Tuck, an old associate of hers who walked out on her some time previous. Her assistant Champ (Richard Carlson, last seen around these parts in IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE) is none to happy to see Tuck, and neither is T.J.

T.J.'s Wild West Show isn't doing too well financially, and Tuck has come along with an offer to buy it out from under her. She throws him out, and on the way back to town, Tuck and his guide, young huckster Lope, encounter Dr. Bromley, a paleontologist digging for old bones in the Mexican desert and sporting a glorious set of sideburns. Bromley is seeking evidence that human ancestors existed far earlier than previous suspected -- possibly as much as 50 million years ago.

T.J. has a trick up her sleeve that she hopes will save her failing show -- a tiny, tiny horse that she's named El Diablo. As Bromley is soon able to confirm, Diablo is in fact an Eohippus -- the "Dawn Horse," one of the earliest known ancestors of the modern horse. Bromley and Tuck are immediately driven wild with dreams of grandeur -- Tuck, of marketing the horse to circuses, and Bromley, of receiving a Knighthood and publishing the scientific find of the century.

Tia Zorina, a local witch (played by Freda Jackson, who appeared as Letitia Whitley in DIE, MONSTER, DIE!) attempts to warn them off disturbing the Forbidden Valley, but they shrug off her superstitions as nothing.

They assemble a hasty expedition in search of the "Forbidden Valley" where the Eohippus was found. Penetrating through the narrow canyons and high cliffs that separate the Forbidden Valley from the rest of the world, they find a Lost World of hungry and surly dinosaurs. After fending off an attack by an enormous Pterodactyl, they encounter a very large, very hungry Allosaurus -- perhaps the fiercest predator of the Jurassic Period -- and a particularly irritable Styracosaurus (a relative of the Triceratops). With some skillful ropin' and ridin', the expedition manages to capture the Allosaurus, dubbed "Gwangi" after a local legendary demon, and cart it back to civilization for display in T.J.'s Wild West Show.

Naturally, the enraged beast breaks free and rampages through the tiny Mexican town, highlighted by a fantastic duel between Gwangi and an elephant. Can this ferocious monster be stopped?

THE END!

Ah, what a delight. An early full-color dinosaur movie, the vibrant and lavish technicolor is a treat played to the hilt in the costuming and set design, and of course the dinosaurs themselves are all brightly colored. And of course, since it's Harryhausen we're talking about, the dinosaurs are a beauty to behold -- constantly in motion, lungs pumping, even little touches like Gwangi scratching his nose -- Harryhausen's dinosaurs have to be the liveliest in cinematic history until JURASSIC PARK came along in 1993. And Gwangi and his ilk are still contenders.

I can't talk about this film without talking about the roping scene. Scenes like this are why I love practical effects so much. In the finished film, we see cowboys riding circles around the snapping, snarling Allosaurus, lassoing him around the head and neck. No computer effects at all -- the technology simply didn't exist. Instead, the cowboys were filmed lassoing a pole mounted on the back of a jeep -- and then Harryhausen's Allosaurus was brought to life and superimposed in place of the jeep one frame at a time, painted wires around the Allosaurus model carefully matched to ropes used by the actors. Stuff like this is why Harryhausen and similar special effects wizards are considered artists, rather than technicians.

Interestingly, THE VALLEY OF GWANGI also works as something of a morality play in the style of Greek Drama. Tuck and Bromley invade the Forbidden Valley out of greed -- Tuck, financial, and Bromley out of a burning desire for Knighthood and publication in the scientific journals. T.J. follows them into the Valley seeking vengeance for the "theft" of Diablo. But once she lays eyes on Gwangi, her pupils turn into dollar signs -- Gwangi will be the attraction that will save her little circus and make her rich! And the greedy characters are each punished. While the standards and practices of Hollywood at the time prevent the deaths of Tuck and T.J., Bromley is crushed under a piece of Gwangi's cage (and Gwangi himself), while T.J. is left with her circus destroyed, her performers dead or fled, and her elephant partially devoured, dashing her hopes of riches and Tuck's dreams of funding a nice little ranch in Wyoming.

I can't help but wonder...Tia Zorina calls Gwangi a demon, and his death scene is surprisingly suggestive of this as well...

Final Analysis: I can honestly say, without a shadow of doubt in my mind, that this is one of the true greats of dinosaur cinema. Gwangi comes to life under Harryhausen's masterful hands, in a film rich in story and populated by believable characters. The roping scene still defies belief forty-plus years later, standing as the absolute pinnacle in dinosaur-cowboy interaction.

Overall, I give THE VALLEY OF GWANGI (1969)...

FIVE BARRELS OF TOXIC WASTE.

The Deadly Mantis (1957)

Greetings, readers, Bill here with a lovely little slice of 1950s giant insect cinema, and I'll tell ya, a major player in my Monster Kid Memories. Growing up, my primary source of movie monster lore was not the video store (the one we went to didn't carry too many of the classics) by the public library, and a series of orange-bound books, each one giving a detailed synopsis of a classic monster movie (the one on Godzilla covered the entire series up to the publication date, and was very inaccurate) and some behind the scenes info with black and white photos throughout. I must have borrowed those books so many times...

*ahem* anyways, THE DEADLY MANTIS. Spoilers ensue.

Welcome to the northern reaches of Canada, and the Dew Line Radar Fence, vigilantly scanning the skies for any Commies that try to come over the Pole. One such Radar outpost picks up a strange buzzing, humming noise, and then something comes crashing down on top of them.

Enter Colonel Parkman (Craig Stevens) a straight-laced military man sent in to find out what happened to this particular Radar outpost, and also what caused a plane sent to investigate the Radar outpost to crash. He is baffled by the lack of bodies, strange prints in the snow, and a five-foot claw or spike of some sort.

Scientific testing reveals the spike to have come from a living organism, but beyond that, the team of scientists hastily assembled is baffled. Parkman is sent to Dr. Nedrick Jackson (William Hopper), a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History. He speculates that the claw might belong to some sort of giant prehistoric insect, frozen in ice for millions of years and recently freed.

The monstrous insect is soon revealed to be a gigantic praying mantis, which attacks the base Parkman, Jackson, and Jackson's assistant Marge are staying at. Driven off, the mantis is soon heading south towards warmer, more food-rich climes. Attempts to shoot the mantis out of the sky fail as bullets and even rockets bounce off it's hard carapace. An accidental kamikazi drives the mantis to ground, where it crawls into the Manhattan Tunnel. The Tunnel is quickly sealed off and flooded with smoke to keep the mantis from escaping. Parkman leads a team in armed with poison gas grenades; with these he finishes off the mantis. Once the smoke clears, he pulls Marge in for a kiss.

THE END!

Ah, I do so love these old giant bug flicks. While THE DEADLY MANTIS is far from the best of the bunch, it still manages some appreciable tension in the opening act as Parkman and the scientists strive to figure out what destroyed the Radar base and plane and some of the insect puppetry is pretty good. Rare for these pictures, the Mantis is an entirely natural, prehistoric giant, rather than a mutant created by atomic testing or science otherwise gone awry. I think only THE BLACK SCORPION is in this same category of "prehistoric survival" giant insects. Though technically speaking, scorpions are arachnids...aww, heck, you get my point, right?

One thing that THE DEADLY MANTIS is unique in utilizing, among giant insect films, is the assistance of the Ground Observer Corps. You see, during WWII, a series of Civil Defense programs came into existence, enlisting civilians to aid the war effort by watching the skies for enemy planes, thus supplementing the air scanning capabilities of the pre-NORAD air defense. With the full implementation of NORAD in 1958 (in response to the Commies) and advances in Radar technology, the Ground Observer Corps would be phased out in 1959.

Come to think of it...this is the only genre film of this era that I can recall utilizing the Ground Observer Corps! Refresh my memory, readers, did the GOC play any part in EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS? Huh, now I'm interested, I'm gonna have to go back and look for the GOC in some of these flying saucer pictures from the era...

Final Analysis: A giant prehistoric mantis starts eating people, working its way down from the North Pole. Not as good as THEM!, or even TARANTULA, but still an entertaining film.

Overall, I give THE DEADLY MANTIS (1957)...

FOUR BARRELS OF TOXIC WASTE

Blades (1989)

Greetings, readers, Bill here. Now, Spielberg's 1975 classic JAWS is probably one of the most influential horror movies ever made -- it provided a template for subsequent creature features over the ensuing 35 years, and will likely continue to do so for 35 more. Everything from ALLIGATOR and THE BEING to the latest zero-budget, zero-brains SyFy Channel Original Movie involving a creature on the loose owes a debt of gratitude to JAWS. As does this film, distributed by the fine folks at Troma Entertainment.

Spoilers ensue.

We open on some canoodling teenagers, who, upon venturing into some tall grass for some more intense action, are murdered by...something that comes rushing at them in a Point of View shot from the attacker. Roll opening credits.

Welcome to the Tall Grass Golf Course and Country Club. Meet Roy, the new pro, and Kelly, his assistant (she'd been promised Roy's position, and is very, very angry about this). On Roy's first day, a horrifying discovery is made on the 8th Hole sand trap -- a pair of mangled bodies, half-buried, hands locked in a proper club grip.

Chief of Police Charlie Kimmel (who looks like Boris Yeltsin) assures Roy that everything is under control, and Mr. Osgood, proprietor of Tall Grass, is concerned strictly with ensuring that the coming weekend's tournament goes off without a hitch.

Soon more golfers are turning up dead and mangled. A meeting is called to ensure the golfing populace that there is no reason to panic, and Roy begins to suspect that a lawnmower is being used to commit these grisly murders. A manhunt is organized, which will hopefully be completed swiftly enough that Osgood won't need to close the course. Dozens of armed loonies descend upon the course, looking for the maniac who is assumed to be killing golfers, to the tune of "Ride of the Valkyries." I wonder what Richard Wagner would say about how much play that tune's gotten in film over the years...

The maniac hunt turns up Deke the groundskeeper, lurking with an old push-mower, and everyone assumes he's the killer. The only problem, as Deke points out, is that the push mower isn't big enough to inflict the kind of wounds seen on the dead golfers uncovered so far. It's bite radius is too small, one might say. Deke also asserts that the murders have been committed by a self-propelled lawnmower without a human operator. Slicing open the bag on the mower confirms Deke's innocence -- it contains nothing but grass clippings.

The tournament continues as planned, and as Roy has come to suspect, the malevolent mower shows up to begin gruesomely mulching contestants. Roy and Kelly enlist the aid of Deke in stopping the bloodthirsty lawnmower, but once he gets mulched, the two are left to find an answer to the eternal question..."How do you kill a machine?"

THE END?

That was...surreal. Played straight, rather than as a goofball comedy send-up, this mishmash of KILLDOZER and CADDYSHACK (shut up, it was the only golf movie I could think of) sometimes veers too closely to the original JAWS. Deke and his lawnmower become a stand-in for the first shark killed, and an analysis of the "bite radius" proves its innocence; Deke himself has serious Quint overtones; and hay-bales with helium balloons attached stand in for the barrels Quint attaches to the shark. And of course the whole "We can't close the course!" plot...Deke's armored, heavily-armed van makes one heck of a stand-in for the Orca, I have to say.

The Mower itself is darned intimidating, much like the titular machine in KILLDOZER. Big, old, and vicious, all engine and whirring blades, this is not something you want to see bearing down on you, even if it's not driven by an evil intelligence and desire to kill. The smiley-face balloons tangled on the olive green, oil-stained framework do not detract from its menace.

One major problem with this film is the audio track. At times the viewer is left struggling to hear what anybody is saying, while screaming and engines are freakishly loud, sending me jumping for the "Volume Down" button on my remote. It's kind of a pain.

Final Analysis: A silly movie about a killer lawnmower menacing a golf course, very closely parodying JAWS. No budget, but plenty of fun.

Overall, I give BLADES (1989)...

FOUR BARRELS OF TOXIC WASTE.

Shaolin vs. Vampire (1980)

Greetings, readers, Bill here with a little chop-socky Hong Kong/Japanese martial arts/horror action for you on this fine Friday night. I picked up a set of four Gordon Liu (Pei Mei from KILL BILL VOL. 2) films cheap at Best Buy, and tonight's film was one of the titles that drew me to the set. Shaolin monks. And vampires. And they're fighting. The title promises this!

Spoilers ensue.

Meet Daiyu (Gordon Liu), a mild-mannered chef and Shaolin Master in a little village. A little village seemingly beset by vampires! Seriously, a villager by the name of "Cha" claims to have seen one last night, though Daiyu is skeptical, suggesting that maybe Cha was a little too drunk. Daiyu insists that there are no vampires in the village, there never were vampires in the village, and there never will be vampires in the village. Nevertheless, vampires are all anyone talks about, with even children playing "Cops and Vampires."

Soon thereafter, Daiyu is called to a movie set to advise the martial arts scenes, and brings his daughter Bee with him. The movie is one about vampires, and wouldn't you know it, a pair of "real" vampires are haunting the set! Of course, these two unbelievable undead are fakes who have dressed up as vampires for a Scooby Doo-esque plot helmed by Master Sho, a rival master of Shaolin, to steal Daiyu's land.

Bee also finds a genuine vampire, a young boy from the spirit world, lost in the mortal realm. She befriends this tubby little bespectacled bloodsucker, taking him home and making him new clothes. When a villainous priest in Master Sho's employ traps Bee in a shed and sets it on fire for foiling his plot, the little vampire dons a big black hat to protect him from the sun, and speeds to her rescue.

In the process, Bee's mother becomes trapped in the burning shed, and dies in Bee's place. Whoops.

Daiyu's reaction to all of this is to begin drinking heavily. That is, until Yuko, a student from Tokyo researching Shaolin, arrives at his door. She cleans his house (literally) and restores Daiyu's self-confidence while learning Shaolin Kung Fu, though not before the little vampire makes her look like a fool. Yuko and Daiyu even fall in love!

What follows is a musical montage of Yuko learning Shaolin and writing her graduate thesis, set to a snappy tune called "Vampire Summer Vacation."

The little vampire, unfortunately, is attacked using a voodoo doll and Bee is kidnapped, forcing Daiyu's inevitable confrontation with Master Sho, who is -- surprise! -- a sorcerer with a small army of vampire minions at his disposal. Can Daiyu and Yuko kick enough butt to save Bee and the little vampire?

THE END!

That was...evidence I need to experience more chop-socky insanity. Insanity! I can't even begin to describe this film in any way that actually conveys the experience of watching it. From the fact that each major character, when first introduced on screen, is accompanied by a subtitle identifying the character and actor/actress to the "Vampire Summer Vacation" song, this film is weird.

I've been able to find deucedly little information on this film, and I'm not even 100% sure I have the date right. It's not on Gordon Liu's IMDB filmography, either, though that is undeniably him in the lead. As I understand it, however, this film is part of a trend in the 1980s of Chinese Vampire movies, starring that charming member of the undead, the Hopping Vampire.

Unlike the suave Romanian counts and sparkling emo kids we're used to in the west, the Hopping Vampire is a greenish, claw-fingered monstrosity, so named for it's tendency to hop around everywhere -- a result of rigor mortis locking it's knees. Maybe due to the fact that I'm a Westerner, but I've always been kind of fond of these vampires -- they're just so weird and different than what I'm used to.

Final analysis: A wacky horror/romantic-comedy/kung fu action movie made as a joint venture between Hong Kong and Japanese film studios. A little light on both kung fu and vampires, but nevertheless, a fun, kooky film.

Overall, I give SHAOLIN VS. VAMPIRE (1980)

THREE BARRELS OF TOXIC WASTE.

Thunder in Dixie (1964)

Greetings, readers, Bill here with Something Weird. Yes, another little gem from the fine folks at Something Weird Video, one of my favorite sources for obscure schlock titles (and they ain't payin' me to say that, folks!). Tonight, instead of a Creature Feature, we have a piece of "Speedsploitation" -- an exploitation film focused on the American South's preoccupation with race cars and speedways. Yes, the American Southerner liked fast cars and crazy burn-out crashes and explosions long before the formation of NASCAR, and wouldn't you know it, the Drive-In caught on to that fact.

Anyways, on to the film. Spoilers ensue.

Meet Mickey Arnold, one of the best drivers on the racing circuit. And meet Ticker Welsh, a fellow driver and Mickey's best pal. Or rather, Ticker was Mickey's best friend, until a crash kills Edna, Ticker's girlfriend. Ticker blames Mickey for her death; unable to forgive Mickey, Ticker grows to hate his former pal with a single-minded passion -- so blinding is Ticker's hatred that it's affected Ticker's ability to race.

Mickey, meanwhile, is blinded by his own pride, unwilling to back down from racing against Ticker, though doing so with full knowledge of Ticker's intent to try to kill him.

Caught in the middle are Lily, Mickey's wife, and Karen, a burned out, broken-hearted floozy who was married to a driver (he died on the track) and who now cruises the speedway bars, looking for "losers" to take home and fill a little of her own emptiness with, if only for a few hours. Karen senses a kinship with Ticker, attaching herself to his side, serving as his only emotional support.

As the two men, driven to the limit by their own senses of pride, race towards a deadly climax, Lily is torn apart by her terror for Mickey's safety and sorrowful affection for Ticker as a friend, leaving Mickey to doubt her fidelity; and Karen struggles in the face of the cold fact that one way or another, the closest thing she's got to a meaningful relationship is going to be burning on the track.

THE END?

I love movies like this. Little, lost, forgotten gems that take you by surprise and blindside you with their hidden quality. A story of two friends, their lives forever changed in a single instant that ultimately destroys them both, and the friends and lovers caught between...hell, a big name actor or two and a bigger budget and THUNDER IN DIXIE could have won an Oscar. Can you imagine Dennis Hopper and Burt Reynolds in this?

Additionally, this is one of those films that I just can't imagine being in color. Yes, THUNDER IN DIXIE is filmed in glorious Black and White, and this format really adds to the story. Much like with THEM!, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and FASTER PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!, the Black and White becomes atmospheric, lending a chilling bleakness to the proceedings on screen. These men are destroying themselves and each other, too proud to stop, and the grayscale accentuates that.

Final Analysis: Unlike many "car" movies, the race itself is not the focus, but strictly a backdrop for the drama of a friendship strained to the breaking point. Thoughtful and believable, this is very much worth a watch, regardless of whether you like redneck racing movies or not. At it's worst, it's a little slow in places and there's a distinct difference in film quality between the racing scenes and the rest of the film. Available at Something Weird, and well worth the price of admission.

Overall, I give THUNDER IN DIXIE (1964)...

FOUR BARRELS OF TOXIC WASTE.

Cat-Women of the Moon (1953)

Greetings, readers, Bill here with a delightful little 1950s space-romp for you. I feel like the title alone is enough to let you know if this is a film you want to learn more about or not, and that there is precious little I can add in the way of introduction. Thus, let us get on with the review.

Spoilers ensue.

Welcome to Rocket 4. A crew of five -- Laird Granger, Kip Reissner (Victor Jory, last seen around these parts in MANFISH), Doug Smith, Helen Salinger, and Walter "Walt" Walters -- are headed for the Moon. Their rocket malfunctions, and it looks like Helen is getting the Space Madness; on the radio she says "Alpha, we're coming." She has no recollection of this.

Then, as navigator, she guides the rocket to the Dark Side of the Moon (quick, get WIZARD OF OZ synced up!); a valley she had no way of knowing existed. Donning their padded spacesuits (I could swear I've seen those suits in another film, but I can't place them), they go exploring, led by Helen to a cave. A cave she had no way of being able to see on the descent.

In the cave, they find an atmosphere -- so they immediately take their helmets and light cigarettes. And are then promptly attacked by gigantic spiders (which look like the props from MESA OF LOST WOMEN). Once the spiders are dealt with, they find that Helen has gone missing.

Helen has been kidnapped by the titular Cat-Women. They're women in black leotards and heavy eye makeup! They dance around and plot a mass exodus to Earth, but they need the rocket to get there. So, making Helen one of them, they start seducing the men into teaching them how the rocket works.

Unfortunately for the Cat-Women, their plan goes awry when one of their number, Lambda, falls in love with Doug, the radio operator. Betraying her race to the heroic American Male, they abandon the Cat-Women (Lambda included) to a slow cultural decay and blast off for Earth, Helen firmly strapped to a chair to prevent her from attacking the males while under Cat-Woman mind-control.

THE END!

Ahhhh, classic cheesy fun...I love the 1950s, folks, the films that came out of that decade...well, there's just nothing like them. Here we have women in black leotards being presented as aliens and using their wicked wiles to destroy men...amazing. And the spiders! Where did the spiders come from?

I almost wonder if the Cat-Women are something of a knee-jerk misogynist reaction to changing women's roles post World War II. These are openly sexual women in a man-less society who aim to assert their dominance over the generally-patriarchal society of Earth. Alpha, leader of the Cat-Women, ridicules Lambda for "falling in love," telling her that when they rule the Earth, a mate will be selected for her "eugenically." This has got to be about the "threat" posed by women voting and holding jobs.

However, it's not much of a warning, as I'm totally cool with being ruled over by a woman in a black leotard.

Final Analysis: Silly 1950s science-fiction fun, and in the public domain so you can see it for free! What's not to like?

Overall, I give CAT-WOMEN OF THE MOON (1953)...

THREE BARRELS OF TOXIC WASTE.