The wasp woman

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Movie
German title The wasp woman
Original title The Wasp Woman
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1959
length 75 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Roger Corman
script Leo Gordon
music Fred Katz
camera Harry C. Newman
cut Carlo Lodato
occupation

The Wasp Woman (AKA The Wasp Woman ) is an American science fiction - / horror film by Roger Corman from the year 1959th

action

The once successful cosmetics company of the aging model Janice Starling has been struggling with dwindling sales since the owner no longer wanted to be photographed for advertising campaigns out of vanity . One day, Dr. Eric Zinthrop. For years he researched the rejuvenating effects of certain enzymes in wasp queens, but was fired from his previous employer, a pharmaceutical company, due to unsuccessfulness. In Janice Starling he sees an enthusiastic financier and test person for his rejuvenating agent, which is almost finished but has not yet been tested on humans, and is not mistaken. Starling, contrary to the advice of her skeptical coworkers, especially the bright Bill Lane, grants him access to her laboratories and allows him to have injections of the agent administered.

Outstanding successes quickly set in and Janice Starling regains the beauty of her youth. But side effects soon become apparent. Starling suffers from severe headaches and an increasing need for Zinthrops rejuvenator. However, after an incident with a mutated laboratory animal, the latter is in the hospital and Starling cannot find him at first. Desperate, she injects large amounts of the serum on her own and finally mutates into a humanoid wasp creature with a cruelly disfigured insect's head. Bloodthirsty, she goes on a manhunt. After several people have already fallen victim to her, Bill Lane, his assistant Mary Dennison and the desperate Zinthrop, realizing his guilt, manage to burn the beast with acid and push it out the window, causing it to fall on the asphalt of the street after a long fall finds its end.

Background and reception

Corman shot the film as a rip-off of today's horror classic Die Fliege ( The Fly , 1958), which was released a year earlier, but has little in common with the content. Wasp Woman , typical of Corman films, was produced on a very low budget of around $ 50,000 and shot in just under a week. It premiered in New York on October 30, 1959 and was a blockbuster, albeit a moderate one. There were no German-language cinema screenings, the film was first broadcast in Germany on March 20, 1978 on WDR .

For the leading actress Susan Cabot , who had already appeared in various Corman productions, Wasp Woman was her last film appearance because she wanted to retire into family life. Her acting performance was consistently praised by the critics. The film music by Fred Katz , composed in the cool jazz style, was also highlighted , which was then used, at least in part, in a few other films by Corman, for example in Little Shop Full of Horrors ( The Little Shop of Horrors , 1960). The film itself received mixed reactions. Some found the B-movie "less bad than expected" and attested Corman's interesting staging and narrative ideas and a sense for bizarre details, others criticized cheap effects and dramatic lengths.

Frank Wolff , who later became known through engagements in spaghetti western films, for example as Farmer McBain in Spiel mir das Lied von Tod ( C'era una volta il West , 1968), can be seen in a small supporting role , whom Roger Corman systematically promoted.

For later broadcasts of the film on American television, Jack Hill shot a few additional scenes in the 1960s to extend the short running time of the film.

literature

  • Bill Warren: Keep watching the skies! American Science Fiction movies of the fifties. Volume II: 1958-1964. McFarland 1982

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry on the wasp woman in the two thousand and one film lexicon
  2. ↑ Bill Warren: Keep watching the skies! American Science Fiction movies of the fifties. Volume II: 1958-1964. McFarland 1982, pp. 365-366