PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: (1) *poor,* (2) *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
Richard Cunha’s first directorial
effort for independent Astor Pictures was GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN,
with a script provided by two writers. The story goes that Astor then
wanted another B-film to pair with GIANT. So Cunha concocted SHE
DEMONS with the assistant of co-writer H.E. Barrie. To rephrase an
old chestnut, this was a case of the mild leading the wild.
GIANT is never a total loss. Cunha had
been a cinematographer in the military, and he takes good advantage
of the California locations. Still, both the plot and the characters
are pretty dull. Viewpoint character Brooks (Ed Kemmer) journeys to a
small California town to meet an old colleague, only to find that the
colleague and two other residents have been killed, as have a number
of cattle. (Despite this allusion to “cattle mutilations,” no one
makes any reference to flying saucers or their occupants.) Though he
gets some suspicious looks from a local sheriff, Brooks has no plans
to play detective, except in the scientific sense. He encounters a
respected archaeologist, Doctor Cleveland, and joins the latter’s
expedition to look for conquistador artifacts—not least because the
doctor’s good-looking daughter Janet is along for the ride.
Rounding out the support-cast is an aggrieved local, Indian Joe, who
claims that the murderer is an ancient Indian spirit, seeking to
avenge the wrongs done to Indians by white men.
Once out in the wilds of California,
the threesome go about the business of archaeological exploration,
while Cleveland provides needed exposition on the source of the
artifacts he seeks: a brigade of conquistadors that disappeared in
the area centuries ago. He even has detailed info on their leader, a
giant warrior named Vargas. This proves fortunate because Vargas
(Buddy Baer) has awakened from a bout of suspended animation, leading
him to run around butchering cattle for food,.Conveneitnly, the
little expedition unearths the mammoth fellow’s armor, prompting
the unspeaking warrior to reclaim it, so that he looks more like a
conquistador and less like a cast-member from ONE MILLION B.C.
However, having set up a reasonably
interesting scenario, the rest of the film drags along, with a lot of
minor action (including more business with the suspicious sheriff)
and the offscreen killing of Indian Joe by Vargas, until the
climactic slaying of the unknown giant. Personally, I thought the
scripters missed a bet by not having Indian Joe befriend Vargas and
use him as a pawn to kill white folks, so that he would become an
avenging Indian spirit in the metaphorical sense at least.
SHE DEMONS, though, proves to be one of
the liveliest B-films of the late fifties, starting off with a
handful of people being shipwrecked on a South Seas island—two of
whom, heroic seaman Fred (Tod Griffin) and spoiled heiress Jerrie
(Irish McCalla), are the destined romantic pair of the tale. Jerrie
sets the tone for the craziness to come by bitching at Fred for not
rescuing more of her precious clothes, including “my powder blue cashmere shortie!” Naturally,all of her upper-crust nastiness merely
reflects her desire to wield control over the stalwart seaman—and
over time, she becomes more sympathetic as they and their shipmate
Sammy (Victor Sen Yung) find that the island is replete with all
sorts of menace. Not only are there the demonesses of the title, but
also leftover WWII Nazis, a boiling volcano, and U.S. jets that use
the island as a bombing-site.
The monstrous maidens—lissome
island-women with demon-like faces-- are the first weird thing
uncovered by the castaways, but the She Demons are no more the stars
of the show than are the beast-men of Wells’ ISLAND OF DOCTOR
MOREAU and its cinematic adaptations. This island has its own version
of Moreau, Nazi scientist Karl Oster, who spends his exile coming up
with weird experiments. Oster has fortified his underground HQ so
well that he’s survived several bombing-runs (thus creating, in
effect, a South Seas version of the Blitz) and he uses the power of
the volcano to create a “perpetual motion machine.”
All thar said, Oster’s only aim—as
well as the aim of his three of four fellow ex-Nazis—seems to be
that of using island-women as research subjects, so that he can
someday restore the good looks of his burn-victim wife Mona. How
Oster happened to create the She Demons doesn’t get a lot of
explanation. Cunha and Barrie are much more interested in showing
that, despite his sentimental feeling for his wife, Oster is still a
very Bad Nazi, not least because he starts putting the moves on
Jerrie.
Many critics have compared SHE DEMONS
to “men’s adventure” magazine-stories, but to me it seems more
like a Golden Age comic book, with its cheerful parade of impossible
wonders. McCalla, who was playing TV’s “Sheena” during the same
period, is much more fun to watch than the She Demons, who don’t
even get to do much beyond a short dance and the mauling of their
keeper. Cunha and Barrie also collaborated on two more noteworthy
B-films, FRANKENSTEIN’S DAUGHTER and MISSILE TO THE MOON.
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