THE WASP WOMAN -- IN COLOR!

Wasp woman goes on the attack! 

THE WASP WOMAN (1959). Colorized. Directed by Roger Corman. 

Sales for Janice Starlin's (Susan Cabot) cosmetic company have been dropping since she stopped using herself in advertisements, but as she's on the wrong side of forty, she figures she has no choice. But when elderly Professor Zinthrop (Michael Mark) tells her that he has come up with an age-defying formula using royal jelly from wasps, she has hope and insists he use her as a guinea pig. At first the results are miraculous, with Janice looking as if she's in her twenties (Cabot was 32 at the time), but when she uses more and more of the formula to remain young, the results are less than felicitous. Janice turns into a horribly mutated wasp woman who attacks and feeds upon various people around her, including a solicitous nurse (Lani Mars) and a very obese night watchman (Bruno VeSota). 

Susan Cabot with Michael Mark

I have always gotten a kick out of this fun Corman cheapie-creepy, and I enjoyed it even more in well-done color! In addition to Cabot's excellent performance, this time around I appreciated Lynn Cartwright as the saucy secretary Maureen, who is given some amusing dialogue and runs with it. Fred Katz' jazzy musical score is a little odd, but it works well enough, and the film is full of a whole host of interesting B movie players: Anthony Eisley of Hawaiian Eye; Roy Gordon from Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman; Barboura Morris from Bucket of Blood; the aforementioned VeSota; and even Aron Kincaid [The Girls on the Beach] as a briefly-seen beekeeper, Roger Corman himself also shows up briefly as a doctor, so briefly that I didn't even notice him! I love the scene when Cabot and Morris have excited, happy girl talk over Janice's new youthful appearance. 

Verdict: Be careful what you wish for! ***.

ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE

ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE (1958). Director: Bert I. Gordon. 

"He turned your fiance into a doll!" 

Gordon, who had already helmed The Amazing Colossal Man and its sequel War of the Colossal Beast -- not to mention The Cyclops -- switched from gigantism to miniaturization in this very lower-case Incredible Shrinking Man. A lonely, dotty toy maker, Mr. Franz (John Hoyt), doesn't like anyone -- even his secretaries -- to leave him, and shrinks them down to doll-size, where they stay in suspended animation in cases until he decides to revive them for parties and the like. [There are hints that Franz has shrunken the old mail man, but we never see the guy thereafter.] Franz' latest victims include receptionist Sally (June Kenny), salesman Bob (John Agar), and Laurie Mitchell, the Queen of Outer Space herself. Franz has an old friend, Emile (Michael Mark), who is a puppeteer, and the climax takes place in a theater where Emile is performing. [Emile is also a bit batty. He suggests that he and Franz have a night cap and says "I'll pick you up at noon." The cinematographer is Ernest Laszlo (!) and the score is by the ever-reliable Albert Glasser. There are a couple of mediocre songs, and an strange little girl who shows up at the toy maker's without any parents in sight. There's some suspense, the pic is watchable, and the effects are typically fair-to-middling. 

Verdict: For those who think small. **1/2.

THE WASP WOMAN (1959)

THE WASP WOMAN (1959). Director: Roger Corman.

Very entertaining low-budget horror pic with a terrific lead performance from Susan Cabot as Janice Starling, the head of a troubled cosmetics empire. 40-year-old Starling, who was spokeswoman and chief model when she was younger, figures the answer to sagging sales is to get her youth back, which she does by employing wasp enzymes cultivated by Eric Zinthrop (Michael Mark, who appeared in everything from the original Frankenstein and sequels to Letter from an Unknown Woman). Unfortunately, the injections have the unforeseen side effect of turning her into a hideous, clawed monstrosity with a thirst for blood. Bruno VeSota of Attack of the Giant Leeches fame is one of the victims, and there's a nifty scene when The Wasp Woman attacks a screaming nurse. Anthony (Fred) Eisley is one of the board members and Barboura Morris is appealing as Starlin's secretary. Lynn Cartwright is fun as a receptionist named Maureen who is always bitching about her boyfriend, Irving (she was one of the Venusian gals in Queen of Outer Space). When Janice starts losing her youth you almost start to feel sorry for her. Fred Katz's musical score is effectively jangling.

Verdict: Cheap but zesty. ***.