JAFFE@RUTGERS.ARPA (07/09/85)
From: Boebert@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
She Demons (1958)
Written and Directed by Richard E. Cunha, co-script H.E. Barrie
Starring Irish McCalla, Tod Griffin, Victor Sen Young, Rudolph Anders and
featuring the Diana Nellis Dancers.
****** Massive Spoiler, Were There Ought To Spoil ******
Hurricane Emily hits Surf City [trust me] and blows a boat carrying Hero
Griffin, Heroine McCalla, Sidekick Sen Young, and an Expendable Fourth Party
to an uncharted island. They discover that the transmit half of their radio
is gone, but manage to overhear transmissions from Navy planes who intend to
bomb the island the next day. Looking around, they discover footprints on the
beach. ("Thank goodness they're human." "I'm not so sure...there are peculiar
marks on the end of the toes...they could be claws.")
Well, now there is nothing for it but to walk in circles among the potted
palms. They come back to camp to find the Expendable Fourth Party speared and
a strange corpse on the beach. ("...a woman's body..with the face of a demon.
A She Demon!"). Back to the potted palms, where they encounter toothsome
jungle maidens engaged in a sensual (well, for 1958, anyway) ritual. What
should come out of the foliage but a bunch of thugs in SS dress uniforms, who
round up the maidens. Naturally Hero, Heroine, and Sidekick follow, and
discover ladies in cages.
Cut to a laboratory, where Mad Nazi Scientist Anders, equipped with hypodermic
and Peter Lorre accent, is performing a face transfusion [trust me] from one
of the toothsome jungle maidens ("Hmmm...a healthy specimen...") to his
horribly scarred wife ("Zoon you shall be beautiful again, my dear...")
Cut back to Hero, Heroine and Sidekick, who find the door to the now empty
lab. Naturally, they go inside and Hero and Heroine declare undying love.
Their tryst is interrupted by Ugly Henchman of Mad Nazi Scientist, who engages
Hero ("OK Big Boy -- you looked pretty good out there with those helpless
women...let's see how you do with me.") in hand-to-hand combat. Ugly Henchman
gets his, but there are more where he came from, and everybody finds
themselves in front of the Mad Scientist for the obiligatory lecture ("Vat ve
are doing is electronically extracting ze heat from ze center of ze earth and
converting it to useful power." "What you are saying is...you have
accomplished perpetual motion." "You are quite correct.")
We then hear the story behind the face transplants ("She vas my laboratory
assistant...vun day, a terrible accident happened. I vowed to shpend ze rest
of my life to make her beautiful...") and the theory ("...ve all have in us a
chemical quality composed of genes zat gives us our personal appearance...I
haff devised a very complicated method by vich I can perfectly exchange zis
secretion between two living beings...") which of course horrifies our Heroine
("You're mad! Completely Insane!" "No, my dear. You are mistaken. It is
only unimaginative who cannot believe that man is capable of improving on
nature.")
Mad Scientist then has Heroine dressed in his wife's clothes and forced to
endure a champagne supper, where he goes into his Deeper Motivations ("You
see, I am very fond of my vife...but I am lonely") Heroine is having none of
this, and feels his rage ("Zen I haff only vun alternative. To utilize your
beauty to further ze experiments on my wife.")
We then get the Mad Flight Of The Terrified Heroine, which is tough in a
sheath dress and spike heels. She meets up with the wife, who had overheard
the above pass being made and rejected ("You see, the last time I wore that
dress, it was in that very same room...just before the accident. Many years
ago. We were younger, and much in love..."). Wife sympathizes with Heroine
and furnishes both the key to Hero and Sidekick's cell and the location of a
handy rowboat. Heroine changes back into her running clothes and frees Hero
and Sidekick.
But wait! Who should be on the other side of the penultimate potted palm but
the Mad Scientist and his trusty Luger ("You are trembling. You must be cold.
No vonder. It is so late...I just remembered -- I have some important work
tomorrow in ze laboratory.")
And cut to the laboratory, where Heroine is appropriately bound and Hero and
Sidekick are appropriately caged ("Please, I beg of you, do what you want with
us...but in Heaven's name, release the girl!"). Heroine is given one more
chance to trade her honor for her face (she chooses honor, spunky lass that
she is). The hypodermic moves slowly toward her quivering neck when...the
Navy arrives ("Do you hear that? Sounds like planes!"). The bombs fall,
alarming Mad Scientist ("Ze volcano vill erupt!") and freeing Hero and and
Sidekick, who unstrap Heroine. Mad Scientist dies in a puddle of hot mud,
terribly scarred wife walks into the flames ("Would you go...if you looked
like this?"), there is one last chase, one last embrace, and it's in the
rowboat to freedom.
And there you have it, a film that stands for all that is rich and true in
speculative fiction. Foreshadowing later treatments of renewable energy,
genetic engineering, female bonding in the face of male exploitation and
Freudian themes too numerous to mention, it forms a natural thesis topic for
aspiring candidates for a Ph.D. in Pulp Sensibility from the bicoastal
institute of your choice. A Golden Turkey so obscure that it is not mentioned
in Phil Hardy's ultracomprehensive SF film encyclopedia. Definitely not to be
watched while sober.
It ran on the SPN cable network the other night, and an enterprising Con
organizer should be able to find out from them what library it is in. It
would offer a welcome change from the nth rerun of "Plan 9". Try it, Camp
Followers.