"CRIMES OF PASSION PENT UP IN HIS SAVAGE HEART!"-- Creature from the Black Lagoon, 1954
"A Beautiful Woman by Day--A Lusting Queen Wasp by Night."-- The Wasp Woman, 1959
"Mankind's first fantastic flight to VENUS--The Female Planet!"-- Queen of Outer Space, 1958
1950s. The black and white flickering of the tiny round television screen hypnotized a nation. Families lined up on the sofa to laugh with Uncle Miltie, Red Buttons, Amos 'n' Andy, Our Miss Brooks, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Jackie Gleason, and George Gobel. They waited eagerly for Texaco Star Theater on NBC as well as Your Show of Shows, I Love Lucy, You Bet Your Life, Disneyland, The $64,000 Question, The Ed Sullivan Show, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Have Gun Will Travel, and The Rifleman. Forties' teens were now heading to a place called Korea for a war they didn't understand, while at home family values reigned supreme.
In a rush to decrease their huge star salaries, Hollywood studio moguls brushed aside major stars like annoying dandruff. The studio system was dead and a decline could be seen in the Hollywood product. The studios frantically scrambled for gimmicks to combat the new technology of television. Glorious Technicolor, breathtaking Cinemascope, and Stereophonic sound along with Amazing 3-D were just a few rabbits pulled out of Hollywood's brown derby.
Bette Davis fastened her seat belt for a bumpy ride, Judy Garland was reborn as a star, Judy Holliday was Born Yesterday, Gloria Swanson was ready for her close-up, John Wayne was The Quiet Man, Spencer Tracy had a Bad Day at Black Rock, David Niven went Around the World in 80 Days, Maurice Chevalier was thanking heaven for little girls, Susan Hayward wanted to live, and Marilyn Monroe got serious at the Bus Stop.
Families, looking for cheap entertainment for the kiddies, packed some Kool-Aid and popcorn, put the kids in their jammies and headed for the local drive-in. Teenagers, looking for a little make-out time, headed there for the same reason or to the local drive-in restaurant for burgers, fries, and shakes.
Independent studios cranked out product for this new audience of fans who were more interested in the drive-in experience than in the movies shown--society's new-found fear of technology made science fiction films a perfect exploitative choice. Since women were back home where they supposedly belonged, the tough dames of the forties did a quick fade and Suzy homemaker took her place.
Women did boldly go where no woman had gone before--outer space, but unfortunately they were just along for the ride, although they sure brewed a mean cup of coffee. They also appeared as sexy aliens in a list of non -Academy Award contenders such as Cat-Women of the Moon, Fire Maidens of Outer Space, Devil Girl from Mars, and Queen of Outer Space starring that well known thesp, Zsa Zsa Gabor.
The Fly (1958) was a notable exception to the rule as Patricia Owens turns in a thoughtful performance as the wife of a scientist who manages to turn himself into an overgrown insect. Owens bravely destroys her creepy-crawler husband in a printing press before being arrested for his murder. Positively one of the most original sci-fi films of the decade with a great female lead role.
She Devil (1957), a not-so-great film but a drive-in delight, has one of the bitchiest women this side of PMSville. Mari Blanchard stars in this overly talkie sci-fi/horror yarn as a destitute dying woman who is given a new serum by a duo of kindly scientists. Miraculously, the serum saves her life and in the process makes her indestructible--she's even able to change her hair color at will, which comes in handy as she sets out to get everything she's always wanted and woe to anyone who stands in her way. Needing new clothes, she whacks some poor schnook over the head with a glass ashtray in a ritzy clothing store, hides in a dressing room, her hair turns blonde, and she merrily saunters out, free as a bird-- vulture that is. Kyra (Blanchard) seduces gullible scientist Dr. Scott (Jack Kelly), convincing him not to search for an antidote, then decides she wants to marry an obnoxious millionaire; she strangles his wife (in her brunette disguise), marries the dolt, and then kills him by forcing their car over a cliff. Of course, she emerges from the wreckage little the worse for wear. Dr. Scott and Dr. Bach (Albert Dekker) knock her unconscious by using carbon monoxide and then operate, turning her back into the pathetic creature she once was. Of course, during those days the murderess cannot be allowed to survive, and Kyra promptly returns to her previous condition and dies of tuberculosis.
Patricia Neal managed to control Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) but, for the most part, women were relegated to the background providing enough screams and sex appeal for fifties' audiences. There was one place women dominated--poster art for the fifties' sci-fi posters. No self-respecting poster debuted without some scantily clad babe being carried away by a hulking monster.
"Who gives up the pill? Who takes sex to outer space? Who's the girl of the 21st Century? Who nearly dies of pleasure?"-- Barbarella, 1968
The 1960s. Was there ever a more bizarre decade of American history? Mini dresses and go-go boots were the rage. Kids tuned out and turned on, Vietnam was a stone around everyone's neck, and movies left behind the innocence of the past. Families were still hypnotized by the flickering tube spending quality time watching The Real McCoys, Bonanza, Hazel, Candid Camera, and The Dick Van Dyke Show.
At the movies Shirley MacLaine visited The Apartment, Shirley Jones seduced Elmer Gantry, Paul Newman was The Hustler, Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty enjoyed a little Splendor in the Grass, Mrs. Robinson put the moves on Dustin Hoffman, Rosemary had a baby, and William Holden rode with the Wild Bunch... It was truly a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. Hip British comedies were the rage, but like modern art, nobody really understood them--but everyone pretended to, while in the U.S. Peter Sellers confounded audiences in Dr. Strangelove.
Horror films took a decidedly grisly turn with the mother-obsessed Norman Bates in Psycho, the wacko Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, the flesh-eating zombies from Night of the Living Dead, the pre-slasher slasher flicks Homicidal, Strait-Jacket, and Repulsion --and the putridly disgusting Blood Feast. Sci-fi went big-budget with the A productions 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes.
Women's roles weren't even as good as they had been in the fifties, for now horror displayed a truly nasty side as women became victims of axes, knives, and psychos, or were cast as bimbos providing handy diversions for James Bond. The queen of the sixties' bimbos was without a doubt Barbarella (1967). Jane Fonda and then-husband Roger Vadim are responsible for this adaptation of a hip French comic... like much of the sixties, the film makes little sense and failed to rocket Fonda to the sex kitten fame Vadim was seeking for her. Thankfully Fonda had talent and managed to put this turkey in her past and sink her teeth into some real roles rather than the outer space hunks she met up with in Barbarella. One exception to the nymphet sixties was the Mexican film Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy (1962). Two wrestling Amazon beauties, Loretta Venus and The Golden Ruby, help an archeologist battle an evil Oriental mastermind, the Black Dragon, and after he is done away with by the mummy, they take on the dusty old fiend himself. Use the fast forward button on your VCR to skip everything but the women's fight scenes. They're great as the wrestling Amazons take on gangs of thugs, beating them to a pulp again and again and again. The follow-up is Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Ape. The seventies were quickly approaching, although most aging hippies failed to notice. The mid-seventies would provide a bizarre alien bitch whose amazing cult following will never fade--yes, I'm speaking about Frank-n-Furter the bitchy, decadent, perverse, murdering, mad doctor from The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). While technically not a woman, Frank is absolutely a queen bitch of the universe as he slinks about in his black corset and fishnet stockings--"I've been making a man, with blonde hair and a tan, and he's good for relieving my tension; I'm just a sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania." Tim Curry as Frank simpers, seduces, and shocks as he cavorts through this perverse tribute to horror films. As his world crumbles about him, he pathetically proclaims, "It's not easy having a good time."