User Reviews

With a title like "Leech Woman", I naturally assumed this was a movie about giant leeches. After all, the 50s and very early 60s produced a huge number of giant insect movies and I took it for granted that this could be something else. Instead, it's still a horror movie, of sorts--just not the giant radiation-produced type!

The film begin with a middle-aged lady having an argument with her cruel and indifferent husband. He's truly a jerk and you feel rather sorry for her. However, after meeting a woman who claims to be 150+ years-old, this scientist has a sudden change of heart--treating his wife much nicer and apologizing for his boorish behaviors. He also announces that they are going to Africa on a safari--a safari to a land where they'd discovered the secret to eternal youth. Once they are in Africa, the film looks a bit like a low-budget Tarzan-like film--complete with the obligatory stock footage. At the same time, the husband's old contempt and mistreatment for his wife returns. It seems the only reason he sweet-talked her was so he could bring this older lady along as a guinea pig once he learns this secret of youth. After all, he wouldn't want to try it on himself, would he?!

So what is the secret? Well, an old woman CAN become young again for a short period of time...but only after a man is killed and his blood mixed with some sort of magic pollen. And, in a funny twist, when the wife does try out this secret formula, she demands that the tribe use her abusive husband as the sacrifice!! Now, young and beautiful, she has a lot of living to catch up with and no one is going to stop her. Fortunately, the first three men she kills deserve it, but even then, her youth is only temporary and she has become smitten with a horny young man. So, she kills again in an attempt to capture this jerk's heart. What happens next you'll have to see for yourself.

Overall, it's a very original film and moderately interesting. The only downside is the budget, which makes the makeup cheap--like the guy from ALLIGATOR PEOPLE instead of elderly people! No one is THAT wrinkled and withered!

In this story of a woman desperate to hold onto her youth, the men come off as the biggest collections of jerks, a-holes, and rotten users ever. They are all portrayed as being shallow, stupid, and driven by sex. Dr. Talbot, husband of the 'Leech woman' is the worst of them all, but none of them are any good. Dr. Talbot is cruel to his alcoholic wife just because she is starting to look a little aged - she is about ten years older than he is. Apparently he wanted her only for her looks. When an ancient black woman comes to his office and offers him the secret of rejuvenation which her African tribe knows, he takes advantage of his emotionally vulnerable wife so that he can take her to Africa and use this secret on her to make her young again. Then he'll be rich AND he'll have his good-looking young wife back. Disgusting.

Almost as horrible is the oddly accented guide in 'Africa'. As the MST3K crew says, this guy couldn't guide you through a petting zoo. And the moment the youth wears off, he tries to run away from June(the Leech woman)as though she has a contagious disease. This after he slept with her. Jerk. She uses his pineal gland juice(how does a woman who has no training manage to hit that tiny little gland straight on every time, I wonder?)after he falls in some quicksand. A death that is thoroughly deserved, in my mind.

June goes back to the states and preys on sleazes and scumbags of all kinds to stay young. Then she throws herself on the lawyer Neil, who is the third of the horrible trio. He throws over his long established fiancée just because he might be able to get laid with a slightly better looking woman. Unfortunately this rat DOESN'T get killed, which is too damn bad. I sympathize with June, actually, a woman living in a world where men appreciate her only for her looks. She's surrounded by these awful men, and she obviously adores men. These are the only things she's got to work with, so she does the best she can with a bad deal. According to this movie, men are just plain horrible. Maybe that wasn't what the movie makers intended to convey with this cautionary tale, but that's what it comes out looking like in the end.

The funniest parts of this film are the fake Africa sets and the ridiculous 'Africans', whose dance routines are just hysterical. And when they cut stock footage of real African tribes in, you're left howling with laughter at the difference. That, and the make-up job they did on the ever aging June are also quite amusing. The fact that this movie has some good ideas and information cut into what is a stock footage marathon and an abysmal acting-fest is what makes it the funniest of all, however. I love these old fifties movies that take a few pieces of factual information and surround them with ridiculous plots, wooden dialog, and laughable sets.

I won't go in to the plot much here, as anyone who is reading these summaries knows it by now. I personally find this to be one of the more satisfying of the 50's/60's-type Sci-fi films. I'm not sure why other reviewers are surprised or disappointed with the stock footage in the African scenes. It's a low-budget horror flick! Every low (or even some medium-to-high)-budget film (& not just horror/sci-fi) from that era used stock footage to represent exotic locals. Why should anyone be critical because "The Leech Woman" did the same? Also, unlike many others, I found the acting to be quite believable, and subtle (ex: Sally (to the rejuvenated June (a.k.a. Terri Hart), after seeing that her fiancée is obviously attracted to Terri): "I'm Sally...I guess your aunt described ME to you as well". Terri: "Yes she did". Sally: "Well then I guess she mentioned that Neil and I are engaged". Terri: "No, she didn't...why should she?" Sally (in a really catty tone) "Oh, I don't know....I just thought I'd mention it"). Dialogue like this, with it's underlying tone & subtleties, are a joy in a cheap flick like this one. I also found the weasle-like antics of June's doctor husband, who obviously has ulterior motives for suddenly calling off their divorce & wanting her to come to Africa, quite fun to watch, especially in his look of surprise when, after June is given her choice of any man for the sacrifice that will make her young again, picks HIM (especially after, just moment earlier, his idea of a "great escape plan" is to leave his wife there occupying the savages while he & the guide make a run for it, with the promise that "we'll be sure to come back for you tomorrow"!).

The ending WAS a bit abrupt, but again, this was a cheap sci-fi flick, coming in at the very tail-end of the Golden Age of Sci-Fi, and I think that one needs to be realistic & forgiving if it isn't up to the standards of today's films, or even those made earlier when budgets were a bit more generous. And as for the "no-name cast", as one other reviewer put it, you've got Grant Williams from "The Incredible Shrinking Man" and "The Monolith Monsters", Phillip Terry from 1944's "Monster and the Girl", Gloria Talbott from "I Married a Monster From Outer Space" and "The Cyclops", and Coleen Gray from 1957's "The Vampire". Obviously someone doesn't know their classic Sci-Fi movie stars! All in all, a very satisfying film, too good to have been lampooned on that bastardization abomination, MST3K. Give it a try if you haven't.

A few years before Mondo Cane would popularize the use of tribal footage, The Leech Woman takes scenes of African wildlife and tribal dances from the 1954 adventure movie Tanganyika to spice up its tale of a middle aged woman becoming young again by, well, becoming a leech woman.

It starts off promising - a mysterious old woman named Malla (Estelle Hemsley, who was an early African-American star) claims to have been brought to America as a slave nearly 140 years ago and wants to be beauitiful and young for one more night, but only in her home country of Africa. To pay for the trip, she promises to teach endocrinologist Dr. Paul Talbot the secret of how she has stayed alive for so many years.

Dr. Paul is the kind of jerk given to saying things like "Old women give me the creeps." Too bad that he's married to a woman ten years older than him. But after a trip to Africa, in which he witnesses a ritual in which a man is killed and his pineal gland secretions harvested and mixed with orchid pollen.

His wife turns the tables and kills off Dr. Paul, using his glands to become young again - yet gets older every time it wears off - murdering people under the secret identity of her niece Terry Hart. She falls for a lawyer and tries to use the glands of his girlfriend, but it doesn't work, so she does what we all would: throws herself to a window, leaving behind a husk.

Director Edward Dein also made Curse of the Undead. This movie was made so that Universal-International would have a movie to play with Hammer's Brides of Blood. That movie is magic. This perhaps not so much.

Dr. Paul Talbot is a scientist who learns of a drug that is supposed to not only retard the effects of aging, but reverse the process as well. With his wife, June, he sets out to make his fortune. In Africa, he finds the leathery old woman who told him about the drug and watches as she is turned into a beautiful young woman. The process requires the pollen of a specific orchid and the fluid from the human pineal gland. But extracting the fluid means death to the donor. When told she is to be the next beneficiary of the drug, Mrs. Talbot is allowed to choose the male who will give his life to make her young again. To get back at him for a life of torment, she selects her husband as the donor. June's youth is restored and her overbearing husband is dead. The problem, as Mrs. Talbot is about to discover, is that the effects of the procedure are only temporary. She'll have to go on killing if she is to remain young.

It's not that The Leech Woman is a particularly bad movie (in fact, there's a lot here I really enjoy), it's just that it's terribly predictable. I mean is anyone surprised that when on the verge of divorce, Paul insists that he and his wife reconcile and she go to Africa with him? Quite naturally, he intends to use her as a human guinea pig and, if the process works, get a hot, young wife in return. His shallow intentions and desires are overly obvious. Or, was anyone surprised that June selected her husband as the donor who would die to give her back her youth? It's an excellent moment, but I saw it coming from miles away. So even though I appreciate and enjoy much of the movie, The Leech Woman lacks any real surprises along the way. I realize that The Leech Woman was cranked out in a hurry and on a low budget to be used by Universal as B-picture, but a little more creativity and thought might have made it a real winner.

On a recent TCM special presentation entitled "Cruel Beauty," four great actresses of the film noir genre--Marie Windsor, Audrey Totter, Jane Greer and Coleen Gray--were brought together for a fascinating discussion of this most American of cinematic contributions. And in the case of Nebraska-born Coleen Gray, her credentials for inclusion were impeccable, having previously starred in such noir classics as "Kiss of Death," "Nightmare Alley," "Kansas City Confidential" and "The Killing." But noir, of course, wasn't the only film genre to which Coleen lent her considerable skills. In 1957, she appeared in the difficult-to-see American film "The Vampire" (not to be confused with the 1957 Mexican film entitled "The Vampire"!) and, three years later, played what almost might be considered three roles in "The Leech Woman." Released in May 1960, the film in question turns out to be a hugely entertaining and well-acted bit of hokum from Universal Studios; one that, despite its lampooning on an "MST3K" episode, holds up very nicely today.

In the film, Coleen plays the part of June Talbot, the embittered, rich, alcoholic wife of endocrinologist Paul Talbot (played with nasty verve by Phillip Terry). The unhappy couple is on the verge of divorce when Malla, a woman who looks more like a mummy and who claims to be 152 years old (an excellent performance here from Estelle Hemsley), arrives in Talbot's office with a sample of a substance called "nipe," which she claims has been prolonging her life. Spurred to overriding curiosity, Paul convinces June to go on an expedition with him to Tanganyika, where, Malla says, the substance originates; what's more, the nipe, when combined with another substance, supposedly has the power to also REVERSE the aging process! Thus, in the film's first half, the Talbots do journey to deepest, darkest Africa on their quest, assisted by guide Bertram Garvay (John van Dreelen, a kind of poor man's George Sanders). The men, unfortunately, do not survive the journey, thanks to June's machinations. In the picture's second half, June--having been rejuvenated by the nipe combined with the pineal secretions extracted via a particularly nasty finger ring--pretends to be her fictitious niece "Terry," in an effort to steal her hunky-dude lawyer Neil Foster (Grant Williams, who many will recall from the 1957 sci-fi classic "The Incredible Shrinking Man") away from his fiancée Sally (Gloria Talbott, whose list of horror credits is almost as impressive as her sweater profile, including as it does "Daughter of Dr. Jekyll," "The Cyclops" and, most especially, "I Married a Monster From Outer Space"). But trouble soon looms, when June's youthful appearance reverts to an even more aged one than before, requiring her to secure pineal secretions with greater frequency....

In a film with surprisingly many features to commend to potential viewers' attention, for me, the most outstanding are the makeup effects by Bud Westmore on both Coleen and Ms. Hemsley. Coleen, who was only 38 when she made this film, looks convincingly dowdy when we first encounter her June Talbot character; a nice-looking woman gone to seed. It is only after June is rejuvenated by the nipe do we remember what a stunning-looking actress Coleen was, and indeed, I have never seen her look better. But even more impressive are the makeup FX on Malla, who truly resembles a desiccated mummy when we first see her, her face a prunelike mass of corrugations and wrinkles. Not since Jack Pierce's work on Boris Karloff in 1932's "The Mummy" has a human visage looked so convincingly ancient! But the film has lots more to offer than just expert makeup. Director Edward Dein (who had helmed the notorious cowboy/vampire hybrid "Curse of the Undead" a year earlier) manages to bring his film in tautly (the entire affair runs to only 77 minutes), while the lensing of DOP Ellis W. Carter (who had previously shot, in 1956 and '57 alone, such sci-fi/horror classics as "The Mole People," "The Incredible Shrinking Man," "The Deadly Mantis," "The Land Unknown" AND "The Monolith Monsters"!) keeps things nice and moody. The film features some of the wildest and most frenzied native dancing that this viewer has ever seen (including that in 1933's "King Kong"), and that (studio-shot) African ambiance is further enhanced by the seemingly obligatory stock footage of elephants, monkeys, antelopes, lions, snakes, crocodiles, hippos, a charging leopard, and jungle birds that squawk "ooo ooo, ah ah ah ah !" Any number of memorable scenes crop up, my favorite being the one in which June stabs Garvay in the neck with that fanged ring as he slowly sinks into a quicksand pool. Surprisingly, the film can also be viewed as having a feminist subtext, best expressed by cronelike Malla, when she declares that men only grow more dignified with age, while older women are cast aside and have nothing. And indeed, the three men who June does away with in this film (Paul, Garvay and, back home, a con man played by Arthur Batanides, who many will recall from the classic "Star Trek" episode "That Which Survives") had all tried to exploit her, or rejected her when her beauty faded, or tried to steal from her (even Sally, who is shockingly exterminated by June toward the film's end, had held her at gunpoint). This sympathetic viewpoint--of the unfortunate plight of the aging, no longer conventionally beautiful woman--is a fairly enlightened one, and helps to lift the film a few notches higher. But basically, "The Leech Woman" just wants to entertain, and at that, it succeeds marvelously. And Coleen Gray, whether playing it dowdy or beautiful, as June or as Terry, is responsible in large part for the film's success....

There's a key scene in the film where Estelle Hemsley, as an old African woman about to be given the gift a youth states: "For a man, old age has rewards. If he is wise, his gray hairs bring dignity and he is treated with honor and respect. But for the aged woman, there is nothing. At best, she's pitied. More often, her lot is of contempt and neglect. What woman lives who has passed the prime of her life who would not give her remaining years to reclaim even a few moments of joy and happiness and know the worship of men. For the end of life should be its moment of triumph. So it is with the aged women of Nandos, a last flowering of love, beauty--before death." Unfortunately, this is, for the most part, true today, especially in films. A much older actor can pair with a decades-younger actress, and there's no fanfare. The opposite rarely occurs, and if it does, there's much ado.

In this film, Coleen Gray receives this gift and does have to kill to keep her youth, but only to selfish, dangerous people: her cruel husband (Philip Terry), a guide who ditches her (John Van Dreelen), a crook (Arthur Batanides) and a jealous would-be killer (Gloria Talbot). She won't harm her new boyfriend (Grant Williams), because she loves him. Gray has several classics to her cinema credits, but she'll be remembered for this role: convincing makeup are given full-bodied mannerisms, voice inflections that amazingly reflect old, middle, and young age.

The cast is most earnest, giving two black actors (Civil Rights Era gaining momentum) dignified parts: Hemsley, expert as the native old woman, Kim Hamilton as her younger counterpart - the character a smart negotiator and commanding, Terry as the nasty, rotten-to-the-core husband (first dialog scene with Gray fascinates as it is one long 5 minute take with no cuts). But the aspects of male vs. Female aging will stay with you after the final fadeout. The title remains appropriate (i.e. Sucking out body fluids (pineal brain juice here), "leeching off others").

Okay, This is a cheezy low budget movie. That comment needs to be stated up front so that unrealistic expectations are brushed aside.

This is a fun movie! An aging woman, June Talbot, is abhorred by her successful doctor husband and has to deal with her fear of aging, loss of love, and alcohol abuse - while somehow she must navigate her soul past a lecherous husband, a predatory hunter, and a slimy lawyer. She fails, and turns to the dark side, attempting to destroy these men to maintain her youth and beauty. An old African woman holds the key to youth - juice from a rare orchid combined with a sacrificed male's pineal gland fluid. The husband takes the wife into the 'heart of darkness' (Africa) to meet with the old woman, learn the secret of youth, and experiment on his wife!

Um, what is not to like about this?

The dialog is snappy, no one pulls any punches, emotions are worn right on the shirt sleeves. Plus there's plenty of stock footage of African animals doing their thing (a cheezy but cool bonus to any film), a bunch of murders, and a hoot of an old woman. All this in about an hour.

Coleen Gray, the lead in this film, does a reasonable job in portraying a once wholesome girl, now aging and neglected, transforming herself into a predatory, sexy, man-hunter. My only complaint is that the movie was too short, I really wanted June to run roughshod over 1950s suburbia. Too bad her new way of life was cut short...