"The Wasp Woman" Movie Review

 

by Daniel White

Aging cosmetics queen Janice Starlin is in a quandary: sales are falling for the makeup maven and she must save her company from imminent disaster. Desperate to hang on to her youth and her enterprise, she employs entomologist expert Dr. Zinthrop (Michael Mark) to help her salvage both.

Directed by Roger Corman, and starring the talented Susan Cabot, The Wasp Woman (1959) was designated to play as a double feature with Beast from Haunted Cave, a spook fest movie event catering to the teenage crowd. I have never seen Beast but The Wasp Woman may have disappointed the boppers because it's almost an hour into the flick before the lethal lady of the title shows up.

It wasn't disappointing for me, however, I enjoyed it immensely. What's not to enjoy? I was drawn to it like a bear to.... honey! Personally I don't denigrate "Bee" (heh heh) movies, I think they're just as culturally important as the quality films that are their contemporaries. In a year when the opus Ben Hur won Best picture (and Some Like It Hot wasn't even nominated!), I'd much rather be at a drive-in with my date while The Wasp Woman was unspooling in front of us.

The movie is set in Manhattan, but in an amusing inconsistency, when our whacky wasp doctor goes missing and a private detective goes looking for him, it's clearly the streets of Los Angeles that are shown. This glaring cinematic discrepancy might bother others, but I find it goofy and appropriate. What else can you expect from a movie that cost $50,000 dollars to make?

A cautionary tale about the lengths a woman will go to to stay young and desirable? Or maybe it's a warning to all those ambitious business ladies trying to compete in a man's world. Perhaps. Or it could be just an old fashioned horror film with nothing up its sleeve except to scare the bejesus out of you. Watch it and decide for yourself.

With Fred (aka Anthony) Eisley, Barboura Morris, William Roerick, and my personal fave, Lynn Cartwright, as a secretary with a penchant for filing her nails, The Wasp Woman is available on YouTube.