I have stumbled upon this camp masterpiece completely by accident last night - it turned out perfectly, just as it should have been, without much planning or analysing - I simply found it on youtube and decided to check it out, not knowing anything about it before hand. It is kind of movies I remember watching back in my childhood on a Sunday afternoon on our black & white TV, cheap thrills and all - it worked perfectly for current, grown up version of me because it took me completely out of this reality to another sphere and just as the best works of literature (or simply great entertainment) it served as a escapism which is genuinely the only thing I expect right now. We might talk about cerebral inspiration, art and poetry all we want - sure, some things do touch the spot and inspire us, but from time to time there's nothing better than a good, old fashioned fun and this movie is a cinematic equivalent of pulp fiction. With all the avalanche of bad news, I need a step back from reality and something that would take my mind completely off this apocalyptic world.
Mind you, not that I always had a soft spot for old black & white movies, but from time to time really love seeing something that is obviously less than perfect - there is a touching quality in something as a good B movie made on a shoestring budget, where interiors are obviously reused time and time again, where masks are crappy and perhaps only one actor actually looks convincing, while the rest are simply coasting. I am not really familiar with director Roger Corman (except "The Pit and the Pendulum") but he sounds like my kind of guy and whoever creates movies with titles like "Attack of the Crab Monsters" rates high on my list - luckily his filmography is huge so I have tons of goodies to enjoy & discover. Funny thing is, "The Wasp Woman" is not even specially celebrated amongst Corman fans - he made so many movies that this apparently is just one of the titles but I loved it because I discovered it at the perfect timing and needed something to transport me away.
The story is delicious in a ridiculous way, just as it should be: Susan Cabot is the anxious owner of the beauty products company that slowly sinks into bankruptcy. For someone at this position, she is surprisingly dowdy but we understand this is only used as a device to show us later how she blossomed - her young (she was only 32 at the time) face is heavily made up to look older and on top of it, they gave her thick rimmed glasses to appear even dowdier. Cabot holds the team meetings with her employees who don't seem particularly interested and are more concerned about non-stop smoking (it is really excessive, something I notice now as I stopped smoking myself). Her saviour turns to be a crazy professor Michael Mark who experiments on wasps and might produce a youth elixir - the catch is, both Cabot and Mark are desperate people clutching the last straw - the rest of the team is suspicious and snickering about this new idea, but in reality nobody else is really doing anything about the business and apparently only Cabot is really concerned. In fact, she is so desperate that accepts crazy professor experimenting on herself - just as her face start to suddenly blossom and appear younger, there are signs that experiment might be dangerous ... I can't say more, but it really turns interesting and even if special effects are crap and masks unconvincing, it is still a good, chilling fun and a proof that there are gems amongst old B movies worth exploring. The original poster has absolutely nothing to do with the movie itself, but this is part of the fun.
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