THE LEECH WOMAN (1960)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
Watching "The Leech Woman" reminded me of the various B-movies I used to watch on TV on a given weekday afternoon, usually after school. Some titles come to mind like "Legend of Hell House," "Mr. Sardonicus," or "The Creature from the Black Lake." "The Leech Woman" is full of surprises with a twist of tongue-in-cheek added for good measure. It is not terribly well-acted or filmed or fluidly edited, but it isn't meant to be. It is a movie-movie type entertainment with no frills and aimed to throw everything at the audience without regards to whether it will stick or not. The movie is the equivalent of bad wallpaper - it looks good at first but it starts to peel away rather quickly. Naturally, the movie is more than entertaining than watching wallpaper peel from the wall.
An endocrinologist Dr. Paul Talbot (Phillip Terry) is none too surprised that his alcoholic wife, June (Coleen Gray, "The Killing"), wants a divorce. He won't allow it, especially after a 140-year-old African woman named Malla (Estelle Hemsley) tells him that there is a specific orchid pollen from the Nando Tribe that will make any woman young again! The catch is that the doctor and his wife have to travel to Africa to witness this fountain of youth. Dr. Talbot is ready to love his wife all over again when he discovers that she could be the young and lovely woman he married, and could get rid of those wrinkles and single gray hairs (the character is not any older than her mid-30's though maybe any woman's hair might turn white after dealing with that turd of a husband). Though the youthfulness is temporary, there is another catch. The orchid pollen is not enough to complete the transformation; a male has to be sacrificed by having his pineal gland secretions extracted from the back of the neck! A special ring is needed to pierce the neck thus causing imminent death. Of course, June, oblivious at first that she is a test subject, becomes young and lovely (I will not dare say who the male sacrifice is). In fact, she gets a complete makeover (funny how the African woman, Malla, never mentioned that a makeover without the help of QVC would occur. By the way, Malla becomes young again too).
Despite lapses into silliness and moronic stock footage of elephants and hippos underwater coupled with Dr. Talbot and June walking in the jungle to their destination, "The Leech Woman" has an unusual structure that could conceivably be divided into three movies. One is a domestic marriage squabble that evolves into some odd jungle adventure with African tribal dances and the lot (much of it reminded me of "King Kong" or any standard Tarzan adventure) that finally evolves into a noir crime story with June seeking to stay young and luring and trapping men in the path of that glorious piercing ring. The plot doesn't always make sense (can the powder-ring combo make men younger too? And why is this a temporary fountain of youth?) and the jungle footage seems to go on for an eternity. Still, a movie like this is not meant to make much sense or be considered anything other than schlocky art - it is a shambles but so much damn fun to watch that it doesn't matter if the acting and writing are just a bit better than subpar. The movie has a little bit of everything, including dynamite explosions, stirring African tribal dances, mambo music clubs, shriveled-looking women, lots of imbibing of alcohol, a few murders and some abrupt romantic groping and kissing. It is a fervently misanthropic picture that evolves into some sort of twisted feminist statement. Of course, like most of these pictures in the 40's, 50's and 60's, the women suffer the most.
