Womaneater

For those of you wondering whether Pittsburgh-born beauty Marpessa Dawn ever made another film besides 1959's classic "Black Orpheus," here is your answer. She appeared two years earlier, as an Amazonian native at the opening of "Womaneater," being sacrificed to a carnivorous tree. That tree is stolen by English scientist George Coulouris, who finds it necessary to keep this houseplant well fed with curvaceous lassies in order to harvest the tree's life-giving sap. Things get a bit complicated, however, when he falls in love with his new housekeeper, Vera Day... This picture is certainly pretty bad, objectively speaking, but I've gotta tell you, I've seen a lot worse. The film looks like it cost around 200 pounds to make (although it probably cost twice as much!), and has a tawdry, sleazy aura hanging over it, but the acting isn't all that atrocious, the script doesn't waste our time with unnecessaries (the whole thing is a scant 70 minutes long), and Vera Day, almost looking here like a poor man's Anne Francis, is pretty good as the bird in distress. The killer plant itself is certainly nowhere near as scary as those apple trees in "The Wizard of Oz," however. IMDb viewers looking for a better killer-plant flick should investigate "Day of the Triffids" (1963); even the hilarious 1960 "Little Shop of Horrors" offers more shocks and entertainment value. "Womaneater" (you've gotta love that title!) is decidedly a bargain basement affair; I suppose the producer's name, Guido Coen (!), should have tipped me off. And speaking of tips, potential viewers should know that this picture DOES offer two salient high points: Vera Day looks absolutely smashing in her 1950s-style bullet bra!

Yes, it is a cheap Hammer Film done on a budget of nothing, but the story is quite clever and the film has a sassy style. There's one outrageous scene where a blonde secretary in a tight sweater is having her car worked on. The camera is looking over her shoulder at the mechanic under the dashboard. The cast, headed by George Couloris ("Citizen Kane") as a mad scientist, is outstanding, especially Vera Day as his wife. Note that the first victim is played by Marpessa Dawn, who was the star of the oscar-winning foreign film Black Orpheus.

..not THE WOMAN EATER as Columbia's poster art at the time proclaimed. That's a very important distinction as the film is about much more than just a woman eating tree. The movie is actually a misogynistic fable about the male attitude toward women in general and George Coulouris' attitude in particular. The story involves a mad doctor's attempt to use an Amazonian flesh eating jungle tree to produce a serum that will bring the dead back to life. Since this is 1957 and sex can't yet be depicted, we do get to see George and his native assistant have over-the-top reactions while watching the women victims get devoured (not shown).

An added subplot shows the doctor's devoted housekeeper's reaction (she's his former lover) to attractive Vera Day's arrival to serve in the household. This leads to a remarkable scene where the doctor states quite bluntly that older less attractive women should make way for younger more attractive ones. This is clearly a Grade B monster/mad doctor movie with something more on its mind than the standard fare. Ultimately though WOMANEATER (which could just as easily be titled WOMANHATER) is a grade B movie in the best low budget British tradition. It manages to squeeze more out of itself thanks to good photography, excellent use of sets and locations, and an eerie music score.

Then there are the performers. George Coulouris as the doctor, Jimmy Vaughan as the native assistant and Joyce Gregg as the housekeeper/lover all give vivid performances enhanced by the above average script. Marpessa Dawn (BLACK ORPHEUS), Sara Leighton and especially Joy Webster as the victims provide 1950s style eye candy with their tight dresses and pointed bras. Vera Day is no slouch herself and a couple of shots of her sitting in a car while her mechanic boyfriend gapes at her attributes are simply amazing in their brazenness.

Like most of the British films from this era, WOMANEATER's approach mixes the cerebral and the carnal with more emphasis on the former than the latter which will put off most of today's viewers but for those of you willing to go the distance, this is more than just another B movie...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

On an expedition to a remote part of South America, Doctor Moran (George Coulouris) discovers a savage tribe who worship a carnivorous plant that feasts solely on young, beautiful, curvaceous women. No 'plain Janes', oldies, uglies, skinnies or fatties for this lean, green killing machine: it's only interested in attractive babes with impressive curves (quite how the plant has developed this discerning attitude towards its food is never explained).

Having devoured it's prey, the plant produces a liquid that can purportedly restore life to the dead, something that greatly interests the doctor, who arranges for the ravenous shrub to be transported back to his home in England, along with one of the tribesmen, Tanga (Jimmy Vaughn), to help him with his work (quite how Moran came to this arrangement with the bloodthirsty natives is also never explained). Luring women back to his secure, basement laboratory, Moran sets about feeding the plant in an effort to create enough of the sap to revive the dead.

Womaneater is made of the stuff that monster B-movie fans live for: there's the mad scientist with his creepy ethnic assistant, a ropey old tree creature with flailing limbs and tentacles, a bevy of buxom beauties in skimpy sacrificial robes, a pneumatic blonde heroine (sexy ex-funfair worker Sally, played by Vera Day), and a brave but chauvinistic mechanic hero, Jack Venner (Peter Wayn). As one might expect from a low budget '50s B-movie, the film is no Oscar winner, but what it lacks in logic or technical merit it sure makes up for in cheeze 'n' sleaze, with big helpings of both being served up by director Charles Saunders.

The shonky monster is guaranteed to illicit more laughs than screams, as will the sight of Tanga in his adult-sized nappy banging the bongos; the seedier content includes Moran prowling the streets and bars of London for suitable victims and his misogynistic treatment of devoted ex-lover/housekeeper Margaret (Joyce Gregg).

There's also an unexpectedly tacky moment when Sally helps Jack to fix a car: while Jack is in the foot-well, he eyes up Sally's impressive breasts (her '50s torpedo chest blatantly occupying the foreground), after which he rudely berates her for her inability to follow simple instructions. Considering how he has just asked her to marry him, the scene leaves the viewer wondering just how badly he might abuse her once the ring is actually on her finger.

A fun finalé adds even more sleaziness, with sexy Sally narrowly avoiding becoming a meal for the monstrous weed, but not before her blouse has been torn to give viewers a tantalising glimpse of her bra (this being 1958, I imagine that's all audiences needed to get hot and flustered!).

7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for the very lovely Vera Day as Sally.

******SPOILERS****** Before coming back to civilization from the uncivilized and unexplored Amazon jungle Dr. Moran, George Coulouris, came upon a secret that the local natives had all to themselves for generations, the restoration of life for the recently departed among us.

With his weird and creepy native drummer boy Tanga, Jimmy Vaughn, as well as an exotic plant that he brought back to the UK with him Dr. Moran created the same conditions for the secret native ceremony that he learned in the Amazon jungle from the locals in his basement laboratory to bring the dead back to life. With this the egotistical Dr. Moran planned to become the greatest man in the history of scientific and biological research that the world has even known and all the fame and riches and power that goes along with it.

Now five years later with everything is ready for Dr. Moran's ground-breaking experiment to be tested all he needed was a human sacrifice for the flesh-eating tree and the only humans that the tree eats are well endowed young women needing them to get the tree to extract a secret serum that can give life to those that the serum is injected into.

Tanga goes and captured a young women outside Sara, Susan Curtis, to be given to the tree for lunch. After extracting the serum and injecting it into what looked like a skull in his laboratory the pulsometer. The results showed that the serum wasn't enough for the tree to give the Doctor the jolt that he needed to bring back to life the dead-head that he had in the jar. Soon another unexpected complication arose for Dr. Moran when the young and buxom Sally Norton , Vera Day, came looking for a job at his home as a housekeeper. That didn't go too well with Dr. Moran's long-time housekeeper and lover Margaret, Joyce Gregg, who now has to compete with the much younger and far more attractive Sally for the doctor's affections.

Although obsessed with his findings in life-after-death studies Dr. Moran let his amorous emotions get in the way of his scientific curiosity. Dr. Moran fell madly in love with Sally and didn't use her for his experiment as food-stuff for the hungry tree which made Tanga very mad. It was later that he got into a fight with Margaret over Sally where he strangled her.

Kidnapping another young and will-built woman Judy, Joy Webster, at the local pub in town for the trees unquenchable appetite the serum is ready for Dr. Moran to see if he can bring the dead Margaret back to life. To Dr. Moran' great shock an surprise he finds out when he brings Margaret back to the "living" that Tanga his supposedly loyal and faithful assistant played a dirty trick on him. Margaret's body was alive but her mind was brain-dead! As the gleeful Tanga tells Dr. Moran " The body for you. The brain for us".

Dr. Moran going berserk, with the knowledge that his experiments all these years were a bust, attacks Tanga and ends up with Tanga taking a knife out of his diaper and putting it in Dr. Moran's back. This happened after the doctor set the tree on fire. With that a crazed and despondent Tanga seeing his "God" destroyed he walks into the burning bush and together both go up in flames.

Inspired acting by both George Coulouris and Jimmy Vaughn lifted the movie up to the point where your interested in watching it especially that of Coulouris' Dr. Moran. Coulouris who did such a good job of acting insane during the movie that even the few times that he was supposed to be normal he came across as deranged.