THE SAVAGE GIRL (1932)

Born March 6, 1916 in Oklahoma City, Rochelle Hudson was an American actress who had a long and successful movie career that began when she was just 13 years old. In her younger years she lived near Ventura Blvd. and the neighborhood of Tarzana, named after Edgar Rice Burroughs' most famous fictional character. She became close friends with the Burroughs family and even took vacations with them.

During World War II, her husband (who later would work as a story editor for Disney) was stationed in Hawaii and she suspended her acting career and went to work for Naval Intelligence in Mexico and Central and South America.

During her film career, she played in roles along such famous actors as James Dean, W.C. Fields, Cary Grant, Mae West, Natalie Wood, Joan Crawford and many others.

In 1932, she starred in the film, THE SAVAGE GIRL and played the typical "white jungle goddess" that was protected by a gorilla (played by Charlie Gemora in one of his many ape-man get-ups). It was fairly well-hyped and she was seen in a variety of photoshoots and articles at the time. It is a rather rough-looking production, but the theme of jungle beauties, savage animals and topless native women were popular during this period.

Ironic side-by-side images, since Rochelle Hudson
was good friends with the Burroughs family.

Rochelle Hudson's last film was in 1967. She passed away on January 17, 1972 at the age of 55 in Palm Desert, California from a heart attack brought on by a liver ailment (another source reports her dying of pneumonia).

EXTRA! Women half-clad in leopard skin outfits were all the rage for a time on the silver screen. The attire has never gone out of style and is still popular today for a touch of the wild and exotic.

This pictorial from EYE (March 1954) features Maria Stinger, a pinup model popular for--among her other attributes-- being able to be made up to look very much like Marilyn Monroe, only who posed for more provocative shots. She was a favorite of famous glamour photographer Bunny Yeager and by the fetish photographer Irving Klaw, who some may recognize as the man who made Bettie Page the most famous pinup girl of the 1950's.

Photographs by Bunny Yeager.

Maria Stinger Gallery

(WARNING! NSFW!)

Photographs attributed to Bunny Yeager:

CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN

"Entombed for eons - turned to stone

- seeking women, women, women!"

- Curse of the Faceless Man Ad

Last week I reviewed the low-budget (but very entertaining) THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE. Another of my favorite guilty pleasure B-Horror movies high on my list is CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN. It's a straight up horror thriller directed by Eddie Cahn.

Shot on a shoestring, it nevertheless embodies all the elements of a classic period shocker: ancient remains discovered in a dig, specimen brought back for a curious -- but unwitting -- scientist to study, monster comes to life, monster kills, monster fixates and grabs for the first hunk of female it can find and carries her off (this time into the ocean!), monster is destroyed just in the nick of time (this time the salt water dissolves it's crusty body), the world is spared further destruction.

The monster in this case is reanimated Mt. Vesuvius disaster victim Quintillus Aurelius, played by cowboy and stuntman, Bob Bryant. He is suited up, rubber creases and all, as a human lava lamp with the aid of makeup and special effects man Charlie Gemora (who created the shrunken heads in FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE). Elaine Edwards is the unwilling participant of the monster's amorous advances and is carried off through the sand dunes of Malibu Beach for her troubles by a frustrated Quintillus (wouldn't you be, too if all your parts were encased in dried lava?) before being dragged in for a dip in the Pacific Ocean.

While Miss Edwards may be the object of the monster's desire, for my money, the real eye candy in this flick is the professor's daughter, Maria Fiorello, played by the very fetching Adele Mara. The Spanish-American beauty was born Adelaide Delgado in 1925. She was a young singer/dancer in Xavier Cougat's famed orchestra before being discovered by a Columbia Studios executive and signed to a contract at the age of seventeen. Miss Mara's first role in a horror film was in THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST (1945), an obscure Republic Pictures thriller. She also had roles in THE CATMAN OF PARIS and TV shows THRILLER and THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR. She died in 2010.

CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN was reviewed in the August 16th, 1958 issue of HARRISON'S REPORTS. Filmed at L.A.'s Griffith Observatory and Malibu Beach, it was released in the same month on a double-bill with IT, THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE, another Cahn fifties fright film that is generally referred to as the inspiration for ALIEN.

Lobby Cards:

Pressbook (IT, THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE/CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN combo):

Curse of the Faceless Man One Sheet.