Femmes Fatales | Jul 3 2023 |
![SNAKE BIDDEN](/images/headline/7099.png)
This promo image of Dominican actress Maria Montez in costume for her starring role in 1944's The Cobra Woman sells the movie for us. We'll definitely watch it—and hope it's better than the similarly named 1972 b-horror flick Night of the Cobra Woman. For that matter, we hope it's better than 1955's Cult of the Cobra. Our fingers are crossed. Montez was one of the top actresses in exotic escapist films, appearing in such fare as Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, South of Tahiti, Moonlight in Hawaii, Sudan, Tangier, White Savage, Pirates of Monterrey, The Thief of Venice... you get the idea. She was still at the top of her globetrotting game when she was found dead in her bathtub in 1951 at age thirty-nine, but her legacy as a film star is assured—even if her movies were shot on Hollywood sound stages, she helped audiences travel the world.
Vintage Pulp | Jan 1 2009 |
![SNAKE HARMER](/images/headline/108.png)
Night of the Cobra Woman, which opened in the U.S. today in 1972, wasn’t even remotely about top-billed actress Joy Bang getting it on with a snake, as the promo poster hints. No, the plot actually involves were-serpents—you know, people who turn into serpents. Seriously. And the lead is not Bang, but is actually African Amerian actress Marlene Clark, not deemed worthy of a place on the poster for reasons we can only guess. Meanwhile, a shoestring special effects budget denies us the thrill of believable snake transformations. But we do see a lot of Clark's flesh, and that, as they say, is at least something.
The film was shot in the Philippines, which gives it a gritty feel, but even though Philippine laws are notoriously lax concerning snake-on-girl action, it never actually occurs in the way implied on the promo. So basically, the filmmakers cruelly teased the snakes, then compounded this sin by violating truth-in-advertising laws. Had we been around in 1972, and had PETA been around, we’d have called them in, because it’s evil to give any creature blue balls, but particularly snakes, who have to slither around on them. Frankly, we expected more from an actress named Bang.