by Randy Palmer
For the close-up of the dissolving eyeball, Jackie Blaisdell loaded an ordinary grease gun with Hershey’s chocolate syrup. After a close-up of Paul’s hand holding the fiery blowtorch (he was standing in for Lee Van Cleef), there was a quick cut to the monster’s face. Inside the costume Jackie wiggled the eyeball around and then pulled the trigger of the grease gun. Nothing came out. She squeezed again. Still nothing. The syrup had congealed in the tip of the gun.
“Squirt harder!” Paul yelled.
Jackie began pumping the trigger as hard as she could. Big globs of chocolate syrup suddenly shot out of the creature’s eye socket, splattering Paul and several members of the second-unit crew. The syrup also squirted out the other end of the grease gun as well, hitting Jackie full in the face. By the time she climbed out of the costume, she looked as if she had been in a mud fight.
Over the strenuous objections of Blaisdell, Corman had decided that Beulah had to fall over when she died. “But it couldn’t fall over, Roger,” Paul had told him. “It’s not made that way.”
“I don’t care, the monster has to fall over,” Corman decreed. “How else is the audience going to know that it’s dead?”
When Paul realized he wasn’t going to win this fight either, he whipped up a couple of rubber latex eyelids to insert into Beulah’s eye cavities. Technically there should only have been a single eyelid because Lee Van Cleef had torched one of the eyeballs into mush, but the monster ended up with two closed lids. If members of the audience could believe it would fall over, they could believe it still had two eyelids.
Not many film critics liked It Conquered the World. For one thing, it was just too easy to laugh at the monster, and critics found it difficult to resist making cracks in their reviews. As Blaisdell had predicted, many viewers giggled at the sight of such a creature chasing a group of soldiers out of the Bronson Quarry cave. What made it even worse was Roger Corman’s insistence that the monster had to fall over dead at the end of the picture. (It took three people to tip the costume over during the filming.)
To its credit, however, the trade paper Variety pointed out that It Conquered the World was “a definite cut above normal.” The reviewer, “Kove,” took matters seriously enough to mention that the film “poses some remarkably adult questions amidst the derring-do.” Variety also liked Lee Van Cleef’s performance, citing it as “an impressive character-acting chore,” as well as that of Peter Graves, who “makes a properly dashing anti-Venusian resistance hero a man of some intellectual position as well.” The reviewer went on to comment favorably on the performances of Beverly Garland and Sally Fraser. In fact, the only sour note of the entire review came at the end, when Kove remarked that “Corman would have been wiser to merely suggest the creature, rather than construct the awesome-looking [but] mechanically clumsy rubberized horror.”
AIP got a little surprise when it shipped a print of It Conquered the World to the film review board in the United Kingdom prior to its British release. Then, as now, many horror films were rated “X’’, which meant juveniles could not get in to see the picture. (All of Britain’s Hammer Film productions got “X’’ ratings.) AIP expected its latest monster extravaganza would be passed, but as the weeks went by with no message from the board, Sam Arkoff began to get worried. Even intercontinental phone calls to the review board failed to get a positive response. Since the film was booked for distribution through the ABC chain of theaters in Britain in advance, Arkoff decided to fly directly to England to meet with John Travelian, the chief of the review board, to see what the problem was.
“It’s the blowtorch, Sam,” said Travelian. “You have the monster getting destroyed by a blowtorch.”
Arkoff was flabbergasted. “So what if it’s killed with a blowtorch? What difference does that make?”
It turned out the British film review board couldn’t decide if the Venusian invader was human or animal. Travelian thought it looked like an animal, and he didn’t want to upset any English animal lovers.
Arkoff told him it definitely wasn’t an animal. “Actually, it’s human,” Arkoff said with a straight face. “That’s what humans from the planet Venus look like.” With that assurance, Travelian gave the film his blessing, just in time for its British debut.
Like some other low-budget pictures made in the 1950s, It Conquered the World seemed to improve with age. At the very least, it is clearly more fondly appreciated today than when it was first released, almost as if it were waiting for the wide-eyed youngsters of 1956 to grow into adults who would be able to read between the lines and see something special about it at last.
5
Blaisdell in Drag
The making of The She-Creature caused a great deal of excitement in the offices of the producers, and they all had their own pet ideas. “Give her a face like a cat.” “Make her swim out of the water like an amphibian.” “Make her a prehistoric creature.” “Give her an enormous tail.” In fact the She-Creature did end up being the most durable, the longest-lasting, and the most imaginative of any creature that was ever created for American International Pictures, in spite of all the superfluous demands that were placed upon her by people who could not even begin to see or imagine it in their minds, and who forgot what they said the day after they said it. I decided, “Okay, if you guys can’t conceive of the problems in doing this for your movie—which, being producers, you’re supposed to do—then you’re just going to have to leave it up to me and my imagination. It’s going to have a little bit of what each of you wants, but in the end it’s going to be the best one I’ve ever done.”
—Paul Blaisdell
In the mid-1950s the public imagination was captivated by the story of Bridey Murphy. Who was Bridey Murphy? In his best-selling book The Search for Bridey Murphy, author Morey Bernstein described how he worked with a woman named Ruth Simmons who claimed to be the modern-day reincarnation of someone called Bridey Murphy. Under hypnosis, Simmons would recount the details of her previous life in the late 1700s. Whether or not the story had any basis in fact is irrelevant; what matters is that for month after month after month, the Bridey Murphy story was on everyone’s lips. AIP president Jim Nicholson thought his company should make a picture incorporating elements from Bernstein’s book, such as reincarnation and age regression, while the Bridey Murphy case was still “hot.” He asked Lou Rusoff to start thinking about a story.
Meanwhile, Nicholson went with Alex Gordon to a Christmas party at the house of Newton “Red” Jacobs, an AIP subdistributor who would eventually become the president of Crown International Pictures. Shortly after they arrived, Jacobs sauntered up to Nicholson and Gordon and said, “I have a great title for a movie, but I don’t have a story to go with it.”
“What’s the title?” asked Gordon.
“The She-Creature,” came the reply.
Nicholson and Gordon agreed it was a neat-sounding title. The following day Nicholson got in touch with Rusoff to make sure the script he was working on would have a female protagonist. When Rusoff assured him that it already did, Nicholson hung up and began pondering the details of an advertising campaign that would help tie AIP’s new monster movie to the Bridey Murphy case without naming specific names (and having to pay any associated fees). In the end, AIP settled for including a line of copy on the posters and print ads that proclaimed, “It can and did happen! Based on authentic FACTS you’ve been reading about!”
It was important to get The She-Creature into production as quickly as possible in order to capitalize on the reincarnation craze while it could still be called a craze. A budget was set at $104,000 for a nine-day shoot. After Rusoff delivered his script to American International, Alex Gordon started pulling strings to see if he could get a few of his favorite performers into the film. Unfortunately, when it came to casting, everything that could have possibly gone wrong did go wrong. Alex wanted to get Edward Arnold and Peter Lorre for the roles of Timothy Chappel and Carlo Lombardi—the business tycoon and the hypnotist, respectively�
��because he liked the way the two actors played off each other in the 1935 production Crime and Punishment. He also thought they would be great marquee names for an American International movie. Gordon made a deal through the Jaffe Agency to acquire Lorre for the picture, and once the paperwork was signed, he turned his attention to securing the services of Arnold.
But Lorre hadn’t a clue as to what The She-Creature was all about. When his agent finally gave the rotund actor a copy of Rusoff’s script, Lorre quickly scanned the pages and determined, “This is a load of crap!” He refused to do the film and even fired his agent for committing him to the picture without consultation.
Next Gordon tried to get John Carradine interested in the script, but Carradine didn’t want anything more to do with horror movies. He had just worked with Cecil B. DeMille on The Ten Commandments, and he was pumped up. He was only going to do Shakespeare and similar “legitimate” roles in classy productions from here on out. (Within a year Carradine would appear in The Black Sleep as well as The Unearthly, a film that makes The She-Creature look like an “A” production by comparison.)
The She-Creature was scheduled to be directed by Edward L. Cahn, an old hand at movie-making whose credentials went back many years and included the 1932 Western Law and Order, featuring Walter Huston as Wyatt Earp. Gordon prevailed upon Cahn to try and get Edward Arnold signed, figuring that since Cahn had worked with Arnold on the 1944 film Main Street After Dark at MGM, it might be fairly easy for him to get the actor interested. As a matter of fact, Cahn did get Arnold’s commitment to be in the film for a flat $3,000 fee.
But two days before The She-Creature was to go into production, Arnold died. Gordon panicked. It was too late to reschedule the film’s shoot; the studio had already been booked. He called Chester Morris, who was in New York at the time, to see if Morris would take over Arnold’s part in the picture. Morris agreed to fly out to L.A. for a week to be in the picture, but by the time he arrived Gordon had switched his role from the business tycoon to the evil hypnotist. That was okay with Morris; he was a successful amateur magician as well as a respected actor and actually looked forward to taking over the lead role of Dr. Lombardi. Also scheduled to appear in the film was Tom Conway, who was going to play the police detective. When Conway arrived from England, he found out he was no longer the detective, he was now the business tycoon.
That left the part of the detective still open. Gordon got hold of Ron Randell, who had just finished a film in L.A. and was about to leave for Australia, and offered him $750 to play the part of Lt. James. Randell said okay, even though he’d never seen the script.
Once the dust had settled from the shuffling of the main cast members, Gordon began filling up secondary roles with some of his old-time favorites, including El Brendel, Jack Mulhall, and Luana Walters, who had once worked with Gordon fave Bela Lugosi. With old pro Eddie Cahn at the helm of his new picture, Alex felt he could relax at last.
The She-Creature was refreshingly original. Nowhere in Lou Rusoff’s script was there the slightest hint of radioactivity, dictatorial monsters from outer space or overgrown nuclear nightmares. Using the Bridey Murphy affair as a jumping-off point, Rusoff managed to fortify his screenplay with qualities that were absent in many other monster movies of the time. As low-budget and quickly made as it was, The She-Creature turned out to be one of the most memorable of the “drive-in classics.”
Following the credits (and a haunting opening theme by Ronald Stein), we are introduced to Dr. Carlo Lombardi (Chester Morris), a hypnotist of extraordinary talent. Stuck in a nickel-and-dime amusement park sideshow where indiscriminating customers seeking cheap thrills are the only ones who ever see him perform, Lombardi harbors a strange and terrifying secret: he alone among men can call forth from the depths of time and space the primordial life-form of a person living today. For years he has kept a carnival follower named Andrea (Marla English) under his Svengali-like mental spell.
But Lombardi has another secret as well: he is a social misfit, a megalomaniacal miscreant who harbors a bitter hatred for the human race. By predicting a series of gruesome murders and using Andrea’s prehistoric alter ego as the mechanism to fulfill his prophecies, Lombardi figures to gain recognition as a master manipulator of the human mind. Late one night Lombardi sneaks into the beachside home of the Jefferson family to survey his creature’s latest handiwork. The place is a wreck: furniture overturned, lamps shattered, and in the middle of all the debris, the cold, stiff bodies of the young Jefferson couple.
Not far away, in the elegant home of business tycoon Timothy Chappel (Tom Conway), a party is going strong. One of the guests, Dr. Ted Erickson (Lance Fuller), is repelled by the meandering socialites’ never-ending preoccupation with money and status. He finds the subject tiresome and feels severely out of place. “I don’t belong in all that,” he tells his date, Dorothy (Cathy Downs), Chappel’s daughter. They slip out for a romantic oceanside stroll, but the mood is interrupted when they happen to spot Dr. Lombardi leaving the Jefferson beachhouse. Ted takes a quick look at the butchered bodies inside and tells Dorothy to call the police.
Lt. Ed James (Ron Randell) and his sergeant (Frank Jenks) investigate the scene and discover traces of seaweed stuck to an enormous, obviously inhuman footprint. Jenks believes Lombardi’s tales of a murdering “She-Creature,” but Lt. James is skeptical. He believes Lombardi killed the youngsters himself and staged the scene just to drum up business for his failing sideshow act.
On the way back to his boardwalk showplace, Lombardi encounters Johnny (Paul Dubov), a nosy carnival barker who operates the wheel of fortune. Johnny mentions a scream he heard coming from Lombardi’s place earlier that evening. Thinking Andrea could be in trouble, he rushed over to check on her; but there was nothing amiss, and Andrea seemed unhurt, merely sleeping. Apparently Johnny is nurturing a crush on Lombardi’s young assistant. “I knew her long before you did, Doc,” he reminds the hypnotist. “I knew her when she was a carnival follower.” Johnny’s reference to Andrea’s somewhat shady past is followed by Lombardi’s comment, “I’ve asked you to forget that.” It’s an acrimonious exchange that suggests Andrea may have been doing a lot more than just “following” carnivals.
Shrugging off Lombardi’s concerns, Johnny persists: “What’s it all about, doc? Why do you keep her under like that?” For the first time, Lombardi allows the hint of a smile to cross his face. “I have an idea you’ll find out soon,” he suggests menacingly.
Inside the theater Lombardi wakes Andrea from her hypnotic trance. “You’ve had me in a deep hypnosis for more than an hour,” she says weakly. “I’ve asked you not to do that.” Lombardi smirks. “Well, you were tired. You needed the rest.” She gets dressed while Lombardi remains in the room. Although she’s standing behind a blinder, the scene plays as if the two know each other intimately. The idea of a weak-willed woman held in some kind of sexual bondage by an older, domineering (and possibly homicidal) mate is further strengthened by Andrea’s line: “I hate this place. I hate the sound of the ocean. I hate you.”
A knock at the door defuses one situation and ignites another, as Lombardi is confronted by Lt. James and Dr. Erickson. Lt. James takes Lombardi in for questioning regarding the Jefferson case, leaving Andrea to join Erickson for a cup of coffee. But when they step outside, Andrea stops dead in her tracks. “I can’t go with you,” she whispers, as the force of Lombardi’s mental powers (now operating at a distance) suddenly overwhelms her.
The following morning Erickson joins his tycoon friend Chappel for breakfast. Chappel sees big money in Lombardi’s act and encourages Erickson to join the publicity bandwagon if he wants to make some easy money. Erickson refuses, so Chappel goes to see Lombardi himself. Having been questioned by the police but not held, the mentalist has returned to his run-down showplace, where he has been awaiting Chappel’s expected visit. Chappel offers to help promote Lombardi’s hypnotism/age-regression/soul transmigration act for a 50-50 cut of the proceeds. Lombardi agre
es but reminds Chappel that what he does is no “act.” To prove his point, he predicts another beachside murder.
That night, after Lombardi regresses Andrea back in time, the She-Creature emerges from the bubbling depths of the ocean and climbs up the pier. In his room, Johnny can hear sloshing footfalls outside the walls. Suddenly the door explodes open as the monster smashes its way inward and slaughters him.
The next day Lt. James arrests Lombardi for the latest murder, but since there is no evidence linking him to the crime Chappel’s lawyer springs him. That evening, during a special performance for a group of influential guests invited by the wealthy entrepreneur, Lombardi age-regresses Andrea back to her former life as Elizabeth Ann Wetherby, a royal subject of the British crown. At the end of the show, Lombardi warns his audience that Elizabeth says the She-Creature is in the ocean preparing to come out. The guests scatter in terror.
Outside, Erickson is standing alone when the creature lumbers up behind him, its claws raised threateningly. But Andrea, waking suddenly from her hypnotic trance, breaks the connection between her soul and her first terrestrial body and the creature fades into the ancient mists of time.
Erickson wants Lombardi to stage a demonstration of age-regression under clinical conditions. When the hypnotist agrees, Lt. James joins the group and tape records everything that happens. Unable to learn anything from watching Lombardi and listening to his presentation, the lieutenant begins to shadow him. That night, as he watches Lombardi walk along the beach, he hears a nearby scream. The She-Creature, materialized once again, pushes a car over a cliff, killing the two young lovers inside. “I was walking with Lombardi when I heard the scream,” James tells Erickson, “but I know he did it. He’s a murderer, yet I can’t touch him.”
