![]() ![]() A few new snazzy puppets were introduced along the way ( Torch, Six-Shooter) – but overall the sequels were consistently a snoozefest. ![]() But anyway, for me – the franchise took a steep nosedive when the sequels starting getting lazily churned out by Full Moon Features. ![]() And I kind of developed a crush on Leech Woman. It was a devious and delicious surprise that introduced me to some of my now favorite tiny little terrors: Blade, Pinhead, and Tunneler to name a few. I can remember renting the first in your series in 1989 from my local Mom & Pop video store. The cast are Coleen Gray as June Talbot/Terry Hart, Grant Williams as Neil Foster, Phillip Terry as Dr Paul Talbot, Gloria Talbott as Sally Howards, John van Dreelen as Bertram Garvay, Estelle Helmsley as Old Malla, Kim Hamilton as Young Malla, Arthur Bantanides as Jerry Randall, Chester Jones as Ladu, Murray Alper as Drunk (uncredited), John Bryant as Vice Officer (uncredited), Charles Keane as Superior Officer (uncredited), Harold Goodwin as Detective (uncredited) and Paul Thompson as Head Warrior (uncredited).Oh, Puppet Master franchise……how I love and loathe you all at the same time. The UK video’s running time is 73 minutes 54 seconds, three minutes seven seconds less than the film’s theatrical running time of 77 minutes and one second. When the DVD was released in the UK in 2016 it had a BBFC 12-rating for persons of 12 and over because ‘dated racial stereotyping is seen in the portrayal of African tribes people as savages with spears and shields, practising voodoo magic’ as well as for ‘moderate violence and horror’. Produced by Joseph Gershenon, it was released in the US in a double bill with the British horror film The Brides of Dracula. Rank Film Distributors released it in the UK, where it was given an X-certificate by the British Board of Film Censors, for persons over age 16. I rewrote it on a two-week assignment.’ He said that he never saw the film in a cinema, but called it ‘awful’ after seeing it on TV years later. ![]() In redoing it, I suppose I changed the story somewhat. Screenwriter David Duncan recalled: ‘They gave me a screenplay written by Ben Pivar. Talbott said: ‘I made that picture because I wanted to buy a horse for my son, and The Leech Woman got him a really nice horse and saddle.’ It was kind of flamboyant and, really, excruciatingly funny.’ Gray recalled: ‘That picture was 10 days of sheer joy. It mixes stock footage, partly from Tanganyika (1954), of African wildlife and tribal dances with scenes shot in the studioĪll in all, a satisfyingly entertaining item in the so-bad-it’s good class. She keeps herself young by picking up men and killing them for their pineal extract but, each time the potion wears off, she is older than before. June returns to the US, and masquerades as her own niece, Terry Hart. The couple follow Malla to Africa and witness a secret ceremony of the Nando tribe that uses orchid pollen and a sacrificial male’s pineal gland secretions, extracted from the back of the neck by a special ring and mixed with the pollen, temporarily transform Malla into a young, beautiful woman (Kim Hamilton). The potion works, but requires repeated doses.Ī mysterious old woman named Malla (Estelle Hemsley) approaches her husband, endocrinologist Dr Paul Talbot (Terry), and promises to reveal to him the secret of eternal youth. Gray plays an unhappily married, alcoholic, middle-aged American woman called June, who is desperate to be young again and uses an ancient, secret African potion to regain her lost youth and beauty. It stars Coleen Gray, Grant Williams, Gloria Talbott, and Phillip Terry. ‘She drained MEN of their loves and lives!’ĭirector Edward Dein’s 1960 US black-and-white Universal-International horror film The Leech Woman is hysterically awful, with actors down on their luck and a ghastly low-rent production. The Leech Woman * (1960, Coleen Gray, Grant Williams, Gloria Talbott, Phillip Terry) – Classic Movie Review 11,565 ![]()
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