Allison Hayes (6 Mar 1930 – 27 Feb 1977) was an American film and television actress and model who could perhaps be described as a poor man's Jane Russell (21 Jun 1921 – 28 Feb 2011) — ironically, seeing that Russell was actually born to white trash and Hayes was decidedly middle class. Born Mary Jane Hayes in Charleston, West Virginia, her father William E. Hayes worked for the Navy and her mother, W.E. Hayes' his second wife Charlotte Gibson Hayes, appears to have been a homemaker. The family later moved to Washington, D.C, living at 4127 New Hampshire Avenue NW. She attended the Academy of the Holy Cross before entering public school, and graduated from Calvin Coolidge High School in 1948. As Miss District of Columbia, she represented D.C. in the 1949 Miss America pageant, which she did not win. She did a stint as a radio co-host, then worked on local television, and enrolled in the Catholic University (majoring in music), all the while working as a model (36-23-36).
In 1953, after doing a screen test for Warner's in NYC, she was approached by a Universal talent scout visiting D.C., which eventually led to her signing a seven-year contract at UI. Despite an auspicious beginning in a Douglas Sirk slab of costume melodrama (Part I) and a Tony Curtis musical (Part I) and swashbuckler (Part II), Allison Hayes quickly became a B-movie staple. On the big screen, she never managed to leave the realm of low-budget films and second features, but on the small screen she was busy as a guest star and working on soaps.
A lifelong health fanatic, she regularly took vitamins and supplements, which was to be her undoing: at the advice of the still influential Dr. Henry Bieler (2 Apr 1893 or '94 [dates vary] – 11 Oct 1975), "an American physician and germ-theory denialist" — the duck goes "Quack, quack, quack!" — she began taking calcium supplements made from the bones of horses. Unluckily, they were also contaminated with lead, and by the time she stopped taking them she could barely walk, was losing her hair, and was extremely ill. She later developed leukemia, from which she eventually died.
The beautiful and striking actress with an amazing figure would probably be forgotten today were it not for the trash classic, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman (1958), in which she plays the titular character. Her death led the FDA to introduce (non-enforceable) regulations guaranteeing quality standards in supplements — but as late as 2003, two out 15 products tested by the nongovernmental testing agency ConsumerLab still had high levels of lead in them.
Allison Hayes, a true Babe of Yesteryear, had her career and life cut tragically short. And now, here is Part IV of a wasted life's typically meandering career review of Allison Hayes...
If you haven't done so yet, check out:
The Undead
(1957, dir. Roger Corman)
Allison Hayes makes her first straight out horror movie! It premiered 14 February 1957, but the general release was 15 March 1957. Alison Hayes goes all evil as the witch named Livia in this, the second and last movie she ever made for auteur Roger Corman (5 Apr 1926 – 9 May 2024). The Undead features the great Dick Miller (25 Dec 1928 – 30 Jan 2019), who appears as a leper in medieval France (?) in The Undead, an early and obscure Corman sci-fi horror mélange that bears similarity (but predates) his later Poe adaptations. Miller's leper ends the film healed, but bearing the mark of the devil, and due to his appearance in the movie we look at it in Part I of our R.I.P. Career Review of Dick Miller, where we pretty much wrote the following:
For all The Undead's obscurity, and the ignobility of being targeted by Mystery Science Theater 3000, the movie tends to prompt positive opinions from most of those who watch it. The poster sure ain't shabby, either: "There's something very simple and scary about the poster for 1957's The Undead (one of Corman's nine movies released that year). The looming skeletal figure plus the tied-up woman create a sense of claustrophobia and looming terror that really draws you in. [Topless Robot]"
The Undead:
Shot in 6 or 10 days (the number of days depends on the source) with a budget of $70,000 on a soundstage in a converted supermarket, it was first released as part of a double bill with Edward L. Cahn's Voodoo Woman (1957 / trailer further below); it was Marla English's last movie. (Only 21 years old at the time, she subsequently chose marriage over her B-film career. That's her below, not from the movie.)
Once again, the screenplay was supplied by Mark Hanna and Charles B. Griffith. At Senses of Cinema, Griffith says: "[The Undead] was originally called The Trance of Diana Love. Roger [Corman] said to me, 'Do me a Bridey Murphy picture.'* And I told him that by the time Paramount finishes theirs, ours will fail. At the time, everybody was saying that they were making a bad picture. He just said that we'd get ours ahead of theirs and clean up. So I did Trance of Diana Love [...]. It was in iambic pentameter and I had to rewrite it after it was ready to shoot because somebody told Roger that they didn't understand it. Roger would give it to anybody to read or anybody out on the street. He'd send girls out with scripts. [...] And then get panicky and change everything."
* "Bridey Murphy" is mostly forgotten by now, though the book can still be found. "In 1952, Colorado businessman and amateur hypnotist Morey Bernstein put housewife Virginia Tighe (she used the pseudonym "Ruth Simmons" in the book) of Pueblo, Colorado, in a trance that sparked off startling revelations about Tighe's alleged past life as a 19th-century Irishwoman [named Bridey Murphy] and her rebirth in the United States 59 years later. Bernstein used a technique called hypnotic regression, during which the subject is gradually taken back to childhood. He then attempted to take Virginia one step further, before birth, and was astonished to find he was listening to Bridey Murphy. [...] The case was investigated by researchers and concluded to be the result of cryptomnesia. [Wikipedia]" The book was filmed as The Search for Bridey Murphy (1956 / full movie) and "inspired" I've Lived Before (1956 / full film)... not to mention the Ed Wood Jr-scripted The Bride and the Beast (1958 / trailer). It also was the basis of some pop songs, including The Love of Bridey Murphy and Do You Believe in Reincarnation?, and joke recordings like The Quest for Bridey Hammerschlaugen.
Billy Devroe & the Devilaires sing
The Love of Bridey Murphy:
Not from the film, but also by Billy Devroe*: Queer Policeman.
* Who Billy Devroe (sometimes, Dev-roe) was or where he went is pretty much a mystery now, but he seems to have specialized in novelty songs and off-color party LPs of the kind that were once so "nasty" but now seem quaint and childish. Queer Policeman is found on the above LP, Censored. Sometimes he performed as Billy Devroe and the Devilaires (photo further above), but even less is known about the Devilaires. Tampa Records, however, was founded by the forgotten music producer Robert Scherman (14 Jun 1915 – 2 Nov 2000).
The Spinning Image, which says that The Undead "surely ranks among the most audacious and inventive horror movies of the fifties", has the plot: "Arrogant psychic researcher Quintus Ratcliff (Val Dufour [5 Feb 1927 – 27 July 2000]) picks up sassy streetwalker Diana Love (Pamela Duncan [28 Dec 1924 – 11 Nov 2005] of Attack of the Crab Monsters [1957 / trailer], seen below) to serve as the test subject for a radical experiment. Using hypno-therapy, Quintus transports Diana's subconscious mind back in time for a glimpse into the life of her Medieval ancestor, Elaine (Pamela Duncan, again) who stands wrongfully accused of witchcraft. Elaine's sweetheart, Pendragon (Richard Garland [7 July 1927 – 24 May 1969] of Mutiny in Outer Space [1965 / trailer]) stands ready to rescue her, but sexy, shapeshifting witch Livia (Allison Hayes) and her hideous imp (Billy Barty [25 Oct 1924 – 23 Dec 2000] of Masters of the Universe [1987 / trailer]) have designs on selling his soul to Satan (Richard Devon [11 Dec 1926 – 26 Feb 2010]). [...] Watch out for the three leggy Vampira look-alikes performing an interpretive dance number at Satan's climactic shindig."
"The Undead is only a horror movie in the loosest sense of the phrase, really more a playful fantasia on the traditional imagery of folk-tale mysticism with its parade of Halloween-party witches, pseudo-Arthurian setting, and pitchfork-wielding devil collecting souls with his ledger book. Incredibly cheap and lacking drive, The Undead nonetheless betrays the antic intelligence of Corman and his regular screenwriting collaborators Charles B. Griffith and Mark Hannah, in a film that feels something like a rough draft for The Twilight Zone, down to the blackly comic twist ending. [This Island Rod]"
"[The Undead] is unlike any movie ever made, and certainly may be the most original to come from Corman and Charles B. Griffiths. At first, the past-life angle seems like a frame to tell a story of witchcraft, but it isn't; it ends up playing an unexpectedly active part in the storyline at about the halfway point, and from there the movie veers off into some fascinating directions. [...] It's peopled with interesting characters and familiar faces; Mel Welles practically steals the movie as Digger Smolkin, who spends most of his time singing nursery rhymes with changed lyrics (usually about coffins), but Alison Hayes is also on hand, as well as Bruno VeSota [...]. This is definitely one of the oddest horror movies ever made. [Fantastic Movie Musings & Ramblings]"
The advertisement above is for the original double feature screening with Voodoo Woman at the Grand Theatre of Grand Island, Nebraska.
Voodoo Woman (1957):
"When the idea [for The Undead] was first brought up reincarnation was very popular [...]. The year before, Corman's film producer Alex Gordon, for American International Pictures, released The She Creature, which also dealt with sending a woman back in time under hypnosis. However, a year can make a difference and reincarnation as such didn't have the draw. So Corman came up with a sort of time travel angle and has Quintus also go back to the Middle Ages to convince Helene that she must die to keep time in place. Two other production notes are of interest. The bats used in the film are actually the bat creatures from Roger Corman's It Conquered the World (1956 / trailer from hell) and the entire motion picture was another six day wonder actually shot entirely within a Supermarket. [Beware the Blog]"
"Livia [Allison Hayes] appears and disappears, changes form and generally makes a nuisance of herself throughout the story of time travel, mysticism, and reincarnation. A couple of her transformations from a black cat are accomplished with deft camera movement and are quite effective. Less so are the transformations into flying bats. One AMC viewer emailed: 'Any movie with midgets and bats on strings deserves a 10!' Allison's figure is shown to great advantage and one dissolve finds her crossing her long legs ever so slowly. Her hair (probably a fall) covers the supporting strap of her costume while a fake strap dangles seductively on her arm. [...] The Undead is a fun movie with a plot unlike any other movie...ever. It is certainly worth a look if only for Allison's antics and Val Dufour's 'nude scene.' Camera position is everything. [An Internet Biography of Allison Hayes]
The full film —
The Undead:
Zombies of Mora Tau
(1957, dir. Edward L. Cahn)
"In the darkness of an ancient world — on a shore that time has forgotten – there is a twilight zone between life and death. Here dwell those nameless creatures who are condemned to prowl the land eternally — the Walking Dead."
(Intro)
Allison Hayes' second all-out horror movie, Zombies of Mora Tau, is a true bad-film favourite. Released March 1957, it's a.k.a. The Dead that Walk, which was also the movie's working title.
"Zombies of Mora Tau (1957) is a voodoo tale set in Africa (and yet featuring no black people) that predates George Romero's Night of the Living Dead by over a decade and has more in common with White Zombie (1932) and vampire films than the tropes we associate with the walking dead. For instance, in this lore, zombies sleep in coffins and awake in the night to do their dark work. In this tale, the zombies are protecting the treasures of a sunken shipwreck. [...] Zombies of Mora Tau feels like a precursor to John Carpenter's The Fog (1980 / trailer), with both films featuring long-dead sailors extracting revenge on those who have disrespected them. The standout performer here is Allison Hayes, a dark and beautiful figure who would achieve higher notoriety one year later when she starred as the titular attraction in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. [Cereal at Midnight]"
A Sam Katzman production, and "If producer Sam Katzman and his Clover productions promise you Africa — you can bet you'll get Columbia's backlot. So be it in Zombies of Mora Tau (1957). Allison plays Mona the wife of George Harrison (Joel Ashley [7 Apr 1919 – 7 Apr 2000]) who nonetheless has eyes for Jeff (Gregg Palmer [25 Jan 1927 – 31 Oct 2015] of Scream [1981 / trailer]). She wears the most amazing brassiere of her career in that it almost deforms rather than enhances her shapely figure. Who knows what they were thinking? [...] One story is told of Allison having a fit of temperament on the set of Zombies during her last day of filming. After stating her position, she leaves the set still wearing her negligee from wardrobe, gets into her car, and leaves the lot [...]. This might be why her character just disappears from the story with no real resolution for her. [An Internet Biography of Allison Hayes]"
"But probably the reason I like [Zombies of Mora Tau] is Alison Hayes. Wandering through the Tourneur-esque shadows in her cinched up nightgown — her knife, bra, and posture stiff as Frankenstein — treating everyone including their old lady host with uncouth scorn, openly suspecting their dinner is poisoned, goading Josh into insisting Jeff kiss her ('How dare you say no to a friendly kiss!'), Hayes' sexual energy makes a nice side dish to the leisurely zombie action. She's so mean they don't even realize she's become a zombie when she starts trying to stab everyone. [Acidemic]"
"As cheesy by today's standards as this film appears it is actually good. The story makes sense, but when you're working on a Sam Katzman film [...] do not expect high production values. In several of his films, Katzman made Roger Corman look like Martin Scorsese, but Katzman had the talent to pull these stories off and make them enjoyable to his pre-teen and teen target audiences in 1957. [Beware the Blog]"
Original trailer to
Zombies of Mora Tau:
The plot: "Jan Peters (Autumn Russell of Untamed Women [1952 / trailer]) is returning to the home in Africa where she grew up to visit her great grandmother (Marjorie Eaton [5 Feb 1901 – 21 Apr 1986] of Monstrosity [1963 / trailer]). On the way her driver (Gene Roth [8 Jan 1903 – 19 Jul 1976] of Attack of the Giant Leeches [1959] and Bert I. Gordon's The Spider [1958 / trailer]) appears to callously hit and run over a man standing in the road,* covered in seaweed. Jan is distraught and reports the incident to her great grandmother, who dismisses it. It turns out that the man was one of the walking dead, and he and 9 others (including Jan's great grandfather) were all crew on a ship called the Susan B. In 1894 the crew came ashore and, while exploring, discovered a cask of diamonds in an ancient tomb. Ten of them were zombified, and they slaughtered the rest of the crew, and have continued slaughtering the members of any expedition to retrieve the diamonds, from 1908 to the present day. And, of course, there is a new salvage expedition led by George Harrison (Ashley) and his wife Mona (Allison Hayes), with diver Jeff Clark (Palmer) along to do the actual heavy lifting and Dr. Jonathan Eggert (Morris Ankrum [28 Aug 1897 – 2 Sept 1964] of How to Make a Monster [1958 / trailer]), a friend of the Peters family with an academic interest. They quickly find out that this will be no easy operation as one of their crew is killed before they even come ashore. [Expelled Grey Matter]"
* Irony of ironies: Gene Roth was killed by a hit and run driver in real life.
The full film —
Zombies of Mora Tau:
The screenplay of Zombies of Mora Tau, based on a "Story by George H. Plympton", was written by "Raymond T. Marcus", otherwise known as Bernard Gordon (29 Oct 1918 – 11 May 2007), a blacklisted scribe who the name of a friend to get work. Other projects of his include Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), a low-budget film with special effects by Ray Harryhausen, and The Day of the Triffids (1963 / trailer). While working as a producer in Europe, he produced one of a wasted life's favourite movies, the PD classic that is Horror Express (1972). He also scripted The Man Who Turned to Stone (1957, trailer below), the second movie on the double bill including Zombies of Mora Tau — "Warning - This is the Most Shocking Horror Bill Ever Shown!"
Trailer to
The Man Who Turned to Stone:
"From a production standpoint, Zombies of Mora Tau suffers from many elements that are synonymous with impoverished B-cinema. And though the premise is ripe with possibilities, its execution leaves a lot to be desired. And a weakly constructed narrative does not help matters. Also, the performances are best described as serviceable. Ultimately, Zombies of Mora Tau is a film that zombie fans will find a chore to sit through. [10K Bullets]"
"Though extremely mild compared to the much scarier zombie films that would come in the wake of the following decade's Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Plague of the Zombies (1966 / trailer), this film [...] gets a lot of mileage out of the sheer weirdness of its piracy plot and the smoldering presence of Hayes, who completely dominates the camera even when she's just standing around watching the other actors. This is easily the most traditionally Gothic horror film [...], with its big spooky house, flickering candles, and nocturnal excursions beneath the waves giving it some nice ambiance for monster movie buffs. [Mondo Digital]"
Director Edward L. Cahn (12 Feb 1899 – 25 Aug 1963) was a busy master of B-movies, with many a Creature Feature classic and genre-film fave of the past to his name. His It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958 / trailer) is considered the inspiration for the modern classic Alien (1979 / trailer) — he might get no respect, but he made fun films!
Marjorie Eaton, the woman playing the Grandmother who would like to set her zombified husband free, was actually a very talented painter. "Much influenced by Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Hans Hofmann, Arshile Gorky and Louise Nevelson, Marjorie Lee Eaton lived primarily in New York City and earned a reputation for modernist figural work with bold lines, strong color, and Cubist influenced. She studied in Europe and from 1928 to 1932 and 1934 to 1937, lived in Taos, New Mexico, having been invited by her friend and art patron Mabel Dodge. Of Taos, Eaton said that she 'found her soul ... when [she] first saw the Indians in the Navajo's rising hills'. In her depiction of them, she strove to give the viewer a sense of the emotion of the person. Her most frequent model was Juan Mirabel, son of the Taos chief, and their relationship was the subject of much speculation. [askART]" At one point, she even lived and worked with Diego Rivera in Mexico, but oddly their relationship appears not to be the subject of much speculation. Eaton eventually gave up art and turned to acting because of the mancentric view of the art world made it impossible for her to establish herself and earn a living as an artist. Below is an example of her work, Nude with Black Border.
The Ford Television Theatre — Fate Travels East
(1957, dir. Anton Leader)
Original a radio program named Ford Theatre, Ford Television Theatre went on air for the first time in 1948; by the time it went off the air in 1957, all three of the three majors had hosted it somewhere along the way. The episode Fate Travels East, broadcast 13 Mar 1957 on ABC, was directed by Anton M. Leader (23 Dec 1913 – 1 Jul 1988), the director of Children of the Damned (1964 / trailer), and based on a short story published in McCall's magazine (1873-2002) written by forgotten short-story writer Charlotte Edwards. Robert Bassing (3 Jan 1925 – 3 Sept 2024) and Jack Harvey wrote the teleplay; Bassing later helped scribe the fun fiasco that is Evil Town (1985 / trailer) and Harvey didn't.
The plot: "A successful female novelist (Linda Darnell [16 Oct 1924 – 10 Apr 1965]) leaves her husband after they disagree about the amount of time she devotes to her career. On the train, she discovers an anonymous suicide note, and is afraid her husband wrote it. [Listal]"
Fate Travels East:
"This mystery which took place on a train, starred Linda Darnell [...]. Allison played a movie star traveling east with her TV cowboy star husband (Sheb Wooley). Produced at Columbia Studios, it was a quick half hour with a sad ending. [An Internet Biography of AH]"
Allison Hayes is third-billed, after Darnell (above not from the episode) and Craig Stevens (8 Jul 1918 – 10 May 2000). Darnell, above, a former child model, was married for the first of three times by 19 (to the 42-year-old cameraman Peverell Marley) and dead by 42. A "marvelous girl with very terrifying personal problems", she was visiting her secretary in Glenview, Illinois, and got caught in the night-time fire that mysteriously broke out in the house and burnt to death. Craig Stevens is perhaps best remembered for [Peter] Gunn (1967 / full film), but we here at a wasted life first noted him in The Deadly Mantis (1957 / trailer). Also worth watching: The Hidden Hand (1942 / full movie). As for Sheb Wooley (10 Apr 1921 – 16 Sept 2003), well...
Sheb Wooley's
The Purple People Eater:
Conflict — A Question of Loyalty
(1957, dir. Walter Doniger)
Conflict was an anthology series that ran for 20 episodes between 1956 and 1957 on ABC; produced by Warner Brothers, it replaced the TV show Warner Brothers Presents (see Deep Freeze [1956] in Part III).
Allison Hayes participated in the 15th episode of Conflict, which was titled A Question of Loyalty, though who she played is unknown; the photo above shows her with co-star Gerald "Hairy Chest" Mohr (11 Jun 1914 – 9 Nov 1968), of The Monster and the Girl (1941 / title music), Lady of Burlesque (1943 / song below), The Catman of Paris (1946 / trailer), My World Dies Screaming (1958/ trailer) and A Date with Death (1959 / trailer).
From Lady of Burlesque —
Take It Off the E String, Play It on the G String:
Director Walter Doniger (1 Jul 1917 – 24 Nov 2011) had previously worked with Allison Hayes in the movie The Steel Jungle (1956, see Part III). The sadly underappreciated Howard Browne (15 Apr 1908 – 28 Oct 1999) wrote the script, the third of four he wrote for Conflict. An hour in length, some sources claim that the episode was later released in the UK as the second part of a double feature with A Summer Place (1960).
Trailer to
A Summer Place:
The plot as found all over the web: "A man (Dennis Hopper [17 May 1936 – 29 May 2010] of Red Rock West [1993]) arrested for bookmaking is faced with a difficult decision. Should he turn state's evidence only to face reprisal by racketeers, or keep silent and serve out a long prison term?"
The Unearthly
(1957, dir. Boris Petroff as "Brooke L. Peters")
Released 28 June 1957. Filming title: The House of Monsters.
The Unearthly:
Independent D-film director Petroff's output was somewhat irregular, to say the least, and The Unearthly, reputedly shot in five to six days, is apparently his fourth feature film (of eight in total) — supposedly Petroff's wife, Jane Mann (7 May 1915 – 16 Jun 2003), helped write the script to The Unearthly, as well as to his later, equally trashy and psychotronic efforts Anatomy of a Psycho (1961 / trailer) and Shotgun Wedding (1963 / trailer). Those two no-budget productions, allegedly, feature the (uncredited) involvement of Ed Wood Jr.*
If that fact makes your mind boggle, then take in the fact that The Unearthly's co-scriptwriter, John D.F. Black (30 Dec 1932 – 29 Nov 2018) later helped script Shaft (1971 / theme) and received solo credit for Trouble Man (1972 / trailer).
* What's more, the character of Lobo (Tor Johnson) looks to basically be the same character who shows up in both Woods' Bride of the Monster (1955) and Night of the Ghouls (1959), only in The Unearthly he can sort of speak. If we are to believe Beware of the Blog, "The idea was originally for a movie by Ed Wood, Jr. who wrote the first script draft and created the characters. Then Russian-born Boris Petroff [...] produced and directed this film for [...] the newly formed motion picture arm of televisions 'The American Broadcasting Company (ABC)'. The actual motion picture would be released by Republic Pictures on June 28, 1957. [...]."
For some gossip about Petroff, go to the blogspot Mae West or to Scifist's review of Petroff's dud Two Lost Worlds (1951), both of which shed a little light on the involvement of the former ballet dancer with the legendary cougar and more. By the time Petroff got around to The Unearthly, however, he was married with kids. The Unearthly was initially released on a double-bill with the Bert I. Gordon disasterpiece Beginning of the End (1957), which proved quite the hit — and has one of a wasted life's favorite death scenes in which a mute man screams silently in terror as the killer grasshoppers approach.
Trailer to
Beginning of the End:
Opinions of the movie vary, but the most common one is that it is entertaining crap. An Internet Biography of Allison Hayes is not very fond of it: "The Unearthly (1957) was 'guaranteed to frighten' [...], but most of the scares must have been left on the cutting room floor. [...] Allison plays a sympathetic role in her Grace Thomas and is actually given fewer close ups than Tor Johnson as Lobo. The scariest thing about the movie is probably the first dress she wears. Sporting the super-brassiere from Zombies of Mora Tau (1957), she literally busts onto the screen. [...] Allison looks stunning in her negligee [...] and later in a swimsuit that was probably her own. Her scene about her experiences with unbelieving doctors is eerily prescient of her own later life situation."
"The special effects are few and limited only to makeup, showcasing the freaks that [John] Carradine (of Buried Alive [1989], The Monster Club [1980], Vampire Hookers [1978], Shock Waves [1977], The White Buffalo [1977], Silent Night Bloody Night [1972], House of Frankenstein [1944] and more) has produced. Most of them look like rejects for the casting of The Wolf Man (1941 / trailer), yet they are quite effective in detailing the madness that Carradine perpetrated upon them. Only one of his experiments [Lobo] seemed to have any success and it was not because Carradine succeeded in his quest, it was merely for the fact that the patient did not die or turn out like those poor subjects in the basement. [...] Though the film was obviously made on the cheap, the script was quite decent and everyone happened to put in a good performance, making the movie quite suspenseful and even engrossing at times. It is by no means a masterpiece of the cinema, but there are movies that are far worse than The Unearthly, which managed to make for a very enjoyable seventy-three minutes. [The Telltale Mind]"
The plot: "Carradine plays Dr. Conway, a scientist who is attempting to use glands to prolong human life. Needless to say, he hasn't been very successful in this endeavor. Conway works out of a remote large house, which happens to be fitted out with cells in the basement. These cells are where Conway locks up the unfortunate results of his experiments. Conway is assisted by an icy attractive young blonde doctor (Marilyn Buferd [30 Jan 1925 – 27 Mar 1990] of The Machine to Kill Bad People [1952 / scene] and Queen of Outer Space [1958 / trailer]) who, for some inexplicable reason, happens to be in love with him. He also has a brutish, simple-minded manservant named Lobo (another one of his failed experiments). [...] In his public guise Conway runs a clinic for those suffering special maladies. It is these patients that Conway uses for his experiments. Among the patients the viewer sees are a ditzy blonde (Sally Todd [7 Jun 1934 – 21 Nov 2022]*), a jittery addict (Arthur Batanides [9 Apr 1923 – 10 Jan 2000] of The Leech Woman [1960 / trailer]), and the gorgeous Grace (Allison Hayes). A convict on the run named Mark (Myron Healey [8 Jun 1923 – 21 Dec 2005] of The Incredible Melting Man [1977 / trailer]) shows up on the grounds, and Conway blackmails him into staying, while also telling him about his mad quest for immortality. (This is where Carradine gets to give the expected mad doctor speech which name-drops various esteemed scientists who were also considered mad.) Unfortunately for Conway, Mark is actually an undercover cop, and eventually brings an end to the doctor's grotesque dream. [Hitless Wonder Movie Blog]"
* "Sally Todd as the blonde bombshell 'inmate' gives a sprightly performance, and brings much needed energy into the proceedings. [Scifist]" She was Playboy's Playmate of the Month for February 1957 (see below), and can be found in Frankenstein's Daughter (1958 / trailer), a D-film infamous for featuring a gender-confused creature.
More than one source out there points the obvious similarities with László Kardos' The Man Who Turned to Stone (1957 / trailer), which was released three months earlier, as well as to the previous year's mad-scientist film, Reginald Le Borg's somewhat more gory for the time The Black Sleep (1956),* Bela Lugosi's last fully completed film project, which oddly enough also features both Tor Johnson and John Carradine in its cast.
* "Released by United Artists as part of a double feature with The Quatermass Xperiment (1955 / trailer). The parents of Stewart Cohen attempted to sue the Lake Theater and distributors United Artists for negligence after their nine-year-old son died of a ruptured artery in the cinema lobby at one screening. Cohen entered the Guinness Book of Records as the only known case of someone literally dying of fright at a horror film. [imdb]" (A wasted life was unable to confirm this oft-quoted factoid.)
Trailer to
The Black Sleep (1956):
"[...] The Unearthly is a lot more fun, mostly due to the brisk pace and the great cast. John Carradine is great as the mad doctor. He gives crazy scientist monologues like few can and commands the screen with authority. [...] The flick really belongs to Tor Johnson as Carradine's assistant. Tor has always been one of those guys that can perk any movie up. While he doesn't quite reach the heights he attained in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959 / trailer) or Bride of the Monster (1955 / trailer), he still gives it everything he's got. Director Brooke L. Peters gets a lot of mileage out of the creepy house location and brings a nice blend of claustrophobia and atmosphere to the picture. I do have to say the finale, in which a couple of cops go into Carradine's basement and find a bunch of rejects from The Island of Lost Souls (1932) is a bit perplexing. However, it sort of adds to the movie's charm. [Video Vacuum]"
The Disembodied
(1957, dir. Walter Grauman)
Working titles of this movie include Voodoo Queen and Voodoo Girl; The Disembodied was released on 25 August 1957 and has nothing to do with Edward L. Cahn's Voodoo Woman (1957 / trailer). In regard to that film and The Disembodied, Mystery File says, "I can praise it with faint damns by observing that it's a bit less tacky-looking than Voodoo Woman. The fake jungle is a bit less threadbare, the costumes not so tacky, and star Allison Hayes makes a splendid entrance, trying to kill her husband with a voodoo curse. [...] Her very presence in a starring part guarantees a certain sleazy splendor, and Disembodied offers one of her best (?) roles as a part-time voodoo queen, slinking about in silky dresses, high heels and/or animal skins [...]."
Contemporary trailer to
The Disembodied:
The directorial debut of Walter Grauman (17 Mar 1922 – 20 Mar 2015), whose most famous feature film is probably the minor hagsploitation flick Lady in a Cage (1964), which features the great Olivia de Havilland (1 July 1916 – 26 July 2020) as the woman stuck in the cage and James Caan (26 Mar 1940 – 6 July 2022) — below, not from the film — in his first credited starring role in a feature film. Grauman went on to major success working as a television producer and director. For scriptwriter Jack Townley (3 Mar 1897 – 15 Oct 1960), who wrote almost 100 films between 1926 and 1957 (a lot of shorts and westerns amongst them), the movie seems to be his second-to-last project — the last being The Crooked Circle (1957) — before leaving the biz. A lot of bronzer is used in the movie, but the white actors (Hayes included) still look white...
DVD Savant, which says The Disembodied is "competently directed and reasonably well acted, [but the] script shows all of its cards early on and then meanders to a predictable conclusion", has the plot: "The remote [jungle] outpost of kindly Doctor Metz (John Wengraf [23 Apr 1897 – 4 May 1974] of The Return of Dracula [1958 / trailer]) is actually a hotbed of sexual tension laced with demonic Voodoo magic. Metz's va-voom native wife Tonda (Allison Hayes) tries to kill him by sticking pins into a Voodoo doll, but her spell casting is interrupted. Metz wants to turn away a pair of white visitors, clearly afraid that that mischievous Tonda will seduce one of them with witchcraft. Tom and Norman (Paul Burke [21 Jul 1926 – 13 Dec 2009] of Psychic Killer [1975 / trailer] and Joel Marston [30 Mar 1922 – 18 Oct 2012] of Point of Terror [1971 / trailer]) are carrying their buddy Joe (Robert Christopher [29 May 1922 – 27 Nov 2015] of Jerry Warren's Frankenstein Island [1981 / trailer]), who has been badly mauled by a lion and is near death. To everyone's surprise Joe makes a miraculous recovery overnight, and his wounds have almost healed as well. Although she keeps it a secret, Tonda is really a Voodoo Queen. She has saved Joe at a midnight ceremony by causing the soul of a native, Suba (Dean Fredericks [21 Jan 1924 – 60 Jun 1999] of The Phantom Planet [1961 / trailer]) to migrate to Joe's body. Suba dies, much to the distress of his beautiful native wife, Mara (Eugenia Paul [3 Mar 1935 – 24 May 2010]). The problem is that when Joe regains consciousness, he has Suba's personality. He eventually takes Suba's place and goes off with Mara. Tom first accuses Dr. Metz of dabbling in Voodoo magic, and only later realizes that Tonda is the necromancer. Her plan is to trade-in her aged husband for the much more desirable Tom."
"This rather confusing 66-minute, Z-level thriller [...] is recommended to 1950s horror film completists and the many Allison Hayes fans out there, but all others might want to skip it. With her amazing (and I mean amazing!) figure, Hayes does an exotic dance in a two-piece native outfit, and she plays a sexy bitch like no one else! [DVD Drive-in]"
"Ice Princess of Horror Allison Hayes IS Tonda, jungle voodoo queen, in this low-budget shocker that wasn't as bad as [...] far as jungle voodoo epics go. Paul Burke costars [...], but let's face it — the main reason to watch this is Allison Hayes, thoroughly evil and sexy as hell! And that memorably sensuous voodoo dance she performs... Hot Damn! She's the whole show in this minor chiller directed by Walter Grauman, who later helmed [...] 53 episodes of Murder, She Wrote (1984-96). Fun Fact: [Husband] Weingraf gets off the best line when he tells Allison, 'There are only two places where you belong. The jungle — and the place where I first found you!' Burn!!! [Cracked Rear Viewer]"
Allison Hayes "dances":
"The voodoo in The Disembodied turns into more of a bungle in the jungle. [...] Allison looks great in some lively outfits and does a dance to some heavy drums. Allison reminisced to Barry Brown that the dance was choreographed by an African student who was attending the University of Los Angeles, A. E. Ukonu.* She told Brown, 'It never came off the way it should have. It came off as more of a bump and grind number instead of a voodoo dance.' She remembered the day she had to do the routine. [...] The stage was filled with people who'd come to see her prance about. Allison was anticipating enough trouble doing the number without having to be gawked at and so she asked to have the set cleared and director Walter Grauman [...] obliged her. 'And so I was starting the number,' she recalled, 'and I looked and there was a man standing there with his arms crossed, very serious-looking, just watching — so I stopped and I said "You! Out!" The man left.' Allison found out later that the man was Walter Mirisch, head of the studio. The film is obviously set-bound, but has some nice jungle plants to hide behind. [...] The films ends with everyone looking around and walking off camera, except for those poor souls who were directed to 'stand there'. Tame stuff with a dangerous Allison to watch. [...] She wears some Oriental-inspired clothes and her hair down for most of the movie. [...] Her dance was a highlight of The Disembodied, if not film choreography. [An Internet Biography of Allison Hayes]
Ukonu and His Afro Calypsonians' LP
Afro-USA:
"[...] You can't blame Tonda for being evil: she's horny and bored, and as the doctor says, 'The natives are like children.' You can't figure why she'd marry this coded impotent German doctor in the first place, unless you imagine some kind of backstory on your own [...]. But there's really no need for logical sense in this potted soundstage jungle, just good steady drumming and the crisp photography that captures well the shadows of the black soundstage night. Maybe that's enough. Sometimes an eerie night in a 'jungle' full of dangers is all you need, at least for an hour's distraction. And preferably with that Hayes woman, figure-hiding fringe or no. All it takes to know it's a keeper is the turned-on look in her eyes as she watches Tom and his disembodied friend fight over a knife. [Acidemic]"
When first released by Allied Artists, The Disembodied was the lower-half of a double feature with From Hell It Came (1957), a movie of legendary badness.
Trailer to
From Hell It Came:
Coming next month:
Allison Hayes Part V (1958-59)
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