An entertaining film containing quite a good yarn sandwiched between a silly beginning and an awful ending.
Directed by Charles Saunders
Produced by Guido Coen
Screenplay by Brandon Fleming
Music by Edwin Astley
Cinematography: Ernest Palmer
Edited by Seymour Logie
Production company: Fortress Film Productions
Distributed by Eros Films
Running time: 70 minutes
Cast
Robert MacKenzie: Lewis Carling
Norman Claridge: Doctor Patterson
Marpessa Dawn: Native Girl
Jimmy Vaughn: Tanga
Sara Leighton: Susan Curtis
Edward Higgins: Sergeant Bolton
Joyce Gregg: Mrs. Santor
Harry Ross: Bristow
Vera Day: Sally
Peter Forbes-Robertson: Jack Venner
Alexander Field: Fair Attendant
Joy Webster Joy Webster : Judy
David Lawton: Man In Club
John A. Tinn: Lascar
Maxwell Foster: Inspector Brownlow
Peter Lewiston: Det. Sergeant Freeman
Roger Avon Roger Avon: Constable
Trailer
A crazed scientist feeding
women to a flesh-eating tree!
A serum that can bring
the dead back to life!
See the…
REIGN OF TERROR FROM EARTH!
In my previous post on the film, The Trollenberg Terror (1958), I concluded with a brief observation about the role of women in both vintage and modern era sci-fi and other genre films.
The Woman Eater presents us with an interesting insight into the exploitative nature of many films at the time in relation to the portrayal of female characters. It does this in an odd way by seeming to make use of and be almost enumerating every exploitative technique under the sun in its depiction of the female gender. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, The Woman Eater highlights the various ways in which a male-dominated society sets about using and as the title suggests, consuming women for its own benefit.
Such a situation in both the entertainment media of film and TV and in the wider society it reflects would inevitably produce a reaction that would take decades in the making. Consequently, we now have in film and in areas such as politics and the corporate world, more women being represented and brought to the fore either through personal merit, quota systems or positive discrimination.
Unfortunately, in many instances the reaction produced has turned out to be just as problematic as the original set of social circumstances that led to it. As women fill more prominent roles in film and the real world, they are often simply being asked to speak and behave in ways that are sadly indistinguishable from their male counterparts. Little that is unique or distinctive about women is allowed to be explored within an already established system whether it be the depiction of female roles in sci-fi and other films or female conduct in the world of politics and the opportunistic and self-serving corporate sphere.
Could an unintended consequence be the eventual creation of an expanded power elite consisting of an equal proportion of male and female members leaving the rest outside (as Orwell might have put it) looking from woman to man, and from man to woman, and from woman to man again; and being impossible to say which was which……
We seem to have moved away from a world that normalized the idiotic notion of females being seen as fragile and subservient beings in constant need of rescuing and have instead slipped down a rabbit hole into a bizarre world of elitist jack-booted feminism populated by angry and intense females with men being allocated the roles of irrelevant limp under-performing appendages! Such warped notions and outcomes surrounding gender roles and equality are being frequently depicted in modern films, particularly in sci-fi and action-type films.
So, what about this 60-year-old film, The Woman Eater? What makes it stand out from other similar films of its era?
The Woman Eater presents us with an interesting insight into the exploitative nature of many films at the time in relation to the portrayal of female characters. It does this in an odd way by seeming to make use of and be almost enumerating every exploitative technique under the sun in its depiction of the female gender. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, The Woman Eater highlights the various ways in which a male-dominated society sets about using and as the title suggests, consuming women for its own benefit.
Such a situation in both the entertainment media of film and TV and in the wider society it reflects would inevitably produce a reaction that would take decades in the making. Consequently, we now have in film and in areas such as politics and the corporate world, more women being represented and brought to the fore either through personal merit, quota systems or positive discrimination.
Unfortunately, in many instances the reaction produced has turned out to be just as problematic as the original set of social circumstances that led to it. As women fill more prominent roles in film and the real world, they are often simply being asked to speak and behave in ways that are sadly indistinguishable from their male counterparts. Little that is unique or distinctive about women is allowed to be explored within an already established system whether it be the depiction of female roles in sci-fi and other films or female conduct in the world of politics and the opportunistic and self-serving corporate sphere.
Could an unintended consequence be the eventual creation of an expanded power elite consisting of an equal proportion of male and female members leaving the rest outside (as Orwell might have put it) looking from woman to man, and from man to woman, and from woman to man again; and being impossible to say which was which……
We seem to have moved away from a world that normalized the idiotic notion of females being seen as fragile and subservient beings in constant need of rescuing and have instead slipped down a rabbit hole into a bizarre world of elitist jack-booted feminism populated by angry and intense females with men being allocated the roles of irrelevant limp under-performing appendages! Such warped notions and outcomes surrounding gender roles and equality are being frequently depicted in modern films, particularly in sci-fi and action-type films.
So, what about this 60-year-old film, The Woman Eater? What makes it stand out from other similar films of its era?