Friday 3 April 2020

Classic Sci-Fi Film Ladies: Part 5 (1958 – 1959)

Welcome to the final tribute to the wonderful ladies who appeared in the classic sci-fi films of the 1950s. It’s been a long time coming for this installment, so let’s start off with…….


Earth's second mission to Mars is sent to discover the fate of the first mission. A sole survivor of that mission is found, the expedition's former commander who claims to an unbelieving audience that his crew were killed by a hostile Martian life form. On the way back to earth, that life form stowaways away aboard the ship and begins hunting down and killing the crew.


Shirley Patterson as Ann Anderson who also appeared in World Without End (1956) and The Land Unknown (1957).


Ann Doran as Mary Royce, the ship’s doctor

And…followed by;


Aliens arrive on Earth to possess the bodies of humans. One such victim is a young man, whose new wife, Marge soon realizes something is wrong with him. In fact, the man she married isn't a man at all, but an alien replacement as are most of the men in her small town!!


Gloria Talbott who also appeared in, The Cyclops (1957), Daughter of Dr Jekyll, and The Leech Woman (1960)

Read on for more.......



Animals have been sent up into orbit to test the effects of exposure to space radiation. One of the rockets has malfunctioned and is lost from the scientists' radar screens. Soon, strange reports appear concerning strange occurrences in Central Africa, possibly involving irradiated test wasps. A scientific expedition is sent to Africa to investigate…….


Barbara Turner appears as Lorna Lorentz who together with her father, Dr. Lorentz perform an autopsy on a native and determine that he died of paralysis of the nerve centers caused by an injection of a massive amount of venom. Although advised to remain at the hospital, she insists on joining the expedition to………. Green Hell in equatorial Africa.


Extraterrestrials revive the body of a dead astronaut to use as a breeding vessel for an alien invasion force.


Angela Greene appears as Dr. Julie Benson, dead astronaut, Corcoran's fiancee.


Georgianna Carter appears as Donna Bixb, one of two technicians from a nearby space agency tracking station, who located the crashed ship and recovered astronaut Corcoran's body.


In a 19th century town in the American Southwest, an adolescent observes a meteorite crash in the desert and heads out to explore the crash site. Upon arriving at the site, he is exposed to mysterious rays emanating from the meteorite and as a result begins to rapidly age and turns into a hairy and aggressive man-monster. His devoted mother tries to protect him from the law which is hunting him for terrorizing the community.


One of the first horror film scream queens, Anne Gwynne plays the part of Ruth.


Gloria Castillo who we also saw in Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) plays Kathy North.


A deep space probe returns to Earth infected with a deadly fungus that turns blood into caustic rust. The fungus threatens to grow and spread, devouring everyone in its path. Two G-men are assigned the task of finding the carrier and injecting her with the antidote.


Lyn Thomas plays Laura Greeling who is unwittingly spreading the alien fungi. She is being blackmailed by scientist Paul Frees over an unwed child she had to him and who he is preventing her from seeing.


Prof. Erling and his financial backer Victor build a prototype time machine to retrieve objects from the past such as a statuette dated to 5200 AD! When 20th-century objects are placed in the machine they appear to be traded for objects from the future! What happens when a woman from the future is accidentally retrieved and attempts to bring one of the machine’s operators back to the future with her? For what purpose?


Joyce Holden plays Claire Erling, Prof. Howard's Erling’s daughter and Victor's fiance.


Salome Jens plays Future Woman / Nurse


The husband of an unhappily married rich socialite returns to her after having left her only because he now needs money. Meanwhile, philandering hubby, Harry happily continues his affair with another woman aptly maned, Honey Parker. After an explosive confrontation at a bar, his wife, Nancy drives off until she encounters a large spherical object on the road. The object’s sole occupant is an enormous alien……

Despite rumors of UFOs in the area, will anyone believe Nancy?

What will be consequences of Nancy’s close encounter?


Allison Hayes plays socialite Nancy Fowler Archer.


Yvette Vickers plays the role of ‘other woman’ Honey Parker


Teenagers fights to save their town and its inhabitants from being dissolved and devoured by an ever growing blob-like monster that crashes to Earth from outer space inside a meteorite.


Aneta Corsaut plays Jane Martin, girlfriend of teenager Steve Andrews (Steve McQueen).


Genius Jeremy Spensser is killed in an accident just after winning the Nobel Peace Prize. His brain is transplanted by his scientist father into the body of an enormous cyborg, so that it can continue to serve mankind. Jeremy's personality begins to change and he soon loses those features that make him human.


Mala Powers plays Anne Spensser, Jeremy’s wife. Jeremy discovers that his own brother has fallen in love with Anne.


Scientist Andre Delambre is transformed into a human-fly hybrid after a common house fly enters unseen into a matter transference machine he is experimenting with.


Patricia Owens plays Andre’s wife, Helene. In a desperate bid to set things right he turns to Helene for help.


A narcotics deal goes badly and a drug dealing suspect named Misaki disappears leaving only his clothes. The Tokyo police question his girlfriend, singer Chikako Arai but she informs them that she doesn't know where he is. Later, a young scientist named Masada claims that H-Bomb tests in the Pacific have created radioactive creatures (H-Men) who ooze like slime and dissolve anyone they touch. His claims are based on a similar case of people disappearing and leaving just their clothes on an abandoned ship that was found by a group of fishermen who declared that three members of their crew were dissolved by a living liquid that was created when the crew of the ship passed through a radioactive cloud. The questions remain: How to find the criminal gang? How to destroy the H-men before they destroy the population of Tokyo?


Yumi Shirakawa plays the role of Chikako Arai, singer in the nightclub


Scientists from England’s Atomic Energy Commission investigate reports of dead fish washing up on the Cornwall coast. They find that the fish are radioactive and that locals have radiation burns. High levels of radiation have been detected in the water, plants and skies. Not only that, but an irradiated paleosaurus has emerged from the ocean depths and a way must be found to prevent it from destroying everything in its path as it heads towards London.


Leigh Madison plays Jean Treventhan, daughter of fisherman Tom who has disappeared but is later discovered badly burned and is now dead, apparently having been attacked by something from the sea.


A mysterious missile hurtles through space, nearing Earth. A rocket is fired at it, but only succeeds in diverting the missile into the Earth’s atmosphere, where it continues on a path of destruction. Its inexorable progress towards NYC seems to be unstoppable! Earth’s only hope may lie in the hands of a scientist and his fiance who have been working on a hydrogen warhead that may be able to hit the missile and save the Earth.


Ellen Parker plays Joan Wood, Dr David Loring’s fiance.


A seemingly unimposing but quite mad doll-maker named Mr. Franz shrinks people into puppet dolls in the back room of his doll factory. He turns the people he likes into living dolls to keep him company and fight his own loneliness. It is now up to his new secretary Sally and her boyfriend Bob to try and thwart Franz before it is too late for the ‘Puppet People!’


June Kenney plays Sally Reynolds, Franz’s new secretary.


Laurie Mitchell plays Georgia Lane (puppet person).


A group of children seem to be receiving increasingly powerful telepathic communications from an unseen alien source. They are drawn to an isolated cave near the beach where an alien presence in the form of a huge and ever-growing brain has hidden itself not far from a rocket test site. The children then begin doing the alien’s bidding involving the launching of a rocket at the test site…..


Peggy Webber plays the part of Anne Brewster, wife of Dave Brewster. She is apprehensive about her family’s move from San Francisco to her husband’s new place of work: a military base where Dave has been transferred to work on The Thunderer--a six stage intercontinental missile at the Eagle Point Missile Project.


In a small, rural English village, Dr. Laird and his assistants, Gil Graham and Michele Dupont are conducting experiments involving ultra-intense magnetic fields. The equipment seems to be affecting distant objects, and to be drawing extra power from some unknown source. The results are the rearrangement of molecules to make solid metal brittle or stiff metal pliable!

After deadly things start happening in Bryerly Woods, a strange man known as Mr Smith from "a long way off" appears and is very concerned about Dr Laird’s pulling down disaster from the skies. Mr Smith helps them in solving a series of attacks in the public park but worse is yet to come with the appearance of giant insects that have mutated as a result of Laird’s experiments.


Gaby André plays the role of Michele Dupont


A series of decapitations on a Swiss mountainside seem to be connected to a mysterious radioactive cloud at the base of the Trollenberg mountain which is inhabited by alien creatures that are in telepathic communication with people.


Jennifer Jayne plays Sarah Pilgrim.


Janet Munro plays Sarah’s sister, Anne Pilgrim who is in telepathic communication with alien beings.


A mad scientist feeds captured women to a flesh-eating tree in return for a serum that can bring the dead back to life.


Vera Day plays the part of Sally Norton, hula dancer at a carnival.


Joyce Gregg plays Mrs. Santor, Dr Moran's housekeepe and former lover.


Joy Webster plays Judy, yet another victim of the 7 foot plant.


Marpessa Dawn plays the Native Girl who is the first victim fed to the woman-eater plant.


Delivery trucks are robbed and destroyed south of the border and Joyce Manning suspects that her brother is responsible. Lt. Col. Glenn Manning has grown to gigantic proportions as a result of overexposure to radiation. His mind and sanity has also been adversely affected. Eventually the army captures Manning but he cannot be restrained and manages to escape with dire consequences for Los Angeles.


Sally Fraser as Joyce Manning


What happens when a mysterious alien force declares war against planet Earth while the United Nations disregards warnings to halt its attempts at assembling the first satellite in space?


Once again we have, Susan Cabot who plays researcher, Sybil Carrington.


Two brothers, Scott and Tony Nelson are both scientists who develop an amplifier which enables a person to enter a 4th dimensional state, allowing him to pass through any object. Scott decides to experiment on himself with the result that each time he passes through something, he ages rapidly. He then embarks on a killing spree, sucking out the life energies of his victims and restoring his youth in the process.


Lee Meriwether plays Linda Davis, Scott's girlfriend who along with Tony try to put a stop to Scott’s murderous rampage


Alien invaders from the planet Netal capture the moon and invade the Earth with flying saucers and laser weapons. All eyes turn to the most powerful nations on Earth as they unite in a coalition to come up with a plan to defeat the aliens and save Earth.


Kyôko Anzai plays the role of Etsuko Shiraishi who is at first taken hostage by the Iranian delegate, Dr Ahmed and then temporarily captured by the Natal alien invaders.


In the ‘future’ year of 1968, more than eight ships and seven submarines have vanished mysteriously near the Arctic Circle.The submarine Tigershark is sent out to investigate and remove the cause of their disappearance. What the crew do encounter proves to be far more than they could have expected and may very well be beyond their newest powerful technology.


Joi Lansing plays Julie.


Jean Moorhead plays Helen Milburn


Navy test pilot Lieut. Dan Prescott, in experimental rocket plane Y-13 becomes the first pilot to leave Earth's atmosphere after disobeying orders. Unable to turn, he ejects but is covered with some kind of metallic meteor dust. The pilot compartment lands but there is no sign of Prescott. It isn’t long before cattle and then people are discovered with their throats cut. It seems that there is something with a craving for blood prowling the countryside!


Marla Landi plays Tia Francesca, Prescott’s girlfriend.


Dr. Karol Noymann is killed in an explosion and aliens inhabit his corpse using it to communicate with his former colleague, scientist Adam Penner. They reveal to him that they have been on the moon for twenty thousand years, undetected due to their invisibility. They have decided to wipe out humanity by making zombies from their corpses unless all the nations of earth surrender immediately. In order to survive, Dr. Penner, his daughter Phyllis, Dr. John Lamont and Maj. Bruce Jay hide out in an impregnable bunker / laboratory where they try to determine the aliens' weakness. Meanwhile, they are attacked from outside by the alien-occupied bodies of deceased humans.


Jean Byron plays the role of Phyllis Penner, Dr Adam Penner’s daughter.


An American correspondent in Japan is assigned to interview a maverick Japanese scientist working on bizarre experiments in his mountain laboratory. The scientist uses the reporter in his next experiment by injecting him with a serum that transforms him into a hideous, two-headed monster.


Terri Zimmern plays Tara, assistant to Dr Suzuki and used as a distraction to Larry the reporter as he undergoes the scientist’s experimentation process.


A giant lizard emergers from the desert to terrorize a rural Texas community while a heroic teenager, Chase Winstead, the leader of a local hot rod group assists the local sheriff in an attempt to destroy the creature.


Lisa Simone plays Chase’s girlfriend, Lisa


An alien teenager, Derek abandons his crew to search for a new life on Earth. Their mission is to eradicate human life in order to farm Earth with giant lobster-like livestock called Gargons. One of Derek’s crewmates is sent to kill him to protect their mission to Earth.


Dawn Bender plays Betty Morgan who sets about helping Derek.


Sonia Torgeson plays 'man-eater', Alice Woodward.


A herd of reindeer are mysteriously found dead following a meteor crash in a remote part of Sweden. Soldiers and a geologist are called out to investigate only to discover that the meteor is actually a spaceship guarded by a hideous gigantic monster.


Barbara Wilson plays Diane Wilson niece of famous geologist, Dr. Vance Wilson. She stows away on a plane and joins the expedition to investigate the mysterious goings-on.


Charles Girard, a rogue scientist working on Blood Island, conducts experiments (Dr Moreau-style) designed to transform a panther into a human being. Complications arise when sailor William Fitzgerald is shipwrecked on the island and he and Girard’s wife fall in love.


Greta Thyssen plays Girard’s wife, Frances Girard


Lilia Duran plays the role of Selene, a young servant girl.


Chief Warrant Officer Sam Jacobs, Dr. Iris Ryan, Professor Theodore Gettell and Col. Tom O'Bannion are astronauts aboard the spaceship MR-1, the first mission to Mars. Shortly after landing on Mars, the intrepid explorers are attacked by monstrous intelligent alien life forms. Upon their departure from the red planet, the humans are given an ominous warning intended for all mankind.


Naura Hayden plays Dr. Iris "Irish" Ryan who relates the story of what happened on the planet Mars.


A large mysterious sphere lands in a California canyon. Its occupant has a message of peace and nuclear disarmament for the world. The scientific and military communities proceed to investigate while unsettling conflicts arise from this visitation.


Angela Greene plays Kathy Grant, a widow whose fighter pilot husband died in the Korean War. She now runs a tourist lodge near the canyon.


Dr. Gilbert McKenna is a research scientist who is exposed to dangerous radiation during a visit to an atomic power plant. The radiation causes McKenna to mutate into a strange and murderous inhuman monster when he’s exposed to the rays of the sun.


Patricia Manning plays Ann Russell, McKenna’s loyal girlfriend.


Nan Peterson plays Trudy Osborne who seems to bring out the inner hideous demon within McKenna.


Boat Captain Thorne Sherman and his sidekick, "Rook" Griswold arrive on a remote island to deliver supplies to a scientist, his daughter and his aides. However, they all become trapped by a hurricane. Sherman soon discovers that the scientist, Milo Craigis has been working on the creation of giant flesh-eating shrews as part of his research into making humans smaller as a way of preventing over-population. As the out of control shrews eventually run out of smaller animals to eat, they set their sights on the hapless humans taking refuge in Craigis’s house.


Ingrid Goude plays Ann Craigis, daughter of Milo Craigis.


Dr. Warren Chapin has discovered that the spine-chilling sensation that people get when scared is due to a parasite that he gives the name of the "tingler" to. It turns out that in extreme circumstances, prolonged fear can cause the creature to feed on its host and grow when the host is scared. Soon, a point is reached whereby damage is caused to the person's spine and even death can result if the victim can't scream. A deaf-mute woman soon falls victim to the parasite Tingler and now it is on the loose!


Judith Evelyn plays Mrs. Martha Ryerson Higgins who is deaf and mute and wife of movie theater owner, Oliver Higgins.


Patricia Cutts plays Isabel Stevens Chapin who is in a dysfunctional marriage with Warren.


Pamela Lincoln plays Lucy Stevens, sister of Isabel Stevens Chapin.


A coal miner is trapped by a cave-in. When he eventually makes his way back to the surface, he discovers that apparently all of the human race has been wiped out by nuclear poison. Later, he and two others appear to be the remaining remnants of humanity. They must now choose to learn from their civilization’s past mistakes or simply relapse back into the old ways of division, hatred and prejudice.


Inger Stevens plays Sarah Crandall, Ralph Burton’s fellow survivor with whom she forms a problematic relationship.


Scientist, Dr. Abel invents a serum that keeps a dog's head alive after its body dies. When the scientist dies of a heart attack, his assistant the sinister, Dr. Ood cuts off his head and, using the newly developed serum, keeps the doctor's head alive. He then forces Dr. Abel (or his head at least) to help him on an experiment to give his hunchbacked nurse assistant a new body - the body of a stripper!


Karin Kernke plays Irene Sander


Christiane Maybach plays Stella (Lilly)


Janice Starlin’s cosmetics firm is facing a recent drop in sales which apparently began when she stopped being the 'face' of the company’s cosmetic products. Due to her approaching middle age and feeling that she had lost much of her youthful beauty, Janice stopped doing ads. Coincidentally, a maverick scientist, Eric Zinthrop, has developed a new drug derived from wasp enzymes and this seems to hold out a life-line for Janice and her company. Ah, but what of the consequences!


Susan Cabot plays Janice Starlin, founder and owner of a large cosmetics company.


Barboura Morris plays Mary Dennison, secretary / personal assistant who with Bill Lane and Arthur Cooper are skeptical of Dr. Zinthrop' intentions and conspire to expose him and hopefully save Janice from whatever might befall her.

[Note: Click on the film titles above to take you to the posts featuring the films referred to.]

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