henna day post / The Leech Woman

[gwynnega]

It is Henna Day, on a warmish Los Angeles afternoon. (But we had a little rain yesterday!) This weekend has included a none-too-smooth Internet upgrade. My Internet now works fine, but my landline intermittently doesn't, because apparently my AT&T telephone is not compatible with AT&T's U-verse service(which they gave me the hard sell to switch to from the DSL that had worked fine).

This has not been a great weekend for technology around here, as yesterday a Windows update threatened to bork my laptop. After about an hour and a half I managed to get it working again.

Last night I watched The Leech Woman (1960). Though half the film is devoted to a cringe-worthy "finding the youth serum in the jungle" storyline (complete with way too much stock footage of elephants, alligators, etc.), the movie also delivers a surprisingly mordant critique of ageism and sexism. The World's Worst Husband (who says things like "All old women give me the creeps") is going to divorce his slightly-older-than-him wife until he decides to experiment on her with the youth serum instead. When the wife realizes what he's up to, she picks him to be killed (because, naturally, human sacrifice is a component of the youth serum). The woman in charge of the youth serum says (speaking for the audience, or, at least, me): "An excellent choice. You will have beauty and revenge at the same time!" Surprisingly, the film does in fact kill off The World's Worst Husband (only halfway through the movie). Things go south from there, as the wife goes on a murderous rampage to maintain her newly youthful appearance. But in spite of its numerous flaws, it's a weirdly interesting film.

Comments

[seajules]

I've seen that movie! I thought that part of it very interesting too, though the narrative still felt very judgmental and ageist about women. Like, obviously nobody should be as openly awful about it as the World's Worst Husband (such an appropriate title), but yeah, women who are old are worthless and also ugly by virtue of being old, and we should just accept that and go sit in a corner somewhere until we die.

[gwynnega]

The narrative doesn't challenge the status quo re: ageism and sexism, but there's a sort of subterranean level of insight about these inequities that keeps busting out in the dialogue and in the performance of the actress who plays the wife. Plus the wife actually gets to be a protagonist in the second half of the film to a degree that I really wasn't expecting.

[gwynnega]

Just found this cool exploration of the film.

[cafenowhere.livejournal.com]

Oh, interesting! The author references The Wasp Woman, which I immediately thought of when you described The Leech Woman.

" there's a sort of subterranean level of insight about these inequities that keeps busting out "

Sometimes, that's more intriguing than an outright subversion.

[gwynnega]

Sometimes, that's more intriguing than an outright subversion.

I agree! I keep thinking about that movie...not bad for a film that the cable guide gave one star. :-)

Now I need to see The Wasp Woman!