The Wasp Woman
About The Wasp Woman
Dr. Eric Zinthrop is fired from a honey farm for experimenting on wasps. Janice Starlin, who owns a cosmetics company, watches sales drop as she ages. She pays him to test enzymes from queen-wasp royal jelly on her. Tired of waiting, she breaks into the lab and injects extra doses. Zinthrop is hit by a car before he can warn her that the test animals have turned violent. Over one weekend she looks twenty years younger, then changes into a wasp-like creature and attacks employees. Zinthrop throws carbolic acid in her face. She falls from a high window.
Cast & crew
More about The Wasp Woman
Roger Corman directed and produced. Leo Gordon wrote the screenplay from a story by Kinta Zertuche. Harry Neumann photographed it. Fred Katz wrote the music. Allied Artists released the 66-minute theatrical cut. In 1962 Jack Hill shot a prologue that brought a television version to 73 minutes. Corman plays a hospital doctor, uncredited. Allied Artists put the film in a 1963 television package called The Exploitables.
Themes
Making
The 73-minute version is not the 1959 release. Hill’s prologue was added for television three years later.
Look
Harry Neumann shot the honey-farm opening, the cosmetics office, and the laboratory injections.
Music
Fred Katz wrote the score.
Preservation
The theatrical cut runs 66 minutes. The 73-minute television version adds Jack Hill’s 1962 prologue. Copies of the film are on the Internet Archive and on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Susan Cabot plays Janice Starlin. Michael Mark plays Dr. Zinthrop. Fred Eisley plays Bill Lane. Barboura Morris plays Mary Dennison. William Roerick plays Arthur Cooper. Frank Gerstle plays Les Hellman.
- Bruno Ve Sota plays the night watchman.
- A 1995 television film directed by Jim Wynorski uses the same title and the name Janice Starlin.
Scenes
- Zinthrop is fired from the honey farm for his wasp experiments.
- Janice injects herself after the lab is closed.
- She sheds twenty years over a weekend, then attacks her staff.
- Zinthrop throws carbolic acid, and she goes out the window.
Also available
- Internet Archive (The_Wasp_Women)
- Wikimedia Commons (The Wasp Woman (1959) by Roger Corman.webm)
