Cobra Woman

Ooh la la! Robert Siodmak is best known for directing some of Hollywood’s premier noirs of the 1940s, including Phantom Lady, The Killers, and Criss Cross, so this over-the-top exercise in kitsch adventure and eye-popping colour — a major favourite of several prominent avant-garde and cult directors, Jack Smith, Kenneth Anger, and John Waters among them — comes as a surprise. Exotic beauty Maria Montez, known as “The Queen of Technicolor” for her roles in the 1940s, plays good-and-evil twin princesses battling for supremacy on a volcanic South Seas island. The local customs include snake worship and human sacrifice. The film’s cast include Jon Hall (romantically paired with Montez in several Universal adventure films), Sabu, Lon Chaney Jr., and a chimpanzee. Montez, clad in a silver lamé gown, performs a writhing, ritual cobra dance that is the stuff of camp movie legend (and a drag queen’s wet dream). Screenwriter Richard Brooks went on to adapt and direct Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, In Cold Blood, and Looking for Mr. Goodbar! “An insane piece of high camp … Few phallic symbols go unexploited, and the gaudy Technicolor is a riot all by itself. Sarong optional” (Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader). Colour, 35mm. 71 mins.