Oct 081956
 
two reels

Dr Lombardi (Chester Morris) uses hypnosis to regress Andrea (Marla English) to her ancient form as a sea creature, which materializes and does Lombardi’s bidding, including commit a series of murders.  Ted Erickson (Lance Fuller), a psychic researcher, believes that Lombardi is responsible for the killings, but doubts Lombardi’s powers.  Police Lieutenant James (Ron Randell) agrees, trying to tie Lombardi to the crimes, which continue to occur.

Ah, the 1950s, when “psychic research” could be considered science and a big breasted lobster costume could be considered the height of fashion.  In a decade of horrible monster movies, many distributed by American International Pictures, The She-Creature isn’t all that bad.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s bad, but there is fun to be had, and it could have been so much worse.

On the “bad” side, there is the acting talents of Lance “I’ve got two expressions” Fuller.  Fuller puts both of his expressions to good use.  Since the expressions are “indifference” and “indifference with googlie eyes,” even good use doesn’t produce much effect.  The script doesn’t help him.  Erickson is not a person I’d want to meet.  He’s not evil or nasty, just dull, self-righteous, and sullen.  He spends much of the film at parties, whining that he doesn’t fit in at parties; maybe he would if he was less peevish. But Ted is a man-of-the-people, not a society type.  And he’s a scientist.  We know this because he shows up in one scene in a lab coat and holds up a beaker.  His area of science is “psychic research,” a field I don’t recall when I attended college.  I am curious what psychic experiment he was conducting that required a beaker.  Apparently, his specialty in psychic research is harassing psychics.  He believes in psychic powers, but when he hears that Lombardi has them, he becomes antagonistic.  Kind of like a chemist who dislikes chemicals.

In most films, an incompetent policeman who is portrayed as brilliant would be a problem, but not here.  Lieutenant James, who never lets facts get in the way, is one of the charms of The She-Creature.  He contaminates crime scenes, arrests people for no reason, and, upon finding that shooting the monster is having no effect, he tosses his gun at it.  Hint to all policemen: if a bullet projected at high velocity does not damage a monster, then neither will your gun hurled at low velocity.  This needs to be taught at the police academy as many ’50s officers appear to lack this important information when fighting monsters.  James decides early on that Lombardi is the killer, based upon no evidence.  Then, when he does get evidence to the contrary, he ignores it.  After two teens, necking in a car, are killed (some things never change; fool around in a car, get killed by a monster), James exclaims, “I was walking with Lombardi when I heard the scream, but I knew he did it.”  Now that’s objective police work!

The story wanders about, spending time on the drunk ex-fiancé of an irrelevant character and other time fillers, giving us not nearly enough of the lobster-girl from ancient times.  If you’re watching a movie entitled The She-Creature, it’s the sea critter you want, and she’s quite a girl.  Looking exactly like what she is (i.e. a rubber suit), she has huge claws, linebacker shoulders, random scales, and strings of hair plastered down to the top of her head.  And, she’s apparently a mammalian reptile lobster woman.  I’m not exactly sure how you can have a mammalian reptile, much less one that’s part lobster, but to go with her sea-monster parts, this monster has enormous breasts.  The mind boggles.

Andrea, the beautiful assistant whose hypnotic regression proves humans evolved from lobster-people, spends most of her time lying on tables in diaphanous gowns.  The few times she’s vertical, she’s wearing a two-sizes-too-small top which makes it clear why her regressed monster-self is so buxom.  Marla English, an actress/model who spent only a few years in film before retiring, probably due to getting parts like this, is the best part of the picture.  She doesn’t even have to do anything to be entertaining (which is convenient).  It is English’s appearance that inspires Fuller to activate his second expression, the one with the googlie eyes.  OK, it’s not really her, but her cleavage.  Fuller just stands there, staring.  I say Fuller instead of Erickson as I have no reason to believe that was in the script.  I think Fuller was stunned by Ms English’s endowments and forgot his lines.

This is a film where a guy, whose authority comes from being a psychic researcher, can order the police to shoot at an invisible monster on the beach.  If that sounds like fun, you may be able to sit through The She-Creature.

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