The Wasp Woman (1959)

The Wasp Woman
Directed by Roger Corman
Written by Leo Gordon; story by Kinta Zertuche
1959/USA
Film Group Feature/Santa Cruz Productions Inc
First viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] Arthur Cooper: I’d stay away from wasps if i were you, Mrs. Starlin. Socially the queen wasp is on the level with a Black Widow spider. They’re both carnivorous, they paralyze their victims and then take their time devouring them alive. And they kill their mates in the same way, too. Strictly a one-sided romance.[/box]

Kindly, but whacky, old scientist Eric Zinthrop is employed to collect royal jelly from bee hives for use in the cosmetics industry.  Instead, he researches his own theory about uses for royal jelly from wasps and treats the tiny creatures like prized pets.When he is inevitably fired from his beekeeper job, he offers his ideas about wasp royal jelly as a rejuvinating agent to Starlin Cosmetics.

Starlin has been losing market share since it started using new model.  Formerly owner Janice Starlin was the best advertisement for her own products but she has now aged too much to be attractive (indicated by her glasses).Thus Starlin gives Zinthrop carte blanche to do his research and offers herself up as the first human subject.  At first the modest amount of serum Zinthrop injects work wonders.  Then Starlin decides things are going too slowly and surrepticiously ups the dosage and frequency.  I think we can all see where this is going …

Had there been more Wasp Woman and had she resembled the poster, this would have been awesome!  As it is, Corman gets in some digs at the youth culture and it’s an entertaining watch.  Available in several complete versions on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t_B1DcdNQg