Movie: The Wasp Woman

The Wasp Woman (1960): Directed by Roger Corman

Janice Starlin (Susan Cabot) is disturbed. The cosmetics company she founded 18 years before earns lower and lower profit as the quarters go because its once loyal customer base is turned off that the face of the company – Starlin herself – is growing visibly older. Starlin rejects re-framing vanity as a deadly sin, looking in her early 40s, aging gracefully, and hiring 16-year-old models like any other cosmetics company would.

Desperate to save her company and her appearance, Starlin hires an out of work researcher Dr. Zinthrop who specializes in the rejuvenation of skin. Calling to mind Dr. Doolittle, he talks to the wasps as he develops a dermatological serum derived from their royal jelly. Also as evidence of his oddness, he is not interested in the profits to be had from a Fountain of Youth drug. He just wants fame.

Driven by vanity and desperation, Starlin volunteers to be the experimental subject and driven by desire for celebrity, Zinthrop recklessly injects her with the waspy extract.  However, after this initial administration, he is attacked by one of his experimental animals. He realizes the drug may make its taker violent and aggressive, like a wasp. In a preoccupied fugue-like state mulling over how to minimize the risks, he wanders into traffic, is hit by a truck, and is hospitalized with various injuries, one of which is a traumatic brain injury. He can’t remember that he must warn Starlin not to inject any more of the drug. 

Starlin, perhaps because the extract is clouding her judgment, rashly continues to dose herself with the wonder drug. She experiences ugly adverse events that affect both her appearance and behavior. The usual monster movie mayhem ensues.

Susan Cabot gives Starlin a persuasive anguish. She’s harassed by success-seeking and tormented at the prospect of losing her looks, both understandable motivations. Thankfully, Michael Mark’s Dr. Zinthrop, for all his absent-mindedness and hunger for fame, is not the stereotypical mad scientist. He simply needs more training in Phase 1 of clinical trials, which examines the safety, not the efficacy, of a new drug and the best method of its administration. Maybe the drug in a topical cream would have been safer than an injection.

And the therimin music is perfect. In those far-off pre-vuvuzela days, what better instrument to produce the sound of a swarm of wasps?