This past weekend I asked Steven if he would like to watch a “Horror Movie Classic” with me. I put it in quotes, because I am quoting the DVD box. “50 Horror Classics,” actually. I guess “classic” has different definitions, depending on who you ask. I would use a different c word to describe most of these offerings: cheesy.
Steven picked Swamp Women from 1955. I would not call it a horror movie, exactly. Maybe suspense/exploitation. And not as exploitative as you might think watching the opening credits. They show all these pictures of women with their hands tied behind their backs. Ooh. I noted that the director was Roger Corman. That alone makes it work a watch, I thought.
The movie opens with what looked to me like pretty obvious stock footage of a parade interspersed with actual movie scenes. The guy who would later play Mannix and this fairly sexy girl are flirting. She is after his money, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He has oil wells. She volunteers to accompany him into the swamp, where he has to go for some poorly defined business reason, to show him how tough she can be (any guesses on how that’s going to work out?).
Having thus set up the victims, the movie moves on to the villains. They are a set of gangster molls in a prison. They know where some diamonds are, so the head cop sends the best policewoman he knows into the prison to infiltrate the gang. The idea is she’ll help the girls escape then follow them to the diamonds. This turns out to be surprisingly easy and little time is spent in the prison (so no shower scene; I told you it was not as exploitative as they pretend).
I don’t like to say much else about the plot, because I hate to give too much away. I will mention that Mannix is the one that spends most of the picture with his hands tied behind his back. I’m sure some female viewers found this a delightful image. I’m not sure what it says, if anything, about Roger Corman’s fantasies. I’ll leave the reader to his or her own speculations.
The most unrealistic aspect of the picture to me was the utter lack of insects in the swamp. Not one mosquito was slapped. Did we miss the scene where they slathered on the Deet?
On the whole, I enjoyed the movie. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel the urge to pop it in again. However, if I happen to be in the mood to see a picture with a few good girl fights and Mannix in bondage, I’m all set.
Mohawk Valley Girl 