Ed Wood: Adviser

 

 (bleeding skull)

THE ASTOUNDING SHE MONSTER-1957-Wealthy socialite Margaret Chaffee (Marilyn Harvey) is kidnapped and taken to a hideout in the San Gabriel mountains. A "visitor beyond imagination" lands on Earth around the same time the two kidnappers (one is Keene Duncan) along with their "moll" (Jeanne Tatum), a drunken floozy and Chaffee, hold up in the isolated cabin of a geologist (Robert Clarke). The rather voluptuous radioactive alien (Shirley Kilpatrick) walks around the forest, kills a dog and later a bear. She kills one kidnapper then terrorizes the rest who flee into the woods. They try to set her on fire but that fails. They run back to the cabin. They do this several times. 

This black and white cheapie was made by Ronnie Ashcroft who had been assistant director on Ed Wood's NIGHT OF THE GHOULS (which starred Duncan). It's said Wood was the movie's “adviser” and his influence is all over it. Loud out of place music, more talk than action, characters spouting quasi-philosophical dialogue. Soon after this Ashcroft produced the short “Trick Shooting with Keene Duncan”.

 “She Monster” Shirley Kilpatrick had a successful career as a model but her only movie after this was an un-uncredited role in THE GENE KRUPA STORY in 1959. After several troubled marriages, she became a psychic! Unfortunately, at age 38 she died of a drug overdose in 1971.

 

Shirley with Jack LaLane

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