Mari Blanchard

 

 (imdb)

SHE-DEVIL-1957-Workaholic genius bio-chemist Dr. Scott (Jack Kelly; CULT OF THE COBRA (1952)) is working and experimenting on the theory that with a little help humans may be able to cure themselves of disease. He creates a serum from fruit flies that cures some animals. Now he wants to try it on humans. His mentor Dr. Bock (Albert Dekker; DR. CYCLOPS (1940)) warns him. But later against his better judgment he lets Scott inject Kyra (Mari Blanchard), a woman dying of TB with his serum. It works and she gets better but seems to have a strange new personality. 

While in a dress shop, she attacks a man for his money. When she's trapped in a dressing room by the police she somehow transforms from black haired woman to a blonde beauty. She stays at Bock's house where his maid (Blossom Rock) is leery but Scott seems mesmerized by her. At a party thrown by Bock she dallies with a rich jerk named Kendall (John Archer) whose wife slaps Kyra. She turns back to her black-haired self and kills Mrs. K (Fay Baker). Later Kendall and Kyra marry and he complains how cold she is. He shoots her in the shoulder and on the way to the hospital she crashes the car and he dies. She escapes unscathed. Now a wealthy widow, she returns to Scott to convince him to get rid of Bock. He seems to agree but really doesn't and he and Bock plan to reverse the operation. It doesn't turn out the way they planned. 

Nice little but obscure black and white horror directed by Kurt Neumann who made the most out of low budget assignments (ROCKETSHIP X-M, KRONOS). He'd have his greatest success the following year in 1958 when he directed THE FLY. Unfortunately, he would pass away shortly after completing it. 

Star Mari Blanchard had been in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO GO TO MARS IN 1953 and other films like DESTRY (1954) with Audie Murphy and THE SON OF SINBAD (1955) with Dale Robertson. She made more movies after this (DON'T KNOCK THE TWIST (1962), TWICE-TOLD TALES (1963)) but worked mainly in TV. She died of cancer at 47 in 1970.

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George Pal and The Moon

DESTINATION MOON-1950-In the near future a rocket is set to the moon but doesn't make it. Dr. Cargraves (Warner Anderson) suspects sab-otage. Two years later he and the designer of the rocket's engine General Thayer (Tom Pow-ers) convince aircraft honcho Jim Barnes (John Archer) to help gather private investors to back their new design (called “Luna”). However, public outcry over radioactivity leakage seems to doom the project. Barnes decides to circum-⁹vent all the red tape and take off in 17 hours! He, Cargraves and Thayer enlisted skeptical Joe Sweeney (Dick Wesson) as the radio operator (“It'll never budge”). After some quick goodbyes and just beating a court order not allowing them to go, they take off and head to the moon. All goes well despite trouble with g-force and weightlessness until it's learned Sweeney put too much grease on an antenna and it has to be fixed. So three of them take a space walk on the side of the ship. Thayer is almost sent adrift in space but Barnes saves him with a pretty clever use of an oxygen tank. The group make a precarious moon landing and two of them go out and do some exploring. After everyone treks around Barnes is informed that they wasted too much fuel on their botched up landing and may not have enough to take off. They have to get rid of all non-essential equipment but it's not enough. One of them must stay behind! While the three scientists argue which one of them should be sacrificed. Joe takes it upon himself to be the one but Barnes' quick thinking saves Joe and they all return to Earth heroes. Woody Woodpecker is seen in a film explaining how going to the moon is possible.

Produced by George Pal, DESTINATION MOON is a serious early look into how space travel would be. Its level headed script doesn't go over the top in speculation and employs more science than fiction. This is probably due to the fact that it's based on a novel by the legendary Robert Heinlein who also co-wrote the screenplay! It should be boring but director (and former actor) Irving Pichel puts a lot of good SFX to use and doesn't let all the scientific talk bog down the story line.  

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