The Leech Woman is a 1960 black-and-white American horror film directed by Edward Dein, produced by Joseph Gershenon, and starring Coleen Gray, Grant Williams, Gloria Talbott and Phillip Terry. The plot follows a middle-aged American woman, desperate to be young again, who uses an ancient, secret African potion to regain her lost youth and beauty. The potion works, but only temporarily, requiring repeated usage.
Produced in 1959, Leech Womans US theatrical release from Universal-International was as a double feature with The Brides of Dracula. In 1997, it was featured as part of movie mocking sketch TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000s eighth season.
Plot
A mysterious old woman named Malla who claims to have been brought to America 140 years ago as a slave approaches endocrinologist Dr. Paul Talbot and promises to reveal to him the secret of eternal youth if he will fund her final trip back to Africa, so that she can be beautiful and young for one last night before she dies.
Paul is unhappily married to the alcoholic June, who is 10 years his elder. Paul prefers younger women. "Old women," he says, "give me the creeps." They follow Malla to Africa and witness a secret ceremony of the Nando tribe that utilizes orchid pollen and a sacrificial male's pineal gland secretions. The secretions, extracted from the back of the neck via a special ring and mixed with the pollen, temporarily transform Malla into a young, beautiful woman.
After discovering that her conniving husband only brought her along as "a guinea pig who could talk," June takes revenge, choosing him to be sacrificed so that she can use his pineal gland extract to become young again herself, though Malla warns her that the transformation will not last long. She steals the ring and pollen, kills her jungle guide and returns to the United States. Masquerading as her own niece, Terry Hart, she keeps herself young by picking up men and killing them for their pineal extract. But each time the potion wears off, she is older than she was before.
As Terry, June quickly becomes enamored of her lawyer Neil Foster, a man half her actual age. She kills his jealous fiancée Sally Howards, draining her pineal gland and eliminating Sally as competition.
When the police come to investigate the murders that June has committed, she uses Sally's pineal gland extract but finds that it does not work because it is from a woman. Before the police can arrest her, she throws herself out her bedroom window, crashes to the ground and dies. When they see her body, it is much older and much more shriveled than ever.
Cast
Coleen Gray as June Talbot/Terry Hart
Grant Williams as Neil Foster
Phillip Terry as Dr. Paul Talbot
Gloria Talbott as Sally Howards
John van Dreelen as Bertram Garvay
Estelle Helmsley as Old Malla
Kim Hamilton as Young Malla
Arthur Bantanides as Jerry Randall
Chester Jones as Ladu (uncredited) Charles Keane as Chief Detective (uncredited) Harold Goodwin as Second Detective (uncredited) Murray Alper as Drunk (uncredited) Paul Thompson as Head Warrior (uncredited)
Production
The film's working title was The Leech. According to contemporary reviews, the filmmakers mixed stock footage of African wildlife and tribal dances with scenes shot in the studio. Film critic and psychometrist Bryan Senn notes that much of the stock footage was "taken from the jungle adventure Tanganyika (1954)". Production of the film ended in March 1959. It had its official premiere in Los Angeles on 15 June 1960.
The pairing of The Brides of Dracula and The Leech Woman was one of several examples of Universal-International releasing UK horror films with inexpensive, quickly-produced second films to fill double bills in the US. However, as science fiction film historian Bill Warren points out, The Brides of Dracula was a "lively, colorful Hammer film, one of their best", which made the black-and-white The Leech Woman "look drab and old-fashioned". The film has the "heavy, 'indoorsy' atmosphere of an early '60s TV show" and its "extended takes create the stagy feeling associated with live TV".
In the UK, The Leech Woman was given an X-certificate by the British Board of Film Censors, following their viewing of the film on 14 March 1960. The X-certificate limited the exhibition of the film to persons over age 16.