Election aftermath & Mesa of Lost Women

Stayed up way too late watching the election results come in over the net so I’m just about shagged. Our department will be moving next Friday – which kinda stinks I was going to take that next Monday and Tuesday off which I won’t be able to do since I’ll have to be emptying boxes.

How bad was it for the GOP? Well the New York Post’s lead story was “Brittany Spears Files for Divorce” this is, I think her second marriage, which means a third is looming in her future. And this is Gay Marriages fault? Exactly how?

Well with my brain beaten by fatigue and having had to tote boxes about – today is the perfect day to write about Mesa of Lost Women.

And dear lord what a bad movie. So cosmically bad in fact that it, that rumors persist that this film was actually written/directed by Ed Wood. That does not seem to be true but Lyle Talbot who had roles in Glen or Glenda, provides the overheated narration, Ed’s ex girlfriend Delores Fuller has a bit part. And still the bad movie royalty does not end there, George Barrow who plays a guy named George in this film, played the legendary (as in utterly absurd and awful at the same time) Ro-man (the gorilla wearing space helmet) in Robot Monster, another strong contender for worst film ever made.

Mesa is a hard film to write about because it is a prime example of what I have come to call ‘The Theater of the Incoherent” in these films formal narrative structure is largely jettisoned in favor of making the audience go what the hell? Who is that? What’s going on here?

The film opens with the narrator ranting about the insignificant of man compared to bugs –while two people wander in the Mexican desert. They are rescued and begin to recount their amazing story but the film pulls away from them to focus on the driver of the jeep that rescued the pair. He is a stereotypical Hollywood Mexican and the narrator says “you know something about this don’t you Pepe?”

And suddenly we are driving in the desert again to a mesa where a Professor is to meet a Dr. Arana (Spanish for spider) who lives on a mesa. . No I don’t know whose flashback this is, it isn’t Pepe’s, it isn’t the man or woman it’s just a flashback. God’s maybe. The Professor meets Doctor Arana (played by Jackie Coogan – of the Kid with Charlie Chaplin and Uncle Fester in the Addams family TV series – his parents spent all the money he’d made as a child actor and he was reduced to playing garbage like this to make ends meet – until the Addams Family show after he did a lot of TV – not quite a happy ending but better than he could have thought as he was doing this piece of trash).
Arana wants the professor to help him in his work in injecting human hormones into giant spiders – the professor revolts saying it’s madness a crime against nature. What he doesn’t say is that it’s just mind bogglingly stupid. It’s as dumb as putting an artificial heart into a comatose fifty foot ape (see King Kong Lives). Nobody in real life would do anything like this. (A topic I’m hoping to explore in my killer sheep bit). Then Dr. Spider (Arana’s too hard to spell) shows of Taratella – the spider woman, she looks a bit like Jane Russell and is supposed to be part spider part women. At this the Professor goes mad (as does the viewer what the hell does anything going on here have to do with anything) and there is a giant spider hiding behind a blind for some reason.

We are shown a paper saying the Professor has been rescued from the desert but is now confined to a mental institution. It’s tempting three meals a day and drugs and treatment to wipe the memory of this horrible film from your mind, not a bad deal really.

So we end up in a cantina – somewhere.

This is a good time to bring up the music. The entire score consists of a badly strummed flamenco guitar theme, followed by a piano that sounds like some one dropped a couple of bricks on the keyboard and recorded the sound. The theme plays over and over and over and over and over and over (Stop stop! I did it, I killed her and threw her from the train!) and over and over (Really, and I double parked once!) and over throughout the film - no attempt at all is made to match the action (such as it is) on the screen.

So in the Cantina walks the female lead and the rich cad she is going to marry or would have had the plane not broken down. The Male lead is the pilot. The Cad also has an Asian Servant who spouts Charlie Chan like gibberish. (Inept and uses racist stereotypes, thank you movie.)

And then the professor (now mad) shows up and George his nurse. Then they watch Trantella the spider woman (okay what the hell was she doing here – we left her back at the mesa) doing some kind of movement that I assume is the spider dance. Her expression and movement say “I got this part because I am sleeping with the producer’ cause baby she can’t dance a lick.

The mad professor shoots her. And then they all head out to the airport. They fly away. As they fly away the spider lady gets up off the floor and walks away. The music continues.

The plane ends up off course and has engine trouble and crashes on a mesa. (Guess which one) and while the folks try to figure out what to do, they are spied on by women and dwarfs. Per Dr. Spider that’s because in spiders the males are puny little things. Whatever. There are a lot of shots of dwarves and women hiding and the music continues.

As the night passes the group gets picked off one by one, first George is killed by a giant spider puppet. (Never say I’m going to take a look around – you don’t last more than 10 minutes after that) then there is scene where they all go looking for George holding hands on a dark sound stage. It does nothing but kill time and is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen. And, oh yes the music goes on.

Then the Servant is killed. He seems to have been in cahoots with Dr. Spider but we’re not sure how. Hell we’re not sure of our own names by this time in the film.


And the music continues.

Later the rich cad has a melt down and is eaten by the giant spider puppet leaving only the male and female leads (who have fallen for each other but that’s what male and female leads do) and the mad professor. At this point the women and dwarves rush them. Prior to this film I’d never ever seen a scene where the heroes are rushed by women and dwarves. I’m sorry I saw this one.

More of the same music.

They are brought before Dr. Spider. Who reveals is was all a plot to get the Professor back so he could help with the stupid experiments Dr. Spider is doing. Exactly how he did this isn’t really explained. Why should it be? Nothing else in the film is.

The Professor restored to sanity blows up Dr. Spider and the Spider woman who after recovering from the gun shot wound apparently ran faster than an airplane to get to the mesa. (it doesn’t matter, nothing matters, life is just a sick joke played on all of us by a demented god who tortures us for his own pleasure – sorry this movie got to me) the male and female leads escape.

And the music continues as the credits roll and I long for the blissful release of death.

That was one bad film.
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