Call me crazy, call me silly, but I think
“CULT OF THE COBRA” wasn’t half-bad. I enjoyed
the film. No, it doesn’t have
the likes
of John Ashley or William Campbell, but it does have a plethora
of good solid-tv actors. ( I even saw David Janssen smiling!
)
Richard Long - “
The Big Valley”;
Marshall Thompson - “Daktari”;
Jack Kelly - “Maverick” ;
David Janssen - “
The Fugitive” and
William Reynolds - “
The F.B.I.”.
This all wouldn’t come together without
the right actress to play
the head
cobra.
Faith Domergue is cast as
the cobra who turns into a woman. Or a woman who turns into a
cobra. Which
ever way
the cookie crumbles, she was head and shoulders ( and rattle ) above original
Cobra Woman Maria Montez. How and why Domergue's imbued with this power
of transformation is not explained. And here is where my suspension
of disbelief begins. Domergue has a different kind
of look, wouldn’t you say, from
the normal leech woman or wasp woman-type; but I do think Gloria Talbot could give her a run for her money as shown by
the work she did in
“All That Heaven Allows” and
“I Married A Monster From Outer Space.”
A couple
of Airforce men spend a thoughtful last day
of leave atypically watching a snake-y religious ceremony unfit for Western eyes. I'm guessing
the budget was too low to depict a house
of ill-repute.
William Reynolds, Richard Long, David Janssen, Marshall Thompson and
Jack Kelly
Of course like a bull in a china shop,
the soldiers disrupt
the sacred ceremony and are chased through
the fake set
of the Casbah by an angry snake worshipping mob. ( It doesn't look quite like Asia to me but hey...suspending, suspending. ) A curse is laid upon these Infidels that follows them back to
the States and their unenlisted lives. Anyone can outrun a Mummy but it’s tough to outrun a
cobra that slithers up behind you.
Eeeek!
Pay no attention to howling dogs, whinnying horses or screeching cats who react when Domergue crosses their paths; their animal instincts are only infinitely more honed than mankind’s by eons
of evolutionary years. Alright alright, so
the movie’s low budget prevents us from seeing how
the cobra goes from crayons-to-perfume and we do without Jack Pierce’s mastery. But I accept and believe her shadow on
the wall going from
the female form divine to a handpuppet
of a snake. One minute we have
the snake’s p.o.v.:
The last thing he sees...
...And
the next minute, Faith Domergue is standing uncomfortably close to you staring with
‘her eyes, like a cobra’s eyes’:
That’s no one-armed man he sees. It’s
the cobra woman sitting in
the back seat
of his car:
Domergue is conflicted. She has already killed three
of Thompson's buddies before she begins to develop feelings for him:
Now I don't want to spoil
the ending for you. You can do that yourself by clicking
here for Part 6. ( Or start from
the beginning by clicking onto
the Title Card above. ) You'll never see it coming.
Suffice it to say a
cobra does
NOT nine lives. Say, I wonder what would happen if it were a bunch
of Waves or WACs who witnessed
the ceremony. I can just see Rex Reason and Jeff Morrow, slithering through
the woodwork. Now that I gotta see. Preferably in 3-D.