The Wasp Woman

[sparrowhawk]

Just a bit of cinematic/pipe trivia: Does anyone remember Roger Corman's b/w film from the fifties, "The Wasp Woman"? It features an executive of a cosmetic company who is constantly smoking a pipe, and sticking it in his breast pocket when he's not puffing away. Naturally, the other company execs figure out something has happened to him when they discover his pipe laying in a laboratory without him. (The Wasp Woman got him.) Only death separates us from our pipes!

 

[cortezattic]

I'm a big fan of that movie, and the whole genre, for that matter!

Dr. Eric Zinthrop, the scientist responsible for accidentally transforming a woman into a wasp, was played by Michael Mark.

He has many film credits including Frankenstein, where, in a memorable scene, he played the man carrying his drowned daughter

through the village street. Speaking of Frankenstein, do you remember Frederick Kerr as the old Baron depicted here:

I have a Russo-Turkic smoking cap like his; and I bought it from SmokyJoesClothing.com, one of PM.com's advertisers!

Another sci-fi B-movie where a pipe is a prominent prop is Monster On The Campus ('58), where Prof. Donald Blake, played by Arthur Franz, smokes a pipe contaminated by coelacanth fluids that transform him into a Neanderthal-like brute.

 

[sparrowhawk]

Didn't Richard Carlson, the scientist/astronomer in "It Came From Outer Space" smoke a pipe as well? The professorial types usually did in these movies.

 

[cortezattic]

Yup. There are many, many more. One day, I'll start a list of 1950's B-movie pipe smoking scenes. Back then the

sci-fi genre was loaded with them because pipe smoking was identified with scientific intellectualism.

 

[sparrowhawk]

Let me know when. I have an extensive library of SF films books (I used to minor in films in college) and it sound like a worthy endeavor.

 

[philobeddoe]

Yea, the professor/scientist character always smokes a pipe in the 50's sci-fi movies. Pipe smoking used to be seen as a sign of an intellectual, in the movies at least. If you wanted the character to appear smart, you gave him a pipe and suede elbow patches.

 

[ssjones]

That hat Karr is wearing is the business!

 

[andrew]

White anglo saxon protestants, hate them, only Catholics I like.

 

[zonomo]

I Love Roger Corman. The king of the B's. B-Movies that is...

 

[sparrowhawk]

Did anyone notice Robert Downing, Jr's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in the movie of the same time? In this reinvention of Holmes, he smokes a clay pipe which becomes vital near the climax of the film.

 

[brian64]

Indeed. Quite satisfying to see the pipe used so efficiently against an evil scoundrel such as Moriarty.