Mesa of Lost Women (1953)

Directors:

Ron Ormond
Herbert Tevos

Writer:

Herbert Tevos (writer)

Release Date:

17 June 1953 (USA)

Genre:

Sci-Fi

Tagline:

A race of deadly spider-women luring men to their death!

Plot:

A mad scientist named Arana is creating giant spiders and dwarves in his lab on Zarpa Mesa in Mexico...

Plot Keywords:

Spider | Giant Spider | Mad Scientist | Secret Laboratory | Narration

Cast

Jackie Coogan	...	Dr. Aranya
Allan Nixon	...	Dr. Tucker, camp physician
Richard Travis	...	Dan Mulcahey, foreman
Lyle Talbot	...	Narrator
Paula Hill	...	Doreen Culbertson (as Mary Hill)
Robert Knapp	...	Grant Phillips
Tandra Quinn	...	Tarantella
Chris-Pin Martin	...	Pepe, the jeep driver
Harmon Stevens	...	Dr. Leland J. Masterson
Nico Lek	...	Jan van Croft
Kelly Drake	...	Lost Woman
John Martin	...	Frank, the surveyor
George Barrows	...	George, the male nurse
Candy Collins	...	Lost Woman
Dolores Fuller	...	Blonde 'Watcher in the Woods'

Also Known As:

Lost Women
Lost Women of Zarpa (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

70 min | France:67 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Unrated (2005 DVD release) | UK:PG (1995) | UK:X (1954) (cut) | USA:Approved (PCA #15557)

Company:

A.J. Frances White-Joy Houck

Trivia:

The name "Tarantella" for the dancer played by Tandra Quinn is an in-joke. "Tarantella" is both the Italian word for "tarantula" and the name of an Italian dance that is supposed to make the person doing it look like he or she has just been bitten by a tarantula.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): At several points in the dialogue, Dr. Aranya is said to be doing experiments involving "hexapods" - meaning six-legged insects. But he is actually working with tarantulas, which are spiders (not insects) and therefore have eight legs.

Quotes:

Doreen Culbertson: [surveying cantina] What a dump.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Planet X: (#2.1)" (2006)

More fun than a beard full of dancing, baby spiders!

One of the best of the so-bad-it's-beautiful movies. MESA OF LOST WOMEN tells the story of a mad scientist (Jackie Coogan with a wart the size of a Roosevelt dime!) who creates beautiful dancing girls out of spiders. (most likely to help out the struggling Rockette industry!) I absolutely loved the scene with the mad doc's victim, a scientist driven insane by a spider-woman encounter. He goes around bars, quoting something close to the Bible, in a silly Elmer Fudd voice.

What I really loved about this movie was Tandra Quinn, as Tarantella, the mad doc's best spider to mucha-cha creation. She's something like a brunette Jayne Mansfield with a little bit of Vampirella thrown in. Ms. Quinn, you made film history with your really strange spider dance.