Swamp Women (USA, 1956) 67 min color DIR: Roger Corman. PROD: Bernard Woolner. SCR: David Stern. MUSIC: Willis Holman. DOP: Frederick E. West. CAST: Marie Windsor, Carole Mathews, Beverly Garland, Mike Connors, Susan Cummings, Lou Place, Jonathan Haze, Ed Nelson, Jil Jarmyn. (Woolner Brothers)
The Medved brothers included Swamp Women in their guide to The Fifty Worst Films of All Time, so this is obviously not one of the classics. Filmed in Eastmancolor, this was Corman’s third film as director, and his only effort for the Woolner Brothers Releasing Corp. It opens with some cheesy parade stock footage that would have made Ed Wood proud and a cameo by Jonathan Haze as a drunken pickpocket that lasts just long enough to be annoying. The star of the show is Mike ‘Touch’ Connors, who plays an oil baron. You might think that Connors being an oil baron would figure into the plot, but guess what – it doesn’t. While on a leisurely boat ride in the Bayou Lacombe swamp in Louisiana, Connors and his fiancée fall captive to four tough-talkin’ female convicts (led by Beverly Garland), who have escaped from prison to find hidden diamonds. One of these ladies, however, is an undercover police officer. Along the way, Connors’ fiancée dies, but since she’s been established as evil for trying to escape without Connors, nobody much cares. The high point of this saga is Connors’ battle with a rubber alligator, during which the edge of the swimming pool where the sequence was filmed is visible.
Swamp Women, also released as Swamp Diamonds and Cruel Swamp, is best viewed as evidence of how far Corman would evolve as a director over the next several years. For 1959’s A Bucket of Blood, Corman, on a budget similar to Swamp Women, was able to use his limited resources to create a memorable and convincing beatnik environment. Swamp Women, on the other hand, is completely devoid of anything even close to ‘convincing’ (i.e. the blatantly phoney police headquarters near the film’s beginning). By the time of Bucket, the static photography, muddled sound, and overdone performances of Swamp Women were more or less gone. Clearly, better things lay ahead for the still relatively inexperienced Corman.
Originally published in The Roger Corman Scrapbook.
Will Sloan
Will Sloan first encountered ESR at Word on the Street circa 2004 (age: 15) and started contributing not long after. He is now a fully-grown writer and raconteur, and hosts two film-related podcasts: The Important Cinema Club and Michael & Us. You can follow him @WillSloanEsq on Twitter and at willsloanesq.wordpress.com.