Swamp Women ** (1956, Carole Mathews, Beverly Garland, Marie Windsor, Mike Connors, Ed Nelson, Susan Cummings) – Classic Movie Review 3979

Director Roger Corman’s 1956 American adventure film noir crime film Swamp Women stars Carole Mathews, Beverly Garland, and Marie Windsor, along with Mike Connors and Ed Nelson.

Three women break jail and head for a Louisiana swamp to find a stash of stolen diamonds, and pinch the boat of geologist Bob Matthews (Mike Connors, aka Touch Conners). But things go wrong when Josie (Marie Windsor), Vera (Beverly Garland) and Marie (Susan Cummings) unwittingly pick up undercover police woman undercover police officer Lieutenant Lee Hampton (Carole Mathews) along the way.

With its unusual, well-formed plot in the screenplay by David Stern, this 1956 exploitation movie is a creaky but interesting early Roger Corman crime thriller, with a robust tone and an accent on women that was rare at the time.

The whole film was shot by Corman on a typically tight budget in just 10 days, in colour (Eastmancolor) and on location (Bayou Lacombe, Louisiana) too, in October 1955. Corman recalls: ‘This was the first movie that I made that really used the Corman crew. They were a small group of people beginning to come together who would become regulars on all my films. We were one creative force.’

Garland recalled: ‘Roger put us up in this old, abandoned hotel with iron beds. Our first night there, I went to bed, and I heard this tremendous crash! I went screaming into Marie Windsor’s room, and there she was with the bed on top of her!’

Also known as Cruel Swamp or Swamp Diamonds, it is listed in the 1978 book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (And How They Got That Way) by Harry Medved and Randy Lowell. When there are so many bad movies out there, I can’t for the life of me think why it could be one of The Fifty Worst Films of All Time. It may not be great, but it is certainly worth a little look. Admittedly, its pleasures are in the so-bad-it’s good category, and, if there is a longer list, it could be one of The 100 Worst Films of All Time.

Also in the cast are Jill Jarmyn as Billie, Susan Cummings as Marie, Ed Nelson as Police Sergeant, Jonathan Haze as Charlie the Pickpocket, and Lou Place as Captain J R Goodrich.

It is now in the public domain and released on DVD by multiple companies.

Corman and his production partner Jim Nicholson were searching for backers when they met the Woolner brothers –Lawrence, Bernard and David – who had opened New Orleans’ first drive-in theaters, wanted to get into the production business, and agreed to help finance the film. They later helped Corman set up New World Pictures.

The former Louisiana Governor Robert Kennon owned a large plantation and allowed the film-makers to make the film there. The film’s end credits thank Mayor De Lesseps Morrison and Police Chief John Dayries of New Orleans and Governor Robert Kennon of Louisiana.

An alligator and a rattlesnake were hired from Arthur Jones, who ran a roadside attraction off Highway 11 in Slidell.

The film was released in a double bill with Gunslinger, also directed by Corman with Garland.

Mike Connors (aka Krekor llevado Ohanian) died on January 26, 2017, aged 95.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3979

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