"Allison Hayes never gave less than her all...The bits of celluloid she left behind are lovely to look at...but she was much more."

Today's "Scream Queens" seem to lack something...call it presence (okay, call it va-va-va-voom!).  They could take a leaf from the scrapbook of the top Fifties horror film siren, the one and only...

PART ONE:  ALLISON ON FILM

by JACKRANDALL EARLES

(Note: This is the first in a series of two articles detailing the life and career of Fifties "scream queen" Allison Hayes. The next installment will deal with Allision's life off-screen. Jackrandall Earles is a playwright who currently lives in Indiana. His play, My Hand Is Not My Heart was a  winner in the Festival of Emerging American Theatre. He acts and directs locally and is a member of the Actors Equity Candidate Program. His passion is films of the Fifties and Sixties, especially those featuring Allison Hayes. He hopes to hear from anyone else who has an interest in Allison or information to share.  By the way his biggest success as a director was a play called Vampire Lesbians of Sodom...You can contact him here.)

Her films were mostly low-budget. She rarely played opposite a strong male lead. Allison Hayes overcame the odds to make it in Hollywood, but she never made the leap to the "A" film assignments she wanted. She was active in films and television from 1953-1964. Allison (born Mary Jane) played roles in many types of films and guested on many different television series. The arc of her career was typical of the starlet of the time, but her life was not. Allison’s most famous role was the title character in 1958’s Attack Of The 50-Foot Woman, not a horror film but rather a sci-fi flick (you can see a still and a poster from this epic in the article here). She did some pictures that might be classified as horror (on purpose) and the following six stand out.

Allison’s first "horror" film was made in 1956. The Undead, directed by Roger Corman, is certainly worth a look. Allison plays Livia the witch--intent on making Knight Pendragon (Richard Garland) her own even if it means causing innocent Helene (Pamela Duncan) to lose her head. And speaking of getting a-head, Livia needs one to make her Satan’s (Richard Devon) right hand gal at the cemetery sock hop that passes for the Witch’s Sabbath in this flick. She axes Bruno VeSota and has her familiar (Billy Barty) hand her a breadbasket: "A goblet for my pearl..." It hangs on a tree branch in a later scene while Livia tries to make love to Pendragon.

Livia appears and disappears--changes form and generally makes a nuisance of herself throughout the story of time travel, mysticism, and reincarnation. A couple of her transformations from a black cat are accomplished with deft camera movement and are quite effective. Less so are the transformations into flying bats. One AMC viewer emailed: "Any movie with midgets and bats on strings deserves a 10!"

Allison’s figure is shown to great advantage and one dissolve finds her crossing her long legs ever so slowly. Her hair (probably a fall) covers the supporting strap of her costume while a fake strap dangles seductively on her arm. She and Dorothy Neumann as Meg Maud (good witch of the north....ooops my bad...wrong movie) have a couple of really good face-offs. Neumann’s makeup here rivals only her "Teenage Doll" get up as most bizarre in a pantheon of unusual "looks."

The Undead was filmed on the cheap at the Sunset Studios, a former supermarket and on location at the Witch’s House in Beverly Hills. A couple of unique innovations fell by the wayside including Charles Griffith’s original script written in rhymes and a shot of VeSota’s decapitated head on the ax!

Livia is finally dispatched by a knife in the ribs from Pendragon--then changes forms one last time--to a black cat with a knife in the ribs. The Undead is a fun movie with a plot unlike any other movie...ever. It is certainly worth a look if only for Allison’s antics and Val Dufour’s "nude scene." Camera position is everything.

Actor Mel Welles who plays Smolkin in The Undead says that Allison was "a real Fifites chick." He says she drove a blue Morgan automobile and she must have been quite a sight racing down Sunset in that open car with her red hair flying--on her way to agent Jack Pomeroy’s office.

The voodoo in The Disembodied (1957) turns into more of a bungle in the jungle. Rather than deal in anything as mundane as divorce, Allison as Tonda decides to kill her much older doctor husband by casting spells and strangling dolls.

Allison looks great in some lively outfits and does a dance to some heavy drums. The film is obviously set-bound, but has some nice jungle plants to hide behind. Paul Burke (on his way up Mt. Everest to the Valley Of The Dolls) is Tonda’s new love interest and he can’t put her off.

Of course death and destruction follow, and for the second time in as many years and films, Allison is dispatched by blade. This time the wielder is a jealous native girl. The films ends with everyone looking around and walking off camera, except for those poor souls who were directed to "stand there."

Tame stuff with a dangerous Allison to watch. At least she makes it almost to the end of the film. She wears some Oriental-inspired clothes and her hair down for most of the movie. Only four lobby cards were printed for this film and three of them featured Allison. Her dance was a highlight of The Disembodied if not film choreography.

If producer Sam Katzman and his Clover productions promise you Africa -- you can bet you’ll get Columbia’s backlot. So be it in Zombies Of Mora Tau (1957). Allison plays Mona the wife of George Harrison (!) (Joel Ashley) who nonetheless has eyes for Jeff (Gregg Palmer.) She wears the most amazing brassiere of her career in that it almost deforms rather than enhances her shapely figure. Who knows what they were thinking?

Lost diamonds, zombies above and below the water, deep sea diving, Autumn Russell and other scary things try to sustain the viewer’s interest, but it is really tough sledding. Marjorie Easton and Russell are equally annoying although Autumn is somewhat more attractive. Allison and Autumn stand screaming during a zombie "attack" for a really loooooooong time. (Allison’s scream is great and cannot be mistaken. It is heard in Frankenstein’s Daughter and Missile To The Moon. Whoever owned those sound elements got his money’s worth.)

Allison gets "zombie-fied" after being slapped around by her husband and running out of the house. She loses an earring in the struggle when she is slapped, but she has it on in the next shot as she runs through the dining room. The slap seems to have gone awry...probably Ashley’s misplaced hand position.

After she gets entranced, she pulls a knife on some sailors (sleeping together in the house!) and then gets hit on the head by a flying candlestick, accompanied by an unfortunate choice of sound effects (clunk).

Zombies Of Mora Tau is not a complete waste of time. It is Allison at her bad girl best acting-wise.

One story is told of Allison having a fit of temperament on the set of Zombies during her last day of filming. After stating her position, she leaves the set still wearing her negligee from wardrobe, gets into her car, and leaves the lot (her blue Morgan no doubt.) And no doubt she had carefully packed her street clothes in the trunk. 

The Unearthly (1957) was "guaranteed to frighten" and it is unknown how many people collected on the promise, but most of the scares must have been left on the cutting room floor. This film is the only remnant of an experiment in co-production and releasing between the American Broadcasting Company and Paramount Theaters. The government stepped in and it ended up being one of the last Republic Pictures releases (usually on a co-bill with The Beginning Of The End.)

Allison plays a sympathetic role in her Grace Thomas and is actually given fewer close ups than Tor Johnson as Lobo. The scariest thing about the movie is probably the first dress she wears. Sporting the super-brassiere from Zombies she literally busts onto the screen.

Allison is brought the mad scientist Dr. Charles Conway (John Carradine) by her doctor Roy Gordon (whose credits include The Fountainhead and Attack Of The 50-Foot Woman--a more dichotomous pairing of film credits is doubtful). The basement is full of monsters, and Sally Todd suffers a horrible fate. Allison escapes unharmed (except by the critics) and falls into the arms of hero Myron Healey as the same initially-named Mark Houston. Come to think of it, maybe Sally didn’t have it so bad.

There are some nice close-ups of the doctor’s experiments but they are brief. They were probably more effective on the big screen. Another featured babe was Marilyn Burford (a 1946 Miss America contestant) who later appeared in Queen Of Outer Space.

Allison looks stunning in her negligee (from Zombies?) and later in a swimsuit that was probably her own. Her scene about her experiences with unbelieving doctors is eerily prescient of her own later life situation.

Look if you dare...into The Hypnotic Eye!" Well, we looked. Allison is pretty shapely as assistant Justine to Jacques Bergerac’s entrancer Desmond. This film from 1960 was put together by the producers of The Disembodied who would also later do Tickle Me the Elvis film that was Allison’s last big screen appearance.

This flick asks the question: Can the rash of self-mutilations by lovely women be connected? What could they all have in common? Why the spinning eye that Bergerac holds in his hand and those post-hypnotic suggestions of his.

The Hypnotic Eye tried to hypnotize its audiences into performing the tricks that Desmond’s audience does: spinning of the hands faster and faster and slapping its knees. They might have done better had they hypnotized the audience into staying awake.

Some neat make-up effects (including Merry Anders’ acid scarred face) are on view. But there are too many reaction shots that more non-reactions. Nothing happens and our Allison doesn’t come to life until the final moments. (Spoiler coming!)  

Allison grabs the pretending-to-be-hypnotized Marcia Henderson (as Marcia) and head up into the theater flies. (Note to myself: while being chased, do not climb up). When confronted and told how lovely she is, Allison gets off a line that should really be a Hollywood mantra: "You like my face? Then you may have it." She tears off a mask and reveals a makeup very similar to Illyana, the Queen of Outer Space (a movie produced by the same guys a couple of years earlier). She then takes a header off the scaffold and lands near her lover Desmond, shot dead moments earlier for some reason or another. Oh my. I guess the question that is never answered (at least for me) is how a police psychologist could afford an apartment with a grand piano?

Allison wears some great costumes including a shiny gown and later a Capri pants jumpsuit with a plunging neckline (first seen a year earlier in Pier 5 Havana.) She also wears a lovely heart shaped ring with diamond outlines. This was part of her personal jewelry collection and she wore it often on television and in films.

Rod Lauren gets a couple of black eyes and an astronaut’s hand in the 1963 film The Crawling Hand. Allison plays a supporting role as Donna an assistant in a space lab. Not to worry that it looks more like an insurance office with its tape run computers from Univac. Her "secretary" garb was drab but tasteful. It seems to be off the rack, but well-suited for her abbreviated role in this movie.

This movie is known by several different titles, but unfortunately Allison doesn’t get to do much in any of them. She is the fiancee of an astronaut who is doomed in space. Mostly she talks on the telephone pretending to speak to the press and the White House saying, "No comment at this time." She walks around the office wringing her hands or looking at the computers. Ultimately, her scenes just stop.

The Crawling Hand has some scary moments. The scariest thing though is seeing how some of the older performers have aged--including Tristram Coffin and Arline Judge. Yikes!  Allison was beginning to show the effects of the illness that would eventually take her life.

Allison Hayes never gave less than her all. She was a beauty, an actress, and to those her knew her, a friend. The bits of celluloid she left behind are lovely to look at...but she was much more.

NEXT ISSUE:  The Real Allison Hayes.

Thanks, Jack, for shining the spotlight on the short but steamy horror movie career of the lovely Allison Hayes.  Even in The Crawling Hand, she was a knockout!  Cheers!  

Article copyright Jackrandall Earles

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