The list of Fifties Fright Film Femmes, otherwise known as "Scream Queens," is a  long and distinguished one.  Even so, one name on it stands out--that of Gloria Talbott.   Although she did not make a lot of horror and monster flicks, the ones she made were memorable, at least partly because of her presence in them.  For this lovely lady showed rare guts and daring in dealing with outer space aliens and inhuman monsters, all of which will become clear as we examine...

By JOE WINTERS

A woman’s work is never done (not that men have it any better). Whether it’s on the job site or on the home front, work is a 24/7 kind of thing. And what if the woman is engaged to a giant Cyclops or married to an alien from outer space? What if she’s under the spell of a chemically created vampire/werewolf or competing with an ageless rival? Gloria Talbott took on some big challenges during just a small part of her film career.

The Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, California was co-founded by Gloria’s great-great-grandfather. Gloria was born there on February 7, 1931. With Hollywood practically in her backyard, the acting bug bit early with a small part in the Nelson Eddy/Jeanette MacDonald movie musical Maytime (1937). Other small roles followed, and soon she started her own acting group for live shows. She won the "Miss Glendale" beauty contest in 1947, and a year later she married her first husband and had her first child. Prior to, and after her divorce, Gloria resumed her acting career in the early 1950s with loads of film and television work.

Her combination of beauty and talent would put her in great demand in a variety of genres, including…you guessed it…horror. Not only could she play ladies in distress, Gloria could play gutsy gals practically in the same league as fellow 1950s scream queen Beverly Garland.

The responsibilities of a HORROR-WOOD heroine can make a woman yearn for the carefree time of childhood when she was just daddy’s little girl. Of course, when the little girl happens to be the Daughter Of Dr. Jekyll (Allied Artists, 1957), it’s probably best that she not even know who dear old dad was.

In the early part of the Twentieth Century, Janet Smith (Gloria Talbott) and fiancée George Hastings (John Agar) arrive at a gloomy estate on the eve of Janet’s twenty-first birthday. Never knowing whom her father was, Janet is shocked to learn his identity and of her inheritance, held in trust by the late Dr. Jekyll’s old friend, Janet’s kindly guardian Dr. Lomas (Arthur Shields). Also on hand is big, craggy-faced servant Jacob (John Dierkes) who suspects that Janet has inherited more than just the Jekyll name and fortune.

Janet soon has a nightmare of herself rising from a crypt to kill housekeeper Maggie (Mollie McCart). Janet awakens and screams to find blood on her own hands and nightgown and mud on her shoes. In the morning, Maggie is found dead in the woods with her throat torn. That night, Janet has another nightmare, more mud and blood on her clothes, and soon news of another murdered woman.

Janet is convinced of her own guilt, but George can’t believe it. Dr. Lomas sits alone by the sedated Janet’s bedside. Moonlight shines on his face and brings a sinister change in his expression. He hypnotizes Janet into following him to the old Jekyll lab (a previously discovered secret room in the house). From there, a secret passage leads to the family crypt where George secretly follows them. Intending to keep living off the estate, Lomas instructs Janet to hang herself. George intervenes, but Lomas knocks him out.

Transforming into hideous Mr. Hyde, Lomas runs off. He takes time out to leer through a window as a scantily clad blonde puts on not much else. Lomas/Hyde kills her and is sighted by a pair of villagers. The villagers multiply, as villagers tend to do, and are soon in pursuit of the monster. Another fight with George ends with Lomas impaled on a stake by Jacob.

Daughter Of Dr. Jekyll was written and produced by Jack Pollexfen, who had previously co-authored a story for the film Son Of Dr. Jekyll (Columbia, 1951). Both tales ended with someone other than the Jekyll offspring guilty of the crimes. Daughter Of Dr. Jekyll merges the Jekyll/Hyde story with werewolf and vampire lore (full moon transformations, blood drinking, stake driving, etc.).

Considered by many to be one of the runts of the Jekyll/Hyde litter, it was directed by Edgar Ulmer who gave us the Karloff/Lugosi classic The Black Cat (Universal, 1934). Later he turned in such good low-budget wonders as Bluebeard (PRC, 1944) and The Man From Planet X (United Artists, 1951). Working on another shoestring, Ulmer brings some atmospheric touches to the film, including dream sequences with a double substituting for Gloria.

With his character wearing a ridiculously white striped jacket much of the time, John Agar reportedly didn’t care for his role, while Gloria enjoyed hers. In an interview featured in the video presentation, 100 Years Of Horror, she said, "I think it was a good movie, except for the 1957 Chevys going by on the street next to it…somebody forgot to pull the shade down."

She also said, "I made myself cry when I watched it, ‘cause I really felt that," referring to the scene where she screams the line "If you love me, please kill me!" Fortunately, it didn’t come to that, and presumably Janet and George lived happily ever after.

Gloria didn’t fare so well with another on-screen beau in the movie that played on a double bill with Daughter Of Dr. Jekyll. And what woman wouldn’t have irreconcilable differences when the man is about twenty-five feet tall with a hideous face, one eye and practically no mind? "Unknown terror stalks a forbidden land as three men and a girl fall prey to the strangest creature the world ever knew." So claimed the trailer to The Cyclops (Allied Artists, 1957).

Susan Winter (Gloria Talbott) arranges an expedition to the Mexican wilderness to find her fiancée whose plane disappeared there three years earlier. Along with Susan and pilot Lee Brand (Tom Drake) is bacteriologist Russ Bradford (James Craig) and businessman and uranium hunter Marty Melville (Lon Chaney Jr.). Well, where there’s uranium there’s radioactivity, and where there’s radioactivity there’s bound to be giant monsters.

We encounter a giant hawk, giant gopher, giant tarantula, giant reptiles and more; the aforementioned giant man (Duncan "Dean" Parkin), bald and disfigured with a large cyst over part of his face, leaving only one bulging eye visible. Gunfire doesn’t make the big guy any happier, and he responds by giving a lethal finger to Marty. A burning spear in the giant’s eye allows the others to escape in their plane as the Cyclops drops dead.

"We went to see a sneak preview," said Gloria Talbott in 100 Years of Horror. "In the context it was great, fine, poignant when she (her character starting to recognize her fiancée) said ‘That poor creature. There’s something about his face.’ The crowd started a low roll. People were baying, laughing, ‘cause it was funny! So my agent said, ‘Darling, I think we should leave now.’" She added, "It stunned me that it came out as well as is did. It stunned me! And I think its because…you had good people working." Gloria had fond memories of her co-stars, including Chaney who pretty much stole the show.

On the heels of the dismal King Dinosaur (1955), The Cyclops was a step up for producer/director/writer and this year’s Monster Bash honoree Bert I. Gordon. The first movie to depict radioactive gigantism in a human, it caught the eye of the powers that were at American International and set the stage for future B.I.G. pictures, including The Amazing Colossal Man that same year.

The next year brought Gloria to the wedding altar as the ‘I’ in I Married A Monster From Outer Space (Columbia, 1958). Marge Bradley (Talbott) is understandably annoyed when bridegroom Bill Farrell (Tom Tryon) is late for their wedding until he arrives, then she melts into his arms for a prolonged kiss. She’d have second thoughts if she knew the reason for Bill’s tardiness. You see Bill is no longer Bill, but an alien in disguise and part of the vanguard of a dying race seeking to re-populate with unsuspecting human brides. Thunder and lightning startle the false Bill into momentarily dropping his guard and revealing his true face to us.

The audience and Marge receive more information at different times to build suspense. Actually about a year (mere moments in screen time) goes by before childless Marge suspects and investigates. She convinces the human townsfolk of her discoveries, and the invasion is thwarted. The missing men are found and released from suspended animation. Their duplicates dissolve into Jell-o (reportedly whipped up by director Gene Fowler’s wife).

Despite its wacky expose title, this was an effective sci-fi chiller filled with tension and frightening moments. Gloria Talbott gave a fine performance in a role that stands out as perhaps her best. In his book, Cult Movies, Danny Perry described Talbott as a terrific heroine for science fiction and horror films because she projected a rare combination of strength and vulnerability. "She was very believable playing the roles of women who were scared about what was happening to them but stood their ground."

Gloria stood her ground against The Leech Woman (Universal, 1960), but lovely Coleen Gray in the title role played an equally strong-willed and more ruthless character. Middle-aged alcoholic June (Gray) accompanies her husband Paul (Phillip Terry) to the wilds of Africa for the secret of eternal youth. When she finds that hubby wants her only as a guinea pig and is ready to abandon her to hostile natives, June agrees to undergo the youth process that combines a compound from a rare plant with pineal gland fluid from a human donor. A ceremonial ring with a sharp point applied at the back of the donor’s neck leaves him dead.

Naturally, June selects sneaky Paul as her donor. After escaping the natives, she soon ages and repeats the process on her guide (John Van Dreelan).

Returning to the States and disguised as her own "niece," Terry, she makes a play for family attorney Neal Foster (Grant Williams) that ticks off Neal’s girlfriend (and the late Paul’s assistant) Sally Howard (Gloria Talbott). When Sally pulls a gun and plans to put Terry on the next plane out, the two women clash. Terry gains the upper hand (the one with the lethal ring on it), kills Sally and saves the gland fluid for later.

It turns out that female pineal fluid causes June/Terry to age faster. She crashes through the upstairs window to her death. So, even though Sally was murdered, she turned out to be the heroine (and possibly the only likeable character) in the movie! That said, Colleen Gray did do a fine job in the lead role.

As for Gloria Talbott, she re-married the following year, retired from the big and small screens in the mid-1960s, and married a final time in 1970. She died September 19, 2000 in her hometown of Glendale.

With regard to film acting she said, "I learned that you can actually get something done in five days if you know your lines and you’re there on time." A lucky thing for HORROR-WOOD readers that Gloria Talbott was on time to face and help defeat a variety of on-screen perils, and she did so with determination, courage and more than a fair share of talent.

Thanks, Joe.  A radiant beauty with a figure that just about defined the Fifties term "sweater girl," Gloria Talbott was easy on the eyes and certainly filled every requirement as a movie Scream Queen.  Yet, that face and figure tends to obscure the fact that Gloria, in most of her horror film roles, was a fighter, not a screamer, and that she brought real acting skills to the table at a time when looks alone would have secured her the parts she played.  A truly nice lady on screen and off, Gloria Talbott will always have a special place in our ghastly hearts here at HORROR-WOOD.

Article copyright © Joe Winters

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