100 Years of Horror: Scream Queens (1996)
Season 1, Episode 15
5/10
Mediocre, sometimes interesting, documentary on horror actresses.
8 May 2003
Christopher Lee hosts this pretty good overview of horror movie actresses, defined here as "full bodied women with full bodied screams!" The women, all of whom have interesting things to say and possess a great sense of humor about their careers, are a lot of fun to watch.

Interviews include Beverly ("I gotta support myself!") Garland, the eccentric Gloria Talbott, Carol Borland (talking about Lugosi and being typecast after MARK OF THE VAMPIRE), Lori Nelson, Peggy Moran, Linnea Quigley (who seems to really enjoy her reputation as a bad girl), Pamela Franklin, Brinke Stevens, Caroline Munro, Hazel Court and Nina Foch. Discussed, but not interviewed are Evelyn Ankers (who died in 1985. Her husband Richard Denning shows up to talk about her), Fay Wray, Barbara Steele, Barbara Shelley, Jamie Lee Curtis and Sigourney Weaver. Robert Cornthwaite talks about Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in BABY JANE, David De Coteau talks about Quigley, Stevens and Michelle Bauer being able to pull off 38 pages (!) of a script in a day and Fred Olen Ray, Roger Corman, Hugh Hefner and other men offer insights.

There's also a discussion on sexism and stereotyping, illustrated with movie clips and trailers (CARRIE, ALIENS, BLACK Sunday, THE HUNGER, METROPOLIS, HALLOWEEN and much more). A lot of footage seems to be taken from the British documentary FLESH AND BLOOD: THE HAMMER HERITAGE OF HORROR (1994).

This is available on a double tape with "The Gruesome Twosome" (Karloff and Lugosi), which is unfortunately in the dreaded EP mode, but for the price they're asking (as low as $1.99) it's still worth purchasing.
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