Change Your Image
jpjjpowers
Reviews
Siren of Atlantis (1949)
Monteziana at its best
This is Monteziana at its best; Maria M even acts here, and the monochrome cinematography is splendid. The story has been filmed several times. This curio was Montez' first film after leaving Universal Pictures, where she had made a series of wonderful colour adventures, including COBRA WOMAN, directed by Robert Siodmak and scripted by a very young Richard Brooks. The author Gore Vidal did attempt to ridicule Montez and her fans in his sequel to his own Myra Breckinridge, called MYRON, but this seemed part of the author's long-time resentment of the Hollywood system and the way in which, during the 1960s, Hollywood cinema suddenly was being taken seriously by many film enthusiasts. In any event, the Montez legacy lives on.
Cobra Woman (1944)
A minor masterwork
A grand example of Hollywood delirium, and a major influence on 60s filmmakers including Jack Smith, Andy Warhol and John Waters. Maria Montez plays twin sisters---one good, one evil---vying to be queen of Cobra Island, a dazzlingly lush tropical location. Actually filmed on location in Laguna Beach. Some think of Montez as the first method actress in the movies, which is to say that she took her roles so seriously that she was known to act as if she had 'become' her character even to the point of appearing off-screen in full costume and expecting to be treated as some sort of exotic royalty. Now that's entertainment!