COBRA WOMAN (1944)

Famous pairings like MGM’s Tracy and Hepburn or Powell and Loy were undoubtedly great screen teams, but they never brought audiences “all the forbidden wonders and dangers of the tropics!” That fell to Universal Pictures and one of the screen’s most unique leading threesomes, Dominican-born Maria Montez, South Asian Sabu and Jon Hall, whose mother was Tahitian. Of the three exotic adventures they made, the most lovably outrageous was COBRA WOMAN, directed with style to spare by German expatriate Robert Siodmak. Montez stars as good and evil twins fighting to rule a Pacific island and control the precious cobra jewel. The film was a huge hit and remains a camp classic, an influence on Charles Busch’s Theater of the Ridiculous and Gore Vidal’s Myra Breckinridge.

d. Robert Siodmak, 71m, 35mm

35mm print courtesy of Universal Pictures.