The Leech Woman/Fun Facts

From The Grindhouse Cinema Database

< The Leech Woman

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  • Universal (then Universal-International) made this low budget horror film because they needed a second feature to play with their U.S. release of the Hammer production The Brides of Dracula (1960).
  • This film was parodied on the television show Mystery Science Theater 3000, and was featured on the hosted horror movie program Svengoolie.
  • Stars Coleen Gray and Phillip Terry were so into their performances as a feuding couple that they didn't even get along off-camera either.
  • The film's working title was The Leech. According to contemporary reviews, the filmmakers mixed stock footage of African wildlife and tribal dances with scenes shot in the studio.
  • The scene where June Talbot is walking the street in front of the bar, the same Mambo song in the back ground was also used in the movie, "Written on the Wind" (1956). Rock Hudson & Dorothy Malone danced to it.
  • The nurse remarks that Old Malla looks like she came right out of The Mummy's Tomb (1942), a movie produced by Ben Pivar.
  • The interior set of the Talbots' ranch house living room was also used in the 1958 Universal spookfest The Thing That Couldn't Die.
  • Universal Studios Home Entertainment released The Leech Woman on DVD in a boxed set called The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection Vol. 2, which features 4 other classics as well (Dr. Cyclops, The Land Unknown, The Deadly Mantis and Cult of the Cobra). Shout! Factory released the MST3K edition in the Mystery Science Theater 3000: 25th Anniversary Edition DVD set.
  • The exterior wide shots of the Talbots' "jungle safari" following a "river in Africa" were filmed on the Universal Studio's backlot, and the hills visible in the background actually border on the Hollywood freeway.
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