Mesa of Lost Women (1953)

Grant Phillips (Robert Knapp) and Doreen Culbertson (Paula Hill, billed here as Mary Hill) stagger across the Mexican desert until they are rescued from certain death by handsome hunk Frank, an oil company surveyor (John Martin).

Recovering at the oil company’s base, Grant starts to tell their story – a strange garbled tale of crashed aeroplanes, monstrous Spider women, and a mad scientist called Dr Aranya. The whole film is then played out as a flashback.

From his remote laboratory on a mesa in Mexico, Dr Aranya (Jackie Coogan, the future Uncle Fester from The Addams Family) injects spider fluids into women and human fluids into spiders, resulting in scantily clad, indestructible dancing spider-women with big bosoms, hunchbacked, ugly dwarfs, and a giant, deadly spider.

A small aeroplane with six people onboard – including Grant and Doreen – crash-lands near Aranya’s secret mountaintop laboratory. They are subsequently killed off one by one.

The acting is terrible, the plot is muddled and ridiculous (as is the dialogue), and the incessant guitar/piano musical score (which hardly stops throughout the film) is relentless and more than a little annoying.

Produced by indie production company Howco (who also released Ed Woods’ Jail Bait), Mesa of Lost Women involved several several Ed Wood alumni (including Ed’s former girlfriend Dolores Fuller, and Mona McKinnon and Lyle Talbot who were both future cast members of Plan Nine From Outer Space).

Director Herbert Tevos originally began the film as Lost Women of Zarpa. When funds ran out, and the producers and cast could not get along with Tevos, the production was shut down and abandoned.

Ron Ormond bought the film a few years later, shot some new footage and released it as Mesa of Lost Women.

Dr Aranya
Jackie Coogan
Doc Tucker
Allan Nixon
Dan Mulcahey
Richard Travis
Narrator 
Lyle Talbot
Doreen Culbertson
Paula Hill (as Mary Hill)
Grant Phillips
Robert Knapp
Tarantella
Tandra Quinn
Pepe 
Chris-Pin Martin
Dr Leland J. Masterson
Harmon Stevens
Jan van Croft
Nico Lek
Frank
John Martin
George 
George Barrows
Blonde ‘Watcher in the Woods’
Dolores Fuller
Brunette ‘Watcher in the Woods’
Margia Dean
Aranya’s Henchman
Dean Riesner
Aranya’s Manservant
John George
Car-Driver Spider Woman
Katherine Victor (as Katina Vea)
Dwarf Lab Assistant
Angelo Rossitto
Bartender
Fred Kelsey
Wu
Samuel Wu
Spider Women
Kelly Drake
Candy Collins
Doris Lee Price
Mona McKinnon
Sherry Moreland
Ginger Sherry
Chris Randall
Diane Fortier
Karna Greene
June Benbow

Director
Ron Ormond
Herbert Tevos