113 - THE BLACK SCORPION
(October 1957; NR; 88m)

Ad: "We Urge You Not to Panic or Bolt from Your Seats!"
Ad: "NOTE: The management reserves the right to put on the lights any time the audience becomes too emotionally disturbed!"
Ad: "BLACK...so you can't see him until he's ready to get you! BLOODLESS...that's why he wants you!"
Ad: "Every Horror You've Seen on the Screen Grows Pale Beside the Horror of THE BLACK SCORPION"

Plot: A volcano releases giant scorpions which terrorize Mexico.

Prod: Frank Melford (Massacre River)
Prod: Jack Dietz (105-The Corpse Vanishes)
Dir: Edward Ludwig*
Asst Dir: Ray Heinz (dir/Blazing Guns)
Asst Dir: Jaime Contreras
(The Magnificent Seven)
Scr: David Duncan (802-The Leech Woman; 805-The Thing That Couldn't Die)
Scr: Robert Blees (From Earth to the Moon)
Sto: Paul Yawitz (Walk Softly, Stranger)
Cin: Lionel Lindon
(won Oscar/Around the World in Eighty Days)
Ed: Richard Van Enger (Oscar nom/Sands of Iwo Jima)
SFX: Willis O'Brien*
SFX: Pete Peterson (Mighty Joe Young)
ADir: Edward Fitzgerald (The Magnificent Seven)
Sound: Rafael Ruiz Esparza (The Magnificent Seven)
Sound FX: Mandine Rogne (Ghost of Zorro)
Electronic Music: Jack Cookerly (Invasion of the Star Creatures)
Orch: Bert Shefter (sco/Kronos; Curse of the Fly)
Score: Paul Sawtell (Tarzan Triumphs; Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome)

Henry Scott / Richard Denning (H01-The Day the World Ended)
Teresa / Mara Corday*
Arturo Ramos / Carlos Rivas (True Grit; The King and I)
Juanito / Mario Navarro (Geronimo; Villa!)
Dr. Velazco / Carlos Muzquiz (The Sun Also Rises)
Jose dela Cruz / Pascual Pena (The Beast of Hollow Mountain)
Florentina / Fanny Schiller (Sombrero; Jet Over the Atlantic)
Father Delgado / Pedro Galvan (Two Mules for Sister Sara)
Major Cosio / Arturo Martinez
(102-The Robot Vs. The Aztec Mummy; The Aztec Mummy)

Trivia: EDWARD LUDWIG also directed John Wayne in the sea adventure Wake of the Red Witch, which featured the rubber octopus which Ed Wood used in 423-BRIDE OF THE MONSTER. Other Ludwig films include The Fighting Seabees; and That Certain Age.

WILLIS O'BRIEN (1886-1962) is called the Father of Movie Stop Motion Animation and was sfx-wizard Ray Harryhausen's mentor. Other O'Brien-effects films include: 1924-The Lost World; 1933-King Kong; Son of Kong; 1935-The Last Days of Pompeii; 1949-Mighty Joe Young; and 1956-The Animal World.

Beautiful, exotic MARA CORDAY plays the typical love interest of the 1950's sci-fi flicks here in THE BLACK SCORPION. She was a contract player at Universal, but she was weary of action pictures, Westerns, and sci-fi like 1955's Tarantula. Corday was dropped by the studio after she refused to appear in The Incredible Shrinking Man and belittled the script for her proposed next project, 804-THE DEADLY MANTIS. (Actress Alix Talton took the role instead). When she saw on the screen exactly how awful 1957's The Giant Claw was, she semi-retired from film and concentrated on TV roles, mostly Westerns. Mara Corday was married to actor Richard Long (TV's Big Valley), who died in 1974. She's been working with her oldest son on his project to have a Big Valley reunion TV-movie, in which Linda Evans (star of 512-MITCHELL) and Lee Majors have expressed interest. Fans interested in an autographed photo can write her at P.O. Box 800393, Valencia, CA 91355.

Last Updated: 6/20/1999