Cult of the Cobra
                          
Director: Francis Lyon
Year:  1955
Rating: 7.0


Poor Tom. First the woman he loves chooses to marry his roommate and then the next woman he falls in love with is a serial killing snake woman. I wonder who will be next? Typhoid Mary? Some guys should just stay away from romance. This is a pretty well-known cult film from the 1950's that deserves its reputation. The film tells us that it is 1945 somewhere in Asia. India to be more specific where the legend of snakes turning into curvaceous women is longstanding.



In fact, Bollywood has taken up the subject more than a few times - the two most famous being Nagin (1976) with Reena Roy as the seductive snake and Nagina (1986) with Sridevi as the snake out for vengeance. And let's not forget Hong Kong where we have Green Snake with stunning sister snakes (Maggie Cheung and Joey Wong) and Love of the White Snake and the weird Phantom of Snake. Snakes were in vogue in Asia once upon a time. Here is our snake film.



The war is over and six soldiers are leaving India for home the next day. So how better to celebrate than sneaking into a religious cult ceremony where a cobra turns into a woman. These six actors produced a lot of TV later on in their career - Richard Long (Bourbon Beat Street and The Big Valley), Jack Kelly (Maverick), David Janssen (The Fugitive and Harry-O), William Reynolds (F.B.I) and Marshall Thompson (Daktari). That is a pretty talented group of young actors.



Well one of them thinks it is a good idea to take a picture. With a flash bulb. They escape but the cult priest (Edward Platt - Chief in Get Smart) warns them that they will all die - one by one. And once back home in NYC a mysterious woman (Faith Domergue - This Island Earth, It Came from Beneath the Sea) moves in across the hall from two of them and gets cozy with the group. She begins to fall in love with one of them but a girl has to do what a girl has to do.