"Strange, the monstrous assurance of this race of puny bipeds with overblown egos. The creature who calls himself...Man. He believes he owns this Earth and every living thing on it; how foolish he is! Even the lowly insect whom he trods underfoot, they outweigh him by several times (???) and outnumbers him by several billions.

In the continuing war for survival between man and the hexapods, only an utter fool would bet against the insect! Let a man or woman travel off the beaten path of civilization...let them cross the threshold of limited intellect...and they will encounter amazing, marvelous things."--The Narrator (Lyle Talbot)

That opening monologue is just the merest taste of the bizarre insanity that awaits any humanoid who dares to venture to one of the strangest places in film... The Mesa of Lost Women! The Good Doctor has subjected himself to many incomprehensible things in his life but this movie made even me goggle in bug-eyed amazement. "Mesa" defies all known laws of film-making and has to be seen to be truly experienced.

Recently, I, Major Tom, the Mysterious Mr. Whyte and his companion Kathy sat down to try to absorb the many absurd profundities of this film. Tom is now given to uncontrollable fits of shuddering and muttering "no...no! It doesn't add up!" whenever I mention the experience. Mr. Whyte transforms himself into a hysterically laughing flamenco guitar player who tries to imitate the film's unforgettable soundtrack. Kathy merely sits and stares straight ahead, vacant eyes trying to forget the horror...

And I? I am cursed to try and make sense of it all... In its most stripped down form, "Mesa" tells the tale of a group of travellers who are forced to make an emergency airplane landing on Zarpa Mesa, a forbidding structure arising out of the desolate Muerto Desert ("The Desert of DEATH!", as narrator Lyle Talbot is fond of telling us). Zarpa Mesa is home to the brilliant madman Dr. Arana, who has created a race of indestructible spiderwomen.

That doesn't even begin to reveal the surreal madness of the story, which takes place in layers of flashbacks within flashbacks. Logic is thrown to the winds and it takes a sharp and strong mind to follow it all. And adding its own hideous pressure to virtually every frame is undisputedly the worst motion picture soundtrack ever written. It's a ghastly combination of jolting, almost random piano bashing and insane Mexican guitar playing that is played over and over and OVER in various combinations through the whole movie.

It had Mr. Whyte repeating "Jesus Christ!" over and over,too, while Major Tom tried to bury his head in the pillows. Two interesting notes about the soundtrack from hell: it was written by Hoyt Curtin, who later came up with the theme songs for "The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons"; and it was also used in the Ed Wood film noir flick "Jailbait". That's not the only Ed Wood connection ,as we shall later investigate...

The story really begins with the arrival of the dapper and polite Dr. Leland Masterson, "the world's foremost organotherapist". He comes to Zarpa Mesa at the request of Dr. Arana (Spanish for spider!),who is played by the immortal Jackie Coogan. Somewhere between being a child actor and Uncle Fester on "The Addams Family", Coogan sank low enough to do this.

He is a lisping, almost Elmer Fudd-ish mad doctor with a fake wart and Coke-bottle-lensed eyeglasses. He needs the help of Dr. Masterson to complete his master project: the creation of a race of superhumans with both human and insect characteristic.

So far, his experiments have resulted in a bevy of silent but sexy spiderwomen with incredible strength and endurance but no ability to act. The queen of these "Lost Women" is the sultry and beautiful Tarantella,played by the truly gorgeous Tandra Quinn. As for the male of the species, they unfortunately have all turned out to be a deformed group of dwarves. In the insect world, the male is always weaker than the female.

Amongst the spider women are two regulars of Ed Wood, Dolores Fuller (who was an ex-wife of Ed's) and Mona McKinnon,star of "Plan Nine from Outer Space". Hmmmm,more connections to Ed. One of the dwarves is played by Angelo Rossito,who was in movies for over 50 years.

Masterson is appalled by Arana's experiments and threatens to blow the whistle on the Doc. What a party pooper! Arana's response is to sick his giant tarantula, a scraggly-looking wire-driven thing that sits around inertly, on Masterson. Masterson is then pumped full of a drug that makes him nuttier than a fruitcake.

But wait! Without actually seeing anything, we are told that Masterson escapes Zarpa Mesa, gets to a seedy little Mexican town where he is captured and put in an insane asylum (whose name translates as "Death State Asylum"), and then the goofy bastard escapes the asylum! This all happens in about five minutes of screen time!

We switch to a cheap and nasty Mexican restaurant somewhat reminiscent of the old El Niagara in downtown Rockford, where we join the bitchy blonde Doreen and her rich foreign fiancee, Jan,who is a good deal older. Doreen tells Jan that "this dive has all the charm of an upholstered sewer".

In walks Masterson, with an idiot grin, a vacant look and a gun. He takes to Doreen and promises "I will protect you". Just then, the entertainment begins. Guess what? It's the lovely Tarantella, who, accompanied by even WORSE music on the soundtrack,starts probably one of the worst dances in screen history. Masterson is so disgusted by her lack of talent that he shoots her, causing a mass panic.

Just then, his nurse from the insane asylum, the burly George, appears to try and talk him out of the gun. No such luck. Still grinning and spouting a combination of baby talk and biblical prophecy, Masterson suggests than he accompany Jan and Doreen on their private honeymoon flight to Mexico City.

Since no one has the nerve to snatch the gun from the loony, the whole crew takes off in a rickety plane driven by the rock-jawed hero-type Grant Phillips. Also accompanying the odd gathering is Jan's Chinese manservant Wu (played by Samuel Wu, what a coincidence), who has his own agenda.

Masterson loves flying because he gets "so close to heaven". But soon an engine blows on the plane and it's forced to land on...where else...Zarpa Mesa. Now things get really weird, as crowds of dwarves and models wearing odd clothes stalk our characters through the jungle.

George is brought down by the giant tarantula and real fear begins to set in. Jan reveals himself as a coward, which naturally forces Doreen into Phillips' arms. Everybody has umpteen opportunities to take the gun from Masterson but nobody does.

Wu gets to spout a lot of great lines such as "The hungry animal knows no fear" and "Each one of us has a day to be born and a day to die". We also find out that he is in the employ of Dr. Arana.

At last,the survivors of this miserable band are brought into the laboratory of Dr. Arana. I could probably see a more realistic lab set at a play performed by Kirkland-Hiawatha third-graders. With the help of Tarantella, who survived her shooting by Masterson, he is going to make Doreen and Phillips his latest subjects.

I won't reveal the ending of the film but it seems like the film-makers ran out of money and just decided to cut the damn thing short. We get fiery explosions, disbelief from those who hear the tale and a final shot that tells us maybe things aren't all over at Zarpa Mesa.

"Mesa of Lost Women" is a one of a kind film. It's beyond mere inept movie-making. It creates its own private reality, a place where all other laws are suspended. Linear time and logic are abandoned, talent is irrelevant and that sonofabitchin' soundtrack caps it all off.

In a movie that sports such insane dialogue and has such disregard for convention, one question needs to be asked: did Ed Wood actually write this movie?I think he had something to do with it. His name does not appear on the credits but the movie bears all his trademarks.

The jumbled dialogue,a sample of which can be found in that crazed opening narration; the numerous flashbacks; the use of the same score that appeared in Wood's "Jailbait"; the appearance of familiar Wood actors like Lyle Talbot, Mona McKinnon and Dolores Fuller...all these make me think Wood had a lot to do with "Mesa of Lost Women".

The movie was said to be directed by a mysterious Hungarian, Herbert Tevos, who never again did a movie. Did Tevos quit and Wood come in to "ghost write" the movie? I think so.

Other titans of sleaze are connected with the flick. It was produced by Ron Ormond of the legendary Ormond family, who made some of the craziest movies ever like "The Monster and The Stripper" and "Blood Freak". George was portrayed by George Barrows,who played gorillas and ape monsters in dozens of films like "Robot Monster" and "Gorilla At Large".

Allen Nixon, who played Grant Phillips, was in the prehistoric classic "Wild Women of Wongo". The movie has a proud lineage and probably has more people involved with grade-Z cinema involved with it than any other I can think of.

Major Tom, Kathy and Mr. Whyte are all still recovering from the ordeal. They themselves are ready to be checked into the "Death State Asylum" to deal with watching "Mesa of Lost Women" unprepared. Me? I'm as sane as I ever was, as sane as I ever was, as sane as . . . HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

This is Dr. Abner Mality, turning out the lights, hee hee hee!

( Thanks to "Pretty Boy" Paul Schilling for contributing the "Mesa" tape!)

To buy this movie, simply click on the video cover which will take you to Amazon.com. To contact this writer, send your email to: drmality@wormwoodchronicles.com