War Of The Satellites (1958)

Starring Dick Miller, Susan Cabot, Richard Devon, Eric Sinclair, Michael Fox
Directed by Roger Corman
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A scientist sending manned satellites into space witnesses their destruction by a cosmic barrier, and after ignoring an alien warning to stop, he's replaced by a duplicate ready to sabotage the missions.

Roger Corman tackles an outer space adventure, with a story and special effects by the team that were everywhere in low-budget sci-fi in the 1950s, Jack Rabin and Irving Block.  The story's however a little more ambitious than the production design and effects on this production can keep pace with.  The chairs the space travelers strap themselves into to survive takeoff are clearly Barcaloungers from a furniture showroom, a message from space arrives in a tiny model rocket, and wires suspending spaceships and planets are clearly visible.  Still, the picture's a lot of a fun, with plenty of action on Earth and aboard ship, including a rare heroic lead for character actor Miller, and spotlights for plenty of other Corman regulars in the cast, from Cabot, to Devon, to Beach Dickerson, Bruno Vesota, and Corman himself playing a mission control operator.  Roger keeps things tightly paced, Walter Greene's bold music score sustains excitement, and a few well-staged camera tricks and effects allow us to suspend our disbelief, even when the cheapness shows through.

The Saga Of The Viking Women And Their Voyage To The Waters Of The Great Sea Serpent (1957)

Starring Abby Dalton, Susan Cabot, Brad Jackson, June Kenney, Richard Devon
Directed by Roger Corman
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

After their men don't return from a voyage, a tribe of Viking women build a ship and head after them, finding the men have been captured by a band of savages after a battle with a sea serpent.

Although the story's pretty thin, there's still elements to enjoy in another cheap adventure from Corman, with Dalton a strong and compelling female lead.  The other ladies in the cast unfortunately don't have much to do, other than Cabot's duplicitous Enger, who'd be even more interesting if she didn't have to have a change of heart in the last act.  Devon and the other men playing savages pitted against the Vikings are pretty pale villains, and rather surprisingly, Jackson, cast as the leader of the Vikings, comes off pretty bland, with Jonathan Haze's Ottar much more daring and heroic in comparison.  Yet Albert Glasser's score adds much needed punch and Nordic flavor to the narrative, and the sea serpent looks pretty decent, when we get to see something of it.  It's shoestring filmmaking from Corman, but he did it better than anyone.

The Wasp Woman (1959)

Starring Susan Cabot, Fred Eisley, Barboura Morris, William Roerick, Michael Mark
Directed by Roger Corman
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

The aging executive of a cosmetics company trusts in a scientist's injections of a queen wasp's royal jelly that transform her into a youthful beauty, but they have an unforeseen side effect.

This low-budget monster movie from Roger Corman has a surprisingly clever story by Kinta Zertuche, commenting on the dark side of the quest to recapture youthful looks by women and their cosmetics alike, as well as a fine performance by Cabot in the title role.  Although the monster scenes are too darkly lit and the creature makeup is a bit too minimal, it's an entertaining enough film with an interesting score by Fred Katz, and is one of my favorites among Corman's sci-fi entries.  Michael Mark is memorable as the eccentric scientist, as is William Roerick as Cabot's cynical staff member with an ever present smoking pipe.