Trailer
Plot summary
Malla, an elderly woman who says she was brought to America as a slave 140 years ago, offers the endocrinologist Dr. Paul Talbot a bargain. In exchange for funding her last trip back to Africa, she will reveal the secret of eternal youth, so that she can have one night of beauty before she dies. Paul's marriage to June is unhappy, and June drinks heavily; she is ten years older than he is. He takes her along to Africa, and there the two watch a ceremony of the Nando tribe. Orchid pollen is mixed with secretions drawn through a ring from the back of a sacrificial man's neck, and the mixture turns Malla briefly into a young and beautiful woman.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Leech Woman (1960)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- In a scene where Talbott held Gray at gunpoint, the script called for Gray to wrestle the gun away; Gray said beforehand that she was strong enough to take it, so Talbott set out to really overpower her co-star, and found that Gray was much stronger and easily overpowered her.
- When the film was reissued on UK home video in 2016, British censors specifically flagged its treatment of African tribespeople, citing dated racial stereotyping alongside moderate violence as reasons for its rating.
- Talbott told an interviewer her reason for taking a role in the film: she wanted to buy a horse for her son, and The Leech Woman got him a really nice horse and saddle.
- Screenwriter David Duncan said the story did not originate with him: he was given a screenplay written by somebody named Bruce Pivar that was not very good and really unshootable, and in redoing it on a two-week assignment he changed the story somewhat.
