jpjjpowers A grand example of Hollywood delirium, and a major influence on 60s filmmakers including Jack Smith, Andy Warhol and John Waters. Maria Montez plays twin sisters---one good, one evil---vying to be queen of Cobra Island, a dazzlingly lush tropical location. Actually filmed on location in Laguna Beach. Some think of Montez as the first method actress in the movies, which is to say that she took her roles so seriously that she was known to act as if she had 'become' her character even to the point of appearing off-screen in full costume and expecting to be treated as some sort of exotic royalty. Now that's entertainment!

Michael_Elliott Cobra Woman (1944) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Universal fantasy in Technicolor has more camp than any film from that era. A bride to be (Maria Montez) is kidnapped and taken away to Cobra Island where her evil twin sister is. Her soon to be husband (Jon Hall) and his servant (Sabu) go after her and run into a cult of snake worshippers and a deaf Lon Chaney, Jr.. This film is mildly entertaining in a campy sort of way. It was directed by Robert Siodmak who also made Son of Dracula and The Killers but this here doesn't have too much going like those films. The Technicolor leads to some beautiful locations and while Montez is kinda hot, she certainly isn't an actress.

writers_reign Not one but two distinguished filmmakers would no doubt love to erase this turkey from their respective CVs. Both screenwriter (later writer-director) Richard Brooks and director Robert Siodmak would make lasting contributions to cinema (for good measure Brooks wrote two fine novels; The Brick Foxhole, which was filmed as Crossfire, and The Producer)but this wasn't one of them. After a one-reel introduction in which a cardboard cutout speaks of the dreaded Cobra Island, Tollea (Maria Montez) is kidnapped and taken there hours before marrying Jon Hall, who promptly sets sail to rescue her accompanied by stowaway Sabu (later, Sabu's pet monk, a cheetah lookalike also turns up on the island but don't ask how he got there). The island is one of those backwaters with no shortage of architects to design sumptuous palaces, masons to build them, gold and silversmiths to provide ornate cobra motifs, modistes to design exotic costumes, seamstresses to run the;m up and, of course, a plentiful supply of silks and satins to work with. The plot, and I use the word loosely has Montez - she took her stage name from Lola Montez an Irish-born colleen who reinvented herself as a 'Spanish' dancer - as twin sisters one good and the other ... Gee! you're ahead of me here; one Naja, 'high priestess' of the island and one, Tollea, who wouldn't know a cobra from a decent screenplay. In terms of expanding waistline there's little to choose between Hall and Montez, in terms of wooden acting even less. See it if you must but don't say I didn't warn you.

dbdumonteil This is one of Robert Siodmak's weakest efforts . The twin sisters subject was much better applied on "Dark mirror" (1946) ,where there would be the good one and the villain again.And one should add that Olivia de Havilland is immensely superior to decorative Maria Montez.Man sails to Cobra Island (how subtle!) in search of his fiancé who disappeared just before the wedding.There he will meet a queen and two sisters,one of whom the high priestess of a Vulcano God.And she's making life hard for anyone!Too bad for the poor virgins she points out.This is comic strip quality .There are so many Siodmak movies better than that childish tale:"dark mirror" "phantom lady" "the killers" "pièges" "spiral staircase" etc etc etc..