Talk:Mesa of Lost Women

Untitled
The article is already too long. 91.153.49.58 12:07, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Too much opinion
I agree - this article suffers from WAY too much verbose opinion. Cut it down, please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rmoore080 (talk • contribs) 18:09, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

This article, and the reviewers who are cited are universally negative. Perhaps there are no published critical defenders of this movie, but it seemed to me to be quite artful "camp", along the lines of the Batman TV series. (I own a copy, and am rewatching it now.) Any writer who could invent a few hundred lines such as "...thousands miles of seared wasteland, where the vultures wait for the other vultures to die." would have a good shot at success. The article seems to suggest that the Herbert Tevos wrote most of the movie, but that Ron Ormond wrote the Dr. Aranya scenes. If that's so, then the movie's greatest weaknesses might be the work of Ormond.

The music score, which the article says is cited as maddening, appears to me simply diabolical. ( It has nothing on dance track music, high fidelity that cannot easily be mentally set into the background. ) Hoyt S. Curtain, who wrote the score has a track record of rather famous ditties, including the Flintstones, for Hanna Barbera. ( http://www.classicjq.com/info/HoytCurtinInterview.shtml )

The script writer, the actors, and the director are not responsible for how marketing departments choose to represent their work. This sentence is problematic, not just because of its value judgment, but because it faults the movie for work done by a disassociated advertising campaign:

"At a superficial level, Mesa seems like just another exploitation film, promising audiences some cheesecake, like Prehistoric Women ('50) and Wild Women ('51)."

(I've reworded it.)

Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (talk) 22:02, 19 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think you guys 'get the joke'.  This is a "MST3K" type movie.   All of the 'verbose opinion' in this article is simply a way of extending the 'joke' from the viewing-experience to the wiki-experience.  I don't know which of you nimrod actuall WROTE all of that stuff...but it's hilarious.   Oh..."Mesa of Lost Woman" is playing tonight at the Lansdowne Cinema in Landsdowne PA as part of their 'Terrible Tuesday' series....their version of 'MST3K'.   They've invited all men to come to the theater wearing sombreros and carrying guitars...and all women to come 'dressed to kill...or dressed as a giant spider'.    I can't wait!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.67.104.4 (talk) 13:39, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Rewrite
By no means is this movie a classic (as perhaps implied by the review on the DVD case), but it's hardly one of the worst films made, particularly not if seen as tongue-in-cheek.

Watching the film again, seeing the amount of copy editing the article needed, and finding a reference that found the music good, I did a substantial rewrite. Even so, the article is filled with opinion. Unfortunately, I suspect that some of it is based on sources which the previous editors did not articulate, so I'm hesitant to delete more than the obvious personal opinion.

It's probably too late to find first hand sources, but there's apparently quite a story behind the creation of this film. That story might be more important than the film, itself. Multiple writers and directors do not necessarily produce a poor film (consider The Wizard of Oz), so there's some fruitful territory for someone investigating the process of reorienting films while in production. Mesa might well be a relevant example.

Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (talk) 23:21, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

1952 or 1953
Many seemingly reliable sources list this as a 1952 release. I think it may have been first released in 1952, then re-released in 1953 and 1956. But I don't have a good source to confirm that.&mdash;RJH (talk) 19:25, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * IMDb says 1953. Other information there can be spotty at best (especially the "trivia" section), but release dates are usually trustworthy.  The Image DVD also says June 17, 1953.  So unless you have a source that says 1952, the tag should be removed. Rhindle The Red (talk) 01:36, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with that assessment and have since removed the tag.  Pinkadelica ♣  22:42, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I found the copyright registry and it says that it's been registered on jan 1st of 1953, but "In notice: 1952)

http://archive.org/stream/catalogofcopyrig371213lib/catalogofcopyrig371213lib_djvu.txt

MESA OF LOST WOMEN. Howco Produc- tions, 1953. 69 min., sd., b&w, 35mm.

Summary : A mad scientist attempts to create a race of superwomen possessing characteristics of insects.

Credits : Producers, G. William Perkins, Melvin Gordon; directors, Herbert Tevos, Ron Ormond; written by Herbert Tevos; music, Hoyt S. Curtin; film editors, Hugh Winn, Ray H. Lockert. Cast : Jackie Coogan,

Allan Nixon, Richard Travis, Lyle Talbot, Tandra Quinn.

© Howco Productions, inc.; Ijan53 (in notice: 1952); LP2439. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.136.127.167 (talk) 19:54, 22 August 2012 (UTC)