A sumptuous Technicolor weirdie from a surprisingly off-beat script by Richard Brooks and Gene Lewis, who doubtless added all the bizarre touches (the pants-sewing chimp, the sacrificial frenzy of a mad cobra-dance) to an otherwise run-of-the-mill tale of rival queens on the forbidden island. Director Robert Siodmak was later to comment that "Cobra Woman was silly but fun... Maria Montez was a great personality who believed completely in her roles. If she was playing a princess, you had to treat her like one; but if she was a slave-girl, you could kick her around anyhow. Method acting before its time, you might say." The trailer for this movie really deserves a review in itself. One of these days someone is going to write a book about trailers. Most of them were produced and distributed by National Screen Service. Their Hollywood studios were located at 7026 Santa Monica Blvd. At their peak, the Service probably employed close to a thousand people. Cobra Woman is the high camp epitome of Maria Montez's Technicolored career. The trailer is great stuff too. It even gives a few hints of the many surprises in store for lucky viewers. For instance, the announcer is careful to credit the presence not only of such luminaries as Lon Chaney, Edgar Barrier, Lois Collier and even Mary Nash, but "Koko", thus acknowledging the chimp's key role in the movie. Yes, he also concentrates on "pagan splendor and spectacle". Cobra Woman he avers, offers "all that you desire in adventure and romance: the horror of masses trapped by King Cobra, the sinuous dance of the temple beauties in their waltz of the snakes; all the fabulous wonders and dangers of the tropics!" Plus Maria Montez, "more ravishing, more bewitching, more alluring!" Plus Jon Hall at his "dynamic best", "a rascally Sabu". And all "lavishly produced in glorious Technicolor!" What more could a picturegoer ask?

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.

Even though this movie was somewhat kind of cheesy but the reason I was watch this movie cause I can't get enough of how beautiful Maria Montez is and it's too bad that she died at such a really young age cause she was the beautiful queen of technicolor.This movie is about Tollea and her fiance Ramu (Maria Montez and Jon Hall, respectivly) who are about to get married on their wedding day and Tollea is forced to go back home to her Cobra people to stop her cruel twin sister Naja's (also done by Maria Montez) wickedness and Ramu and his young buddy Kado (Sabu) go out and try to find her and Ramu mistook Naja as Tollea and as the Cobra law against strangers, they are executed and when the fire mountain gets angry, the people are sentenced to die without question.Overall if you love old cheesy technicolor movies then you should go watch this movie cause it is a clever way to spend 75 minutes of your time and it needs to be released on video and DVD, it's much better than watching most of today's junk. 8/10 stars

I saw this movie over 30 years ago, when they used to play movies all the time on broadcast television. I enjoyed it very much.It was a treat to see 2 Maria's. Her acting had actually improved some over time!I wish someday that it would come to video, so everyone can see what a nice movie it was.