SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

juanandrichard I think most of the critics of this movie miss the point entirely. Many of the 1940s movie stars were "personalities," groomed by their studios not to be great "actors," and subsequently built vehicles around them. Maria Montez had enormous charisma on screen, and although many of the reviews above make fun of her accent (which would not be permitted today), try looking at anyone else when she is on the screen. It's a fun movie -- definitely not for elitist reviewers, whose taste is for serious "acting". The great thing about the Golden Age of Hollywood Movies is the variety of movies, something for everyone. Today, sadly, there is no more Hollywood. Just about every "film" today (with some exceptions obviously) looks like a TV sitcom. It must have been a fun experience to go into a movie theater in the 1940s and see an escaptist movie like "Cobra Woman" instead of today when (and I don't bother anymore) one goes into a theater to see a variety of dreary, "true life" stories, performed by the current crop of supposedly "great actors." It would be interesting to be around in 60 years or so to see if people would remember (or even care about) the movies of today, as opposed to "Cobra Woman," which people seem to enjoy making fun of. I give it a 10 out of 10, solely because it was made to entertain, and for me it did.

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.

MartinHafer To many, this film will seem pretty silly and insignificant. I admit it. But, for what it was, it was one of the best. This film was meant to be a silly escapist film--not a "big" movie but a B-movie meant to entertain the kids and adults alike. And, it was a major step up from the average B-western (which, after seeing a few, looked the same). And the audiences loved these silly, yet magical films. This happens to be one of my favorites. Before I even saw it, I saw a publicity photo of the very sultry Maria Montez as the Cobra Woman--dressed in a turban, evening gown and lounging across a giant cobra statue. Considering I was about 13 or so, I think I fell in love! I HAD to see this hot lady in the film! Well, when I finally located a video of it years later, I finally had my chance (though by then, I had found my own "Cobra Woman" and didn't have quite the same pressing need as when I was a teen). It was silly but intensely exciting--with lots of action, campiness and Jon Hall as the only man virile enough to tame this "she-beast"! I loved it and wanted to see it again--it was magical and just plain fun! See it and enjoy unless you are a super-sophisticated person. I love foreign films and art films but sometimes I just gotta have some mindless B-movie fun!

dougbrode If the term Camp had never been created, then we'd have to come up with it to describe this deliriously awful, delightfully irresistible trash-masterpiece from the 1940s. Maria Montez (the queen of Camp) plays a pair of sisters, one good and one bad, who vie for control of a voodoo island. In dazzling color, the bad sister dances wildly as the natives all beg for pity, as they know that any one she happens to point to will be executed to satisfy her lust for blood. Jon Hall, later Ramar of the Jungle on TV, is the goodguy, with Sabu as his sidekick. Absolutely hypnotic in its chromotic silliness, and a must-see for all fans of films that truly are so bad that they're good.