Women Scientists in Fifties Science Fiction Films (review)

Women Scientists in Fifties Science Fiction Films is a somewhat inaccurately titled book since only five of the female protagonists of the ten films discussed can be categorised as 'scientists'. Nevertheless, Noonan's book delivers what she promises in her preface: drawing from a wide variety of theories from Freud to Bakhtin to Jameson, she demonstrates that certain female characters from 1950s American sf films should be considered as protagonists in their own right. The book is at its best when Noonan re-imagines herself as a ten-year-old girl watching in fascination as the female scientist on the screen picks up a rat from its cage without showing any of the stereotypical feminine fear; as she explains, this is a type of image 'you hold to your heart and grow up with' (102). Where the book is less successful is in the use of theory to probe deeply into her subject – a problem complicated by an array of editorial errors.

Noonan opens her first chapter, 'Definitions and Histories', by comparing novelist Robert Heinlein's and critic Carl Freedman's definitions of sf. She then reviews the definitions of the sf film offered by scholars Douglas Menville and Vivian Sobchack, and ends with a catalogue of critical views on 1950s B-sf films that includes Menville and Sobchack as well as Richard Hodgens, Bill Warren, Patrick Lucanio, Adam Knee, David J. Skal and Cyndy Hendershot. In chapter two, 'Constructing a Canon of 1950s B Science Fiction Films', Noonan uses the classifications from the previous chapter to explain her film selection and announces the principal objective of her following chapters: 'to redeem the image of woman … by foregrounding women's roles to show not only how varied, but also how central, they were to the genre of 1950s B science fiction films' (38). The third chapter, 'Representations of Women Scientists', focuses on Dr Lisa Van Horne (Osa Massen) of Rocketship X-M (Neumann US 1950) and Professor Lesley Joyce (Faith Domergue) of It Came from beneath the Sea (Gordon US 1955). Chapter four, 'Professionalism and Femininity in the Giant Insect Films', discusses Them! (Douglas US 1954), Tarantula (Arnold US 1955) and The Deadly Mantis (Juran US 1957) in terms of their female heroes – Dr Pat Medford (Joan Weldon), Stephanie 'Steve' Clayton (Mara Corday) and Marge Blaine (Alix Talton), respectively – as well as their monstrous insects and spiders. The fifth chapter, 'Cinematically Representing a Heteroglot World', analyses Beginning of the End (Gordon US 1957) and Kronos (Neumann US 1957) as attempts to resolve the characteristic tension in the 1950s between women's contribution to the workforce and patriarchal opposition to their participation. Chapter six, 'Dreaming, Analyzing, and Joking in the Women-in-Power Films', explores Cat-Women of the Moon (Hilton US 1953), World without End (Bernds US 1956) and Queen of Outer Space (Bernds US 1958) using Freudian dream analysis. Finally, the conclusion, 'Where to Go from Here', suggests a plethora of possible research topics for exploring 1950s B-sf films, from 'the expectations placed on the dutiful wife or fiancée of the period' (156) through 'the boundaries that circumscribed masculine identity' (157) to 'the evolution of woman as icon of sexual liberation' (158) and beyond.

Besides the usual bibliography, notes and index, Noonan includes a detailed filmography of 114 B-sf films from 1950 to 1966, forty-four entries of which contain excerpts of dialogue that 'illustrate the delicate balance between professionalism and traditional femininity these cinematic women in science needed to maintain as well as the scientific work they performed' (163). Two appendices list nineteen female protagonists of 1950s B-sf films and the men in their lives under the categories 'Female Leads and their Father Figures' and 'Female Leads and their Love Interests', thus transgressing traditional canons of 1950s sf by placing the female character as the focus of the lists and the male protagonist as her adjunct.

Though it may be counterintuitive to begin a critique at the end material...