A year before she succumbed to the screen's most famous growth spurt in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958), Allison Hayes starred as Tonda, a jungle doctor's bored wife who turns to voodoo to brighten her nights. The name Tonda may have been a reference to Hedy Lamarr's jungle temptress Tondelayo in White Cargo (1942), and Hayes, a sultry brunette with a truly spectacular figure, does more than her share of tempting. She seduces her husband's native servant before turning her attention to explorer Paul Burke. When he proves to be the only man who can resist her magic spell, Hayes ups the volume, with predictably violent results. Where other jungle-set horror films of the day presented more traditional monsters -- murderous apes, medical experiments gone wrong and even a killer tree in From Hell It Came (1957), which played theatres on a double bill with THE DISEMBODIED -- this time the monster is Tonda, labeled a "fiendish tigress of the jungle" in the film's ads. Hayes was always one of the chief attractions of her low-budget films, as much for her talent as for her beauty. Though she never got to shine in more critically respectable films, she remains one of the delights of Poverty Row production.

By Frank Miller