Viking Women and the Sea Serpent (1958)

The title of this Roger Corman produced and directed AIP cheapie just about sums the movie up, although, to be fair, the sea serpent is the least of their worries, with most of the film's action centring on their conflict with the Grimaults, a savage tribe who take them prisoner.  The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent, to give the film its full on-screen title, was apparently the brainchild of a pair of special effects experts, Irving Block and Jack Rabin, who convinced Corman that they could provide the effects the film's script required to a high standard, on a modest budget.  As it turned out, they couldn't.  To be absolutely fair, for this type of low budget B-movie, the miniatures work is above average, but still nothing like convincing.  The titular sea serpent itself is somewhat underwhelming and only makes a couple of relatively brief appearances.  

Exactly where the women - who are in search of their missing men - actually voyage to is never clear, with the film's ideas on geography being vague, to say the least, with everywhere, from Scandinavia to the, probable, Mediterranean locations, all look rematkably like California.  The fact that the villainous Grimaults are a swarthy looking bunch, dressed in vaguely middle-eastern looking costumes, implies that the location is somewhere in the Mediterranean.  Several critics have remarked upon the fact that while the Grimaults are slightly dark skinned, (being played by white actors in 'brownface' and degenerate, the Vikings, both male and female, are all fair haired, muscular and heroic.  Except, of course, for the token dark haired Viking woman, who is wracked by jealousy and betrays her fellow Vikings, before redeeming herself with an act of self-sacrifice.  The cast is packed full of familiar B-movie faces, including Abby Dalton, Susan Cabot, June Kenny, Richard Devon, Micheal Forrest and Jonathon Haze.  Not a great movie, but relatively entertaining while it is playing, Viking Women and the Sea Serpent at least has the virtue of running only sixty six minutes.