Narrator: “In this building in Atlantic City, an important scientific convention is being held. The eagerly awaited highlight of this meeting is a paper prepared by Dr. Eleanor Ballard, a devoted pioneer in bio-chemistry.”
Dr. Eleanor Ballard has been researching beads, no, bees, and how changes can be made to them while still in the larval form. She is injecting an enzyme into the bees to alter their behavior. But she is using an extract to inject into other animals. So is the enzyme from the bees? No, they seem to be the subject of the experiment. Then the enzyme is used on puppies. So WTF do the bees have to do with anything?
Eleanor hopes to use her discovery to help the mentally ill. Injecting the enzyme into some puppies has turned then from docile, playful little dogs into “a militant soldier” (a film shows 2 dogs fighting), “a worker” (film shows a dog diligently digging), “and a very proud, productive mother” (film shows 6 puppies nursing). I guess the point is that the enzyme made the dogs like Worker, Drone and Queen bees. So what was injected into the bees? They already have that society. Besides, I think the “proud, productive mother” was created by a different kind of injection (film not available).
Eleanor announces she believes this enzyme can be used on people with “human disturbed personalities” to give them ambition, courage, and a love of groups so they “can perform as part of the human family.”
After the conference, Dr. Tom MacDougal goes to visit Eleanor at her ranch. He takes time to flirt with “the most attractive taxi driver I’ve ever run across.” She inexplicably waits while he walks to the door, checking out his butt I guess. He notices a man energetically mowing the grass with a push mower; literally trotting as he pushes it. Tom calls out that the man should slow down because it is so hot. The man just keeps mowing as if he doesn’t understand English; which would have unusual been in 1956, unlike today.
Tom rings the bell and it is answered by a brutish, belligerent man. He says Eleanor is not accepting visitors and Tom should just f*** off. When Tom says he is expected, the man shoves him across the porch and shuts the door.
Jean the taxi driver suggests he go back to his hotel and call from there. Wait, she picked him up at the train station, how does she know he is not staying the ranch? Anyhoo, the door opens again and a tall, thin, stearn woman invites him in. He is nearly run down by a woman furiously vacuuming the carpet. Like the landscaper, she seems to be in a trance.
The tall woman apologizes for the man’s action, but still refuses to let Tom see Eleanor. She says that she is Eleanor’s daughter, and that everyone there is very protective of her mother. She is doing important work and can’t be interrupted. Tom walks back to the hotel where Jean works.
That night, he remembers that Eleanor told him she had no children. But since Eleanor is only 9 years older than the other woman, maybe it is a painful subject to her. Even though it is the middle of the night, Tom asks Jean to drive him back to Eleanor’s house.
Jean waits while Tom approaches the house. BTW, he has dressed in a nice suit including a necktie for this covert operation. It’s nice to see the young people dressing for felonies again. Rather than risk encountering the brute at the door again, he checks the bathroom windows. After confirming Eleanor is not showering, or disrobing for a shower, or drying off after a shower, he checks the window of the lab. Seeing her working, he slides the window open and climbs into the room.
He announces his presence, but Eleanor does not respond. He says her name again and she does stoically say, “Dr. MacDougal” but continues performing her experiments. She says, “Please go away, I have a great deal of work to do. It is of utmost importance.” When the brute unlocks the lab door, Tom goes back out the window.
He watches through the window as the mower, the vacuumer, the brute, and the thin woman all come into the lab. One by one, Eleanor gives them an injection. Finally, the thin woman administers an injection to Eleanor.
Tom asks Jean if there is an all-night drugstore in the nearby town.[1] Luckily, the local CVS seems to carry beakers, test tubes, test tube racks, bunsen burners, and all the chemicals he needs. He mixes up a solution at the hotel and they go back to Eleanor’s house.
Eleanor realizes her experiment failed. Also that Tom has his arm around the taxi driver who is 9 years younger than her. But mostly that.
Tom slips back in through the window. He begins knocking over equipment so that the other inhabitants of the house will come to the lab. Once all are present, he puts on a gas-mask — wow, CVS rules! — and throws down the smoke bomb he made. As the others are gagging, he carries Eleanor to safety.
Back at the hotel, Eleanor is sobered up and sees that her experiments to make the “maladjusted” part of society have failed. She was able to transform them, like bees, into productive soldiers and workers and a queen, but lost control. They return to the house and find all the inhabitants are now all jittery, frightened layabouts, the world’s oldest millennials.
- The tall woman was the Queen in this hive. WTF wasn’t Eleanor the queen? She says the tall woman injected her. Was that a coup, or part of the experiment?
- Since Eleanor was not the queen, why were the others so protective of her? She was just a drone; as her original lecture proved.
- Why have they all reverted to their natural state already? We just saw them get injected that morning.
Tom says this was still an amazing breakthrough. He suggests that he stay and help her. Not only will he have fresh ideas, assist in the research, and be able to protect her from another such coup, but having a man’s name on her findings, they might actually get published in a scientific journal. Bloody sexism!
Other Stuff:
- [1] Actually, he says, “I want to pick up some supplies. You may have to open up a drugstore.” Hunh?
- Eleanor was in the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Jean was in the classic-in-a-bad-way Robot Monster. Wonder if that came up on-set. Both were paid $125 for this episode, though. That’s BS — even the mower and vacuumer got $80 and they had no lines! Tom picked up a cool $750 for his work. Bloody sexism!