AllMovie

The blonde star of PRC horror films, Rosemary La Planche had been a dance extra in films as early as 1938. Although she was voted Miss America in 1941, her screen work continued to be mainly unbilled until German émigré director Frank Wisbar chose her to play the heroine in PRC's low-budget Strangler in the Swamp (1946), a remake of the director's semi-classic Fahrman Maria (1936); she was the ferry owner Maria who is haunted by a ghostly Charles Middleton. The Devil Bat's Daughter (1946), also helmed by Wisbar, co-starred her as Nina, an innocent girl "gaslighted" into believing she is a killer by an evil psychiatrist. Although these quasi-horror films were too cheaply made to have had much of an impact during their original release, both have earned cult followings, as has Federal Agents vs. Underworld, Inc., a 1949 Republic serial starring former Superman Kirk Alyn and featuring La Planche as its imperiled heroine. It wasn't much of a career, however, and she retired to marry radio personality Harry Koplan, briefly returning in the early '60s as a television pitch woman. Her sister, Louise La Planche, was an MGM showgirl in the 1940s.