THE FLYING SERPENT (1946)

In THE FLYING SERPENT, veteran 40s horror actor George Zucco plays mad archaeologist Andrew Forbes, who stumbles upon the nest of a monstrous winged serpent—the apparent source for the myth of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl—while on a dig in Mexico. After the creature seeks out and kills his wife to recover one of its missing feathers, Forbes realizes that he can use the serpent to protect an ancient Aztec treasure he has located in ancient ruins near Aztec, New Mexico, and also eliminate his enemies by planting a plume on their persons and letting the flying serpent Quetzalcoatl do the rest.