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Dedications
Dedicated in loving memory of my wonderful parents:-
Konstantinos (Dino) Christopoulos who took me to see my very first science fiction film in the early 1960s, The Man With The X-Ray Eyes (1963)
Rosemary Christopoulos who sat with me after school as I watched on TV episodes the first two doctors of the Doctor Who series and insisted on asking me interminable questions about who was who and what was going on! Thanks mum and dad!
The SCI-FI FILM FIESTA eBook series is intended as a salute to the pioneering work of science fiction film makers. May future generations have the privilege of enjoying your work and never stop wondering....What if?
Dedicated also to you, the reader who appreciates these classic gems from the golden age of sci-fi film-making. It is you who help to keep such films alive for future generations to enjoy.
Other eBooks in the Sci-Fi Film Fiesta series:
Volume 1: “Here Be Monsters”
Volume 2: “Into Space”
Volume 3: “Other Worlds”
Volume 4: “Journeys Within”
Volume 5: “Alien Contact”
Volume 6: “Alien Invasion”
Volume 7: “The End Is Nigh!”
CONTENTS
The Monster That Challenged the World (1957)
Monster from Green Hell (1958)
SCI-FI FILM FIESTA
Volume 8:
BIG BUGS &
CRAZY CRITTERS
©Chris Christopoulos 2022
Introduction
Despite the faith we may have in the advancements of human science and in the power of our technology, it seems that Mother Nature somehow manages to find a way to remind us just how insignificant and powerless we are in the face of forces over which we really have little control.
As long ago as the 1950s, enormous advances were being made in the areas of space, computer, transport, military, communications, medical and other technologies. Much of the groundwork for our own modern era was in fact being laid back then. So too were the consequences of such rapid developments, many of which we are still grappling with today.
The possibility of nuclear warfare; human contribution to global warming and climate change; our lives being subjected to constant monitoring, direction and regulation by artificial intelligence and algorithms; pollution and degradation of the natural world. At what point do we pay the price for our desire for convenience and comfort and for our progress and way of life? When do the monsters of our own creation begin to rise up and pay humanity back for its ignorance, arrogance and selfishness?
Not only did people in the 1950s (a time we condescendingly and patronisingly label as being a more naive, conservative and simpler era) have to deal with fears of having their way of life threatened by enemies both from within and without, the sheer pace of change for many individuals must have felt like some kind of looming incomprehensible monster poised to devour the certainties of life. Yes, there was a degree of post-war optimism and rising standards of living but there were also A Bombs to the left! H Bombs to the right! Duck and cover! Damn Commies! Rock ‘n Roll Devil’s music! Juvenile delinquency and crime! Ah well, at least there was the distraction provided by drive-ins, colour TV, transistor radios, cars with fins and highways, sodas, sundaes and shiny sky-scrapers thrusting ever higher into the sky.
The classic science fiction films from the 1950s in this volume 8 “Big Bugs and Crazy Critters” of the Sci-Fi Film Fiesta eBook series, deal with forces of nature going haywire and seeming to strike back at humanity with a veritable menagerie of colossal critters. If humanity is not more careful, it could very well be…..
The Beginning of the End!
But when all is said and done,
One thing on which you can depend,
It all amounts to a big heap of fun!
Them! (1954)
A suspense story
A murder mystery
A horror story
A science fiction story
A first of its kind
Directed by Gordon Douglas
Produced by David Weisbart
Screenplay: Ted Sherdeman, Russell Hughes
Story by George Worthing Yates
Music: Bronislau Kaper
Cinematography: Sidney Hickox
Editing: Thomas Reilly
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Running time: 94 minutes
Box office: $2.2 million
Cast
James Whitmore: Police Sgt. Ben Peterson
Edmund Gwenn: Dr. Harold Medford
Joan Weldon: Dr. Patricia 'Pat' Medford
James Arness: Robert Graham
Onslow Stevens: Brig. Gen. Robert O'Brien
Sean McClory: Maj. Kibbee
Chris Drake: Trooper Ed Blackburn
Sandy Descher: The Ellinson Girl
Mary Alan Hokanson: Mrs. Lodge
Don Shelton: Trooper Capt. Fred Edwards
Fess Parker: Alan Crotty
Olin Howland: Jensen
What would cause a little girl to be wandering alone out in the desert? What has happened to have given her sightless eyes that seem to have seen too much? What has stretched the fabric of her psyche to form an unresponsive protective psychological bubble shielding her from horrific memories of real-world horrors too vast for a young innocent mind to grasp?
The answer lies with……..
Something not US
Something dangerous…..
It lies with……
THEM!
(Some spoilers follow below...)
The Story
Near Alamogordo, New Mexico, Police Sgt Ben Peterson and his partner find a young girl wandering in alone the desert. To Sgt Peterson it “looks like she’s in shock.”
Who Done It?
The two state troopers investigate a trailer situated “12 Miles North Of The Crossroads” that the little girl was staying in with her parents and sibling. The trailer presents a whirlwind scene of destruction and tragedy. From this point on the police are confronted with “lots of evidence with clues, but (where) nothing adds up.”
Clue 1: Money not taken
Clue 2: Presence of blood
Clue 3: Revolver located
Clue 4: Top of girl’s doll’s head found sliced off.
Clue 5: “This (side of trailer) wasn’t caved in. It was caved out.”
Clue 6: SUGAR
Clue 7: Mysterious print found nearby: “No cat ever lived laid down a print like that.”
Clue 8: The fabric of reality being rent by a strange, unearthly, piercing and pulsating sound that momentarily triggers a reaction from the little girl. The ambulance medic seeks a more earthly and rational explanation for the sound as being the wind which “gets pretty freakish in these parts.”
Gramps Johnson’s Store
And so the investigation is carried along with the desert wind to old Gramps Johnson’s store. Once again a scene of destruction confronts the two troopers, along with more clues. As they look around, the radio broadcast informs listeners about “strides in the field of medicine” with cholera and sleeping sickness having been wiped out in many areas. Human beings are capable of much good, but as it later becomes apparent they are capable of unleashing great evil upon the world, even unwittingly. And outside Death continues to moan and howl across the desert and through the gashes in the walls of Gramps Johnson’s mutilated store.
Clue 1: "Gramps" Johnson is found dead: “Looks like he was dragged and thrown down there.”
Clue 2: The store has also been torn apart from the outside: “This wasn’t pushed in; it was pulled out.”
Clue 3: No cash was taken from the register.
Clue 4: A barrel of SUGAR was smashed open. Ironically the tiny ants on the sugar are disturbed by Peterson’s fingers.
Clue 5: Gramps' Winchester rifle was fired and is now twisted out of shape.
Peterson leaves Ed Blackburn to guard the store alone as he goes by car to check on the little girl and make a report. Upon hearing the strange, pulsating noise outside, Blackburn cautiously investigates. We are left to imagine the nightmarish horror as Blackburn moves off-screen while off-camera gunshots are fired. The strange pulsating sound speeds up and grows in intensity, and Blackburn's death-scream is carried aloft by the wailing wind.
The Plot Thickens
Further clues emerge when Peterson's superior points out that Gramps was a crack shot and had time to fire all his ammunition at whatever attacked him. Added to this is the coroner’s finding as to the cause of Johnson’s death detailing a litany of horrific injuries: a broken neck and back, skull fracture, crushed abdomen, and ……."enough formic acid in him to kill 20 men."
FEDS & EGG-HEADS
The FBI sends agent Robert Graham to investigate after the bureau is unable to identify the footprint. He, together with myrmecologists from the Department of Agriculture, Dr Harold Medford and Medford’s daughter, Dr Pat Medford visit the footprint's site, where Dr Harold Medford conducts an examination of the footprint.
As a way of confirming his suspicions, the senior Dr Medford later tries an experiment (a “jolt”) on the Ellinson girl by exposing her to formic acid fumes. She quickly awakens from her catatonic state of “hysteria conversion” and begins screaming and yelling out,
"Them! Them!"
The viewer might well feel that anything that can produce that much terror in one so young must by its very nature be evil and must be eliminated. We have enough examples in the real world and our own time of innocent children having to endure the trauma and horrors of death and destruction from monsters of human-kind’s making.
Dr Harold Medford will not at this point reveal his theory as doing so prematurely might “risk a nationwide panic." However, shouldn’t people have the right to know about matters that might affect them, instead of being treated like children and wrapped in the security blanket of secrecy?
Ellinson Campsite Encounter
While investigating the Ellinson campsite, Dr Pat Medford is confronted and startled by a giant, eight-foot long scouting ant. The images conjured up in our minds from the clues and the conjecturing up to this point in the film is confirmed by the presence of an impressive-looking Gulliver of the insect world. Pat’s screams of terror bring the upholders of the law racing to her rescue brandishing .38 revolvers which with great alacrity they proceed to empty into the six-legged leviathan with little effect. Dr Harold Medford then instructs Peterson and Graham shoot at the ant's antennae thereby blinding it. This they do and Peterson uses his Thompson sub-machine gun to extinguish the ant’s life once and for all.
Victory at this impressive skirmish is merely a prelude to a greater battle with the very existence of humanity being at stake. Dr Harold Medford finally reveals his theory that the giant ant was probably mutated by radiation from the first atomic bomb test near Alamogordo 9 years previously. He believes that, “we may be witnesses to a biblical prophecy come true”;
“'And there shall be destruction and darkness come over creation, and the beasts shall reign over the earth.’"
(OK, so it’s not from the bible. Blah! Blah! Still, it’s biblical / Revelations-sounding and adds a bit of a dramatic flourish to what is after all a good screen story. So get over officionado nit-pickers!)
Dangerous Decent
The Medfords, Graham and Peterson, together with Air Force General O'Brien manage to locate the giant ants' nest by helicopter. Dr Medford states his belief that “time is important, more so than (any of them) realize” and he comes up with a plan to destroy the ants in their nest by bombing them during the hottest part of the day, “noon tomorrow.” The plan involves using enough heat to drive the ants down into their nest and then drop cyanide gas to kill them.
After an impressive display of bazooka-firing at the ants’ nest opening, poison gas bombs are then tossed into the nest. After the obligatory 1950s-style, “this is no place for you or any other woman” followed by the retort, “someone with scientific knowledge has to go” hassle, General Graham, Peterson and Dr. Pat Medford descend into the nest to kill any surviving ants.
Deep inside the nest, we witness an impressive display of the use of flame throwers and the depiction of giant ants tunnelling into the corridor. Equally impressive is Pat’s commanding and authoritative tone of voice as she orders the others to “Burn it! I said, burn it! Burn everything!” Who would dare argue? Ogle and patronize all you want Ben and Robert, this lady knows what’s what and takes charge-get used to it!
The Beginning Of The End Of…..
It appears that two other queen ants have hatched and along with winged male ants have left to establish new colonies. Dr Harold Medford believes that “we haven’t seen the end of THEM. We all had a close view of what may be the beginning of the end of us.” The dire nature of the emergency is repeatedly reinforced by Dr Harold Medford when he states that “not a police force in the world can handle the panic” that would result from public disclosure. He believes that the ants’ 50 million years’ worth of evolution have bestowed on them the kind of industry, social organisation and savagery that “makes man look feeble.” Dr Medford can only conclude that “man as the dominant species on earth will be extinct within a year.” In order to avoid generating panic, the government soon launches an investigation of any reports of unusual activity, including sightings of "flying saucers."
Meanwhile, a giant queen has managed to hatch her brood in the hold of a freighter, SS Viking, heading to South America. The giant ants attack the ship's crew and only a few survivors manage to escape and are rescued. The freighter is later sunk by US naval power.
Further reports lead the investigators to a rail yard with a smashed boxcar minus its 40 ton cargo of sugar purloined by the six-legged kleptomaniacs with a sweet tooth. Next, they pay a visit to a state psychiatric hospital in Brownsville, Texas and interview a pilot who swears that while flying his small plane he almost collided with three UFOs “shaped like ants.” Agent Graham while believing his story, requests that “the government would appreciate it if he were kept here” In other words, to have his civil and legal rights violated by being forced to remain hospitalized until further notice. An act worthy of any Soviet or Chinese Communist government of the time!
Information from an alcoholic in a Los Angeles hospital drunk ward together with the body of a mutilated man is connected to a report of a missing man and his two young sons. This leads the investigators to determine that the man had been flying a model airplane with his sons near the hospital in close proximity to the Los Angeles River and that he was killed by the ants.
With martial law and a curfew declared for Los Angeles, the hunt is on to see;
If the two young boys can be saved!
If the ants’ nest can be destroyed before any other ant escapes!
If the world as we know it can be prevented from being destroyed by…..
THEM!
Points Of Interest
The film “Them!” reflected Cold War era fears and concerns about of the effects of nuclear technology on our planet and human civilisation. In this case, the effects are manifested in the form of creatures being exposed to radiation and growing to unnatural sizes. The film was the first of the "big bug" movies whose lineage includes “Tarantula,” “ Earth vs. The Spider,” “ Beginning of the End” through to “Alien” and “Starship Troopers.”
The film's opening title was printed in a vivid red and blue against a black and white background which leaps out at the audience and gives the opening of the film a strong dramatic impact.
When the film began production it was originally intended to be in 3-D and Warner Colour. During pre-production when it was time to shoot the 3-D test, the 3-D camera rig malfunctioned and no footage could be filmed. It was consequently decided that the colour and 3-D aspects of the production were to be scrapped. The film was to be shot in black and white and widescreen, but even the widescreen format was scrapped. The opening titles and the flamethrower shots aimed directly at the camera are the only remaining camera set-ups for 3-D in the film.
Among the many features that make this film work include:
Build up of suspense: You would have noticed that it is not until quite well into the film that the giant ants make their appearance. A great deal of mystery and suspense is generated before the ants appear on screen. We hear the ants high pitched, pulsating sounds and see their carnage long before we actually see THEM!
The impressive performance of Sandy Descher playing the role of the little girl traumatized and terrified out of her wits.
The humorous scenes involving Dr. Medford played by Edmund Gwenn. For instance, trying to communicate with his daughter’s helicopter using radio headphones and fumbling the “over” protocol. Edmund Gwenn is perfectly cast as the kindly, eccentric and absent-minded professor.
The mechanical giant ants, even without the benefit of CGI technology, looked quite impressive and menacing and were quite a special effects achievement for the time. They were constructed and operated by concealed technicians under the supervision of Ralph Ayers. The giant ants were purple-green in colour. At least we didn’t just have magnified shots of real ants doing ant things and being passed off as monsters.
You may have noticed that there are similarities between “Them!” and movies such as James Cameron's, “ Aliens” (1986.) which featured an orphaned girl “Newt” wandering around a base in shock; an almost hostile and windy setting; passageways with danger lurking around the next turn; alien creatures armed with deadly acid; egg- laying queens and hatchery chambers and lots of flame-throwers! I guess modern Sci-Fi blockbusters owe a great deal to such a well-acted, frightening, and engaging 1950s progenitor film as “Them!”
Tarantula (1955)
Jack Arnold’s well-crafted science fiction classic
Directed by Jack Arnold
Produced by William Alland
Screenplay by Robert M. Fresco, Martin Berkeley
Story by Jack Arnold
Based inspired by "No Food for Thought" (teleplay, Science Fiction Theatre series, May 14, 1955) by Robert M. Fresco
Music by Herman Stein, Henry Mancini
Cinematography: George Robinson
Edited by William Morgan
Distributed by Universal Studios
Running time: 81 minutes
Box office: $1.1 million (US)
Cast
Leo G. Carroll as Prof Gerald Deemer
John Agar as Dr Matt Hastings
Mara Corday as Stephanie Clayton
Nestor Paiva as Sheriff Jack Andrews
Ross Elliott as Joe Burch
Edwin Rand as Lt. John Nolan
Raymond Bailey as Townsend
Hank Patterson as Josh
Bert Holland as Barney Russell
Steve Darrell as Andy Andersen
1955: A Taste Of The Times
Scientific & Technological Advances
The space race is on for real between Cold War rivals USA & USSR
First pocket transistor radios become available
The Salk polio vaccine receives full approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
The first nuclear-generated electrical power is sold commercially, partially powering the town of Arco, Idaho.
American cytogeneticist Joe Hin Tjio discovers the correct number of human chromosomes, forty-six.
Narinder Kapany (England) develops fibre optics.
Owen Chamberlain and Emilio Segrè discover the antiproton, a form of antimatter.
Severo Ochoa at NYU synthesizes DNA- and RNA-like molecules.
TV remote control becomes public
Microwave oven invented
Felker and Harris program TRADIC, the first fully transistorized computer. It contained nearly 800 transistors instead of vacuum tubes. Transistors enabled the machine to operate on fewer than 100 watts, or one-twentieth the power required by comparable vacuum tube computers.
UHF television is developed
(Spoilers Follow.…)
A tarantula injected with a special nutrient formula…
escapes from a scientist's laboratory...
and grows into a 100-foot monster...
that rampages through the Arizona countryside!!!!
A scene of barren desolation punctuated only by the mournful Arizona desert wind and the aerial winged seekers of death circling overhead above a staggering figure of unnatural deformity. This figure in its final death throes has seemingly been coughed up by the desert in disgust. The scene of tragedy is somewhat rendered comical as the figure is about to meet its “Maker” (whoever that may be) in the middle of the desert clad only in pyjamas!
This mysteriously deformed man turns out to be biological research scientist Eric Jacobs whose dead body is soon found in the desert. Dr Matt Hastings, a family doctor from the town of Desert Rock, is called in to examine the body. Jacobs worked with Prof Gerald Deemer who has been conducting mysterious experiments at an isolated mansion near the town.
Dr. Matt Hastings is baffled by the cause of Eric's death. Jacob’s distorted features suggest that he was suffering from acromegaly, a disorder of the pituitary gland that normally takes years to develop but in Jacob’s case seems to have progressed in a matter of only a few days. Hastings can't understand why he has deteriorated so rapidly. Dr Hastings requests that he be given permission to perform an autopsy to learn why Jacobs’ face is so distorted. This is refused on the grounds that Dr Gerald Deemer already signed the death certificate and there is no indication that Jacobs’ death was the result of foul play. Professor Deemer also insists that Jacobs was suffering from acromegaly and refuses to authorize an autopsy.
Prof Deemer’s comments give us an insight into his thinking and are made more poignant as events unfold. At one point he observes that “these things (aches, pains and bodily wear and tear) happen as you get older.” He also declares that as a physician one can feel helpless knowing what is wrong while not being able to do anything about it.
Matt Hastings is puzzled with the mysterious disease and decides to investigate acromegaly further.
Acromegaly
Taken from Ancient Greek άκρος akros "extreme" or "extremities" and μεγάλος megalos "large") acromegaly is a condition that most commonly affects adults in middle age and can result in severe disfigurement, complicating conditions, and premature death if left unchecked. Its slow progression makes the disease hard to diagnose in the early stages and it is frequently missed for years until changes in external features, especially of the face, become noticeable. Acromegaly is often associated with gigantism.
Deemer has been conducting experiments on animals using an atomic isotope to create a super food nutrient with the aim of feeding the world's increasing population. He has injected this nutrient (type 3Y) into lab animals, which have grown at astonishing rates. Using simple but quite effective special effects we see an enormous guinea pig after only 13 days treatment and a caged tarantula many times its normal size after 22 days treatment. Notice how its size and rapid rate of growth is emphasized by the visual juxtaposition with its normal-sized counterpart.
Science: providing a potential solution for an impending problem, in this case a future of food shortages for humanity due to human population growth outstripping food production. The solution: to create a viable replacement for food and prevent future global starvation. But what about unforeseen consequences?
While science strives to find solutions to problems, it can inadvertently create even greater unforeseen problems. (Such concerns form part of the fears surrounding modern day scientific developments such as genetically modified food and crops.) Hastings learns that the experiments proved to be successful in that some animals were able to thrive and grow exclusively on the nutrient without any food. However, other animals have died after receiving injections of the nutrient, and as we have seen and are about to see, other animals have kept growing to gargantuan proportions with drastic implications for human beings.
Hastings also learns that the cause of Jacobs' death was his impatience to see if the latest batch of the nutrient would sustain humans. It was his act of injecting himself with the nutrient which resulted in his advanced acromegaly and his subsequent rapid death. Deemer does not reveal that Jacobs also injected his research assistant, Paul Lund, with the same nutrient.
After Hasting leaves, the now deformed Lund appears, attacks Deemer and runs amok destroying part of the lab. As a result of this rampage, the lab catches fire and the glass of the tarantula's cage is shattered by Lund who then injects the unconscious Deemer with the nutrient.
During the struggle, the tarantula escapes the lab unnoticed. Lund then staggers, collapses and dies. Deemer soon regains consciousness, grabs a fire extinguisher, and puts out the fire.
Deemer, intending to continue his work without questions or objections being raised, buries Lund's body without informing the authorities. As he is concealing all traces of the grave, the research monkey suddenly jumps from the side of the screen onto the Professor’s back in a tried and true shock tactic often used by director Jack Arnold. We will again see the little monkey perched on Deemer’s back, neck and shoulders in the film. It almost stands as symbol of the much larger monkey that Deemer will have on his back as a result of his course of action.
Enter Stephanie "Steve" Clayton!
Stephanie "Steve" Clayton arrives in town to work with Dr Jacobs. She has signed on to assist in the lab as part of her master's degree program. After being told that she will have to wait a couple of hours for the only taxi driver in town to return and drive her out to the lab, she winds up accepting a ride from Dr Hastings, who also happens to be headed there.
After Hastings and Steve arrive at Deemer's house, the Professor pretends that the lab fire was an accident due to an equipment malfunction. He goes on to explain how he is making the nutrient using the power of the atom to bind the solution. His aim is to produce a non-organic food concentrate to meet the demands of an ever increasing world population from 2 billion people to a projected 3 billion in 1975.
Deemer’s figures for the year 2000 show how thinking about future population trends greatly underestimated population growth. Present day food shortages are often a function of unequal distribution combined with natural and man-made causes (political corruption and mismanagement, war etc.) What we produce, where we produce and the way we produce our food will need to be reconsidered in the very near future, particularly in the face of global climate change. Science and the genetic manipulation of food resources will loom large in the global consideration of food production. One problem for humanity has been (as stated by Matt), “how many of us look that far into the future?”
Shape Of Things To Come
Events are foreshadowed as the camera zooms in on Deemer’s deformed hand, added to the fact that we know what had happened to Jacobs and Lund and Steve’s observation that there are “so many things to take into account” before there can be tests on humans. (An important consideration these days in terms of finding a successful vaccine for Covid-19!)
Steve and Matt get to know each other better as Matt takes her around the town and out to take in the desert scenery. For Matt the desert is a focus of nature whereby everything that swam or crawled “left its imprint.” As for matters deemed to be creepy, “the unknown always is.” As if right on cue, a pile of rocks come crashing down on to the spot where they were sitting.
By the pricking of my thumbs something unknown, big and creepy this way comes!
The creepiness is added to by director Arnold’s visual shock tactic when the Sherriff’s hand suddenly darts from the side of the screen and touches Matt’s shoulder as he looks around. Add to that, is the later shot of a giant black silhouette of the tarantula and the point of view shot as the spider bears down on the terror-stricken horses and rancher.
It turns out that the something unknown is devouring the local ranchers’ horses, leaving only their skeletal remains, “like peeling a banana.” Not even footprints or blood have been left behind. Not only that, but two human beings appear to have been added to the mysterious something’s menu in what at first sight appears to have been a car accident.
The only clue as to what happened consists of large pools of what seems to be some kind of venom next to the stripped skeletons and near the car accident. After what seems to be a disturbing practice of handling and seeming to taste the unknown substance, Hastings takes some of the material in for a test at the Arizona Agricultural Institute.
The lab analysis determines that the mysterious substance is insect venom and more specifically, venom from a tarantula but in an enormous quantity.
Roll The Film
At the Institute Matt and the audience are treated to an educational film in which we learn that tarantulas;
Main enemy is the spider wasp
Move fast
Can back down a rattlesnake
Are flesh eaters
Predigest their food
Can live for 25 years
Like all God’s creatures, “has a function in their own world.”
Joining The Dots
Steve meanwhile, begins to notice disturbing changes in Dr Deemer's appearance and demeanour. His face is gradually becoming distorted and his mood has become more sinister and darker as the acromegaly continues to manifest itself.
Hastings learns that one of the professor's test animals was a tarantula, which was presumed destroyed in the fire. Deemer also confesses to Matt and Stephanie that Paul went on a rampage in the lab and caused the tarantula to escape. Hastings is able to make the connection to the recent disturbing local events.
Armed with this knowledge, Hastings pleads with the sheriff to obtain explosives in order to destroy the creature that has been killing livestock and humans.
As Stephanie is studying in her bedroom at night, the giant tarantula approaches Deemer’s house. Once at the house, the tarantula observes Stephanie through her bedroom window and then sets about wrecking the house. A terrified Stephanie attempts to save Deemer, but the tarantula kills him before she can save him.
Matt drives up to the house as it collapses and is just in time to rescue Steve from the Tarantula’s onslaught. They both drive off into the desert, notifying the State Police and the Sheriff, who issues orders to evacuate the town.
Efforts on the part of the sheriff and the highway patrol to slow the monstrous creature with machine guns as it follows the desert road toward the town fail completely. Another effort to kill the monster with dynamite also fails with the monster happily traipsing right through the blast
“Dog gonnit, I wish we had some nitro!!!” (sheriff)
With the tarantula bearing down on the town, jets are scrambled from a nearby Air Force base. The fighter planes with Clint Eastwood as jet squadron leader (“Hey hairy legs, “…you've gotta ask yourself a question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?”) soon approach. They fire rockets and drop bombs on the monster as it reaches Desert Rock. When that has no effect, they unleash napalm, incinerating the tarantula.
Points Of interest
The special effects of Clifford Stine even after 60 years are still quite impressive with the images of the giant spider being effectively and realistically incorporated into the shots by using film footage of a real tarantula being blown up and rear projected. Models were used only for close-ups and the final shots of the creature on fire, Note also the realistic destruction of Demmer’s house by the giant spider as well as the excellent make-up job on Jacobs and Deemer.
Apparently a real tarantula named “Tomorrow” was used in the film.
Take note of the realistic depiction of ‘50s small town America which makes the characters seem all the more real to the viewer.
Leo G. Carroll’s style of acting serves to make him a most convincing scientist. His manner and delivery of dialogue suggests something of the absent-minded scientist totally absorbed in his work.
“Tarantula” was produced by William Alland who also produced "Creature From the Black Lagoon" and "It Came From Outer Space", both films featured in this book. It was directed by Jack Arnold who also directed those two films. See also the “Tribute to Jack Arnold” in this book.
The movie was filmed in and around the rock formations of "Dead Man's Point" in Lucerne Valley California, often used as a location for early western films. The town of Desert Rock, Arizona is fictional.
Spot the discrepancies between what is depicted on the poster and what was seen on and known from the film.
Tarantula Fact File
(Aphonopelma chalcodes)
Tarantulas;
Are the world’s largest spiders. They range in size from 4.5 to 11 inches (11.4 to 28 centimetres) in length or about the size of a dinner plate
Are arachnids and not insects and consist of more than 800 species
Live mostly in the tropical, subtropical, and desert areas of the world, with the majority found in South America
Are not threatening to humans. Their venom is milder than a honeybee, and though painful, their bites are not fatal
Can live (female) 30 years or longer in the wild.
Are quite docile and rarely bite people.
Defend themselves by throwing needle-like, barbed hairs at their attackers.
Ambush small prey at night, by stealthily sneaking up on a potential meal and then pouncing
Can be fatally injured if they fall or are dropped due to rupture of their exoskeleton
Have retractable claws on each leg, much like a cat
Can regenerate lost legs
Have been around for millions of years and have not changed much in that time
Do not spin webs but use their silk to make doors or soft walls for their burrow
Live (many species) in burrows underground
Are nocturnal hunters that eat insects, beetles and grasshoppers. The Goliath Bird-eating Tarantula species will eat larger prey, such as, lizards, snakes, frogs, bats and small birds. (No humans on the menu-yet!)
Worst enemy is the Spider-Wasp (also people)
Are often caught as pets and in some countries are eaten
Who should be more afraid of whom?
Beginning of the End (1957)
An enjoyable limited budget "big bug" movie with a better than average cast
1957: A Taste of the Times
Live Theatre & Musicals
The musical "West Side Story," by Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins opens on Broadway
Popular books, plays & publications
“The Cat in the Hat” by Dr. Seuss (Long before ‘Cancel Culture’ moved in to ban several the books!)
“From Russia with Love” by Ian Fleming
“The Guns of Navarone” by Alistair MacLean
"Long Day's Journey into Night" by Eugene O'Neill wins the Pulitzer Prize for drama
Viking Press publishes "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac who typed out the manuscript in 20 days on a single roll of teletype paper
Popular music
The Banana Boat Song - Harry Belafonte
Fats Domino - I'm Walkin'
Elvis Presley - All Shook Up
Ricky Nelson - Be-bop Baby
That'll Be the Day - Buddy Holly and the Crickets
Larry Williams - Short Fat Fanny
Elvis Presley - Loving You
Jim Lowe - The Green Door
Pat Boone - Love Letters In The Sand
Billy Williams - I'm Gonna Sit Rlght Down And Write Myself A Letter
Diamonds - Little Darlin'
Fats Domino - Blueberry Hill
Tab Hunter - Young Love
Fats Domino - Blue Monday
Jimmy Dorsey - So Rare
Elvis Presley - Love Me Tender
Pat Boone - Don't Forbid Me
Steve Lawrence - Party Doll
Guy Mitchell - Singing The Blues
Chuck Berry Rock and Roll Music
Sonny James - Young Love
Little Richard - Jenny Jenny
Elvis Presley - Too Much
Pat Boone - Bernardine
Perry Como - Round And Round
Little Richard - Keep a Knockin'
Everly Brothers - Bye Bye Love
Chuck Willis - C.C. Rider
Debbie Reynolds Tammy
Gene Vincent - Lotta Lovin'
Buddy Knox - Party Doll
Fats Domino - Valley of Tears
Elvis Presley - Teddy Bear
Pat Boone - Remember You're Mine
Elvis Presley - Jailhouse Rock
Guy Mitchell - Rock-a-Billy
Marty Robbins - A White Sport Coat (And A Pink Carnation)
Larry Williams - Bony Maronie
Everly Brothers - Wake Up Little Susie
Rusty Draper - Freight Train
Sam Cooke - You Send Me
Jimmie Rodgers - Honeycomb
Chuck Berry - School Day
Jerry Lee Lewis - Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On
Paul Anka - Diana
Directed by Bert I. Gordon
Produced by Bert I. Gordon
Written by Fred Freiberger, Lester Gorn
Music by Albert Glasser
Cinematography Jack A. Marta
Edited by Aaron Stell
Distributed by Republic Pictures, Peter Rodgers Organization
Running time: 76 minutes
Cast
Peter Graves as Dr Ed Wainwright
Peggie Castle as Audrey Aimes
Morris Ankrum as Gen. John Hanson
Than Wyenn as Frank Johnson
Thomas Browne Henry as Colonel Sturgeon
Richard Benedict as Corporal Mathias
James Seay as Captain James Barton
“Beginning of the End” is about an agricultural scientist and entomologist, Dr Ed Wainwright who is conducting research into the growth of gigantic vegetables. Somehow locusts have managed to come into contact with radioactive elements used in Wainwright’s research and as a consequence have grown to enormous size. The locusts are poised to attack the nearby city of Chicago unless some way is found to stop them.
(Spoilers follow…..)
Just outside of the sleepy little American town of Ludlow Illinois, a young couple are necking in the front seat of a car, when suddenly some unknown force wrenches their eyes away from each other to stare skyward, transfixed by some unseen menace seemingly baring down towards them…….
Little are we surprised when shortly after …
A couple of police officers receive a “984 – 2…. foul play suspected.”
McKenzie of the State police finds a girl’s blood-stained sweater.
An urgent call goes out stating that “The whole town’s destroyed…send help, lots of help, quick!!
Enter newspaper photojournalist Audrey Aimes who accidentally drives up to an army road block set up to prevent entry into Ludlow which, as she will learn later, has been inexplicably destroyed and where all 150 inhabitants of the town are now mysteriously missing. It also transpires that the local fields are barren, as if a swarm of locusts had descended and consumed all the crops.
Aimes, who works for the National Wire Service, is armed with her stock in trade – her camera – but finds that she has slammed into a wall of obstruction upon which the words, ‘No information forthcoming’ are plastered.
When Aimes attempts to take pictures a little later on, an army Sergeant suddenly swoops in from off-screen and confiscates her camera.
Could it be that the military is attempting to cover something up? If so, what?
Why would it be necessary for all traffic to be “routed around the Ludlow area?”
And what is “Special Order ‘Able 6’?
Aimes is not just some “dame” or “broad” who can be easily fobbed off. After all, she has worked in Korea during the Korean War and before that she was well acquainted with the German cities of Colon and Berlin in the aftermath of the Second World War. This is a woman who has had experience with “some things you never get used to.”
In the mind of the local military, Aimes’ credentials are quickly and firmly established and she is able to cut a deal with them whereby she’ll be provided with information as long as she agrees not to print it just yet. A bit like having the media being embedded with the military as a means of controlling the flow and nature of information which we’re unfortunately accustomed to these days.
Aimes is informed that “there was a town beyond that road block – a town that’s not there anymore.” In addition to the town’s demolition, she also learns that the entire population of 150 souls has vanished.
Testimony from a local by the name of “Dave” informs the investigators that the sound of something like thunder or a plane going overhead was heard at the time.
Next, a lady called “Edna” confirmed that the phone lines went dead sometime between 11.59 pm and 4.45am.
So far, the available evidence could almost be taken from the page of a book on mysterious UFO incidents. When confronted by such strange and inexplicable occurrences, what other course can our Western rationalist sails set us on except to head for the safe harbor of the “logical explanation.” After all, a “town of 150 people doesn’t just disappear,” does it? Well, “this one did!”
A possible explanation seems to be presenting itself when Aimes conducts a bit of independent investigative work using the resources of her National Wire Service. She soon establishes that a commercial airliner had flown over Ludlow at the time of the incident. She also leans that there are no atomic installations nearby. However, there is a Department of Agriculture Illinois Experimental Station in the area that conducts atomic research work. Ah Ha!
Aimes decides to pay a visit to the nearby United States Department of Agriculture Experimental Station to learn what might have caused the local agricultural devastation.
Upon entry to the facility, Aimes is confronted with unnaturally over-sized tomatoes and strawberries, an assistant by the name of Frank who is a deaf mute and an off-screen entry from the Director Dr Ed Wainwright who scares the living daylights out of her. Wainwright’s comment that “working with radiation can be dangerous” serves to explain and tie all these elements together while confirming and playing on the fears the audience may have concerning the dangers of atomic power.
Dr Ed Wainwright is experimenting with radiation as a means of growing gigantic fruits and vegetables in order to end world hunger. He states, “this we hope is the future for the American farmer.” However, it turns out that it is proving difficult to keep snails and caterpillars from getting into the facility. If they can gain access, what else could? The scientists also have to contend with public perceptions of their research as being geared toward producing “just freaks of nature.”
The (stock footage) scenes of destruction that Aimes later witnesses and records are akin to the aftermath of an F5 tornado and seem to provide ample evidence of the negative consequences of humanity’s scientific and technical progress.
A number of mysterious incidents have occurred nearby, and locusts have also been eating all the radioactive wheat that was stored in a grain silo.
Aimes requests that Wainwright take her to the warehouse that had been previously demolished. When they, together with Wainwright’s assistant, Frank arrive, they are confronted by the sight of a series of enormous overturned grain silos. It was as if “some force had to push these walls out from the inside.” Not only that, but the ground in the vicinity appears to be “completely barren.”
Suddenly the explanation for these mysterious events announces itself in the form of a high-pitched rasping twittering sound, followed by the looming and menacing appearance of a giant locust which together with its brethren have managed to consume all the crops in the area.
The locusts have expanded their culinary preferences to include human beings and the giant locust accordingly dispatches the “Columbo” TV detective lookalike, Frank.
We now move from Wainwright’s scientific “cause and effect” approach to an aspect of the military mind that considers that if something looks and smells like horseshit, it probably is and whether it is or isn’t, it should be blown up anyway! So naturally National Guard Colonel Sturgeon disbelieves Wainwright’s explanation that locusts must have entered his facility which led to the current situation they are faced with. For the unimaginative colonel, this is just another incidence whereby people report having seen “flying saucers and weird little green men from Mars.”
In a scene reminiscent of the film, Alien2, the military boys traipse back to the warehouse location. In Alien 2, the grunts view their mission as being little more than a bug hunt and are not convinced by Ripley’s warnings. In this scene of “Beginning of the End,” the soldiers’ attitudes can be gauged from their banter:
“Give us nets instead of rifles.”
“Grasshoppers are good eating”
“Mustard or Ketchup?”
In a marvelous piece of irony, one of soldiers jokingly warns, “watch your step or you’re liable to get eaten.” Right on cue the strange high-pitched sound is heard followed by rapid close up shots of individual soldier’s fear-riddled faces. The scene closes with the soldiers in full retreat futilely firing their rifles at an advancing enemy consisting of a host of six-legged merciless and ravenous locusts
It is clear that the Colonel has “never come up against an enemy like this before” and his only response to the situation is to “wipe out every last one” of the locusts by the application of even more of what has already proven to be ineffectual. It seems that we don’t learn very much as political and military leaders in our own era persist with such simplistic solutions to complex and intractable problems that require a measure of intelligence and imagination.
In “Beginning of the End,” it is apparent that “the country’s in danger if these locusts break out of the forest.” It is clear to Wainwright that what is at stake is complete……
“Annihilation – The beginning of the end.”
The first thing to do is to communicate the seriousness of the situation and present the facts as they are known. With this in mind, Wainwright and Aimes head off to Washington. At a meeting with the military brass, Wainwright shows a film as part of a presentation covering the known “facts” about Locusts and the part they have played in human history since biblical times, including the 1956 Australian locust plague and how the Massachusetts Bay colonists chased the locusts into the sea.
Gen. John T. Short: Dr. Wainright, you're a scientist, you know what grasshoppers can do. I'm a soldier, I know what guns can do.
Despite Wainwright’s efforts to persuade the top brass to act, it is felt that the “Illinois National Guard can handle the situation.” That is, until a call is received from Paxton Illinois informing them that the locusts have broken through the defence line……..
Later on, while on board a plane, General John Hanson, Wainwright and Aimes receive news that “giant locusts have overrun Paxton at 14.00.” The plane now heads for Chicago.
The locust threat is soon being tackled by the use of powerful insecticides but even this measure does not slow them down. The monsters are poised to invade Chicago.
Chicago Chronicle
Chicago Next?
Illinois Death Toll Mounts
As Locusts Advance
Eye-Witness Account
By Audrey Aimes
Machine guns – Ineffective!
Artillery fire – Useless!
Insecticides – Futile!
Enemy’s numbers – Overwhelming!
Has the time finally come when……
“The beasts shall inherit the Earth?”
Points of Interest
Hot on the heels of the success of big monster films such as “The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms” and giant insect films like “Them!” “ Beginning of the End” helped to firmly establish a clearly identifiable sub-genre of science fiction films in the 1950s.
Taking into account the average cost of the AB-PT (American Broadcast-Paramount Theatres) pictures at time being around $300,000, the budget for a film like “Beginning of the End” would seem to be ridiculously small when compared with films like, “It Came from Outer Space” ( $532,000, Them! (almost $1.000.000) and “War of the Worlds” ($2.000.000.)
Director Bert I. Gordon provided the special effects for the film and largely worked out of his home garage. The use of animated grasshoppers was rejected due to cost. Instead it was decided to employ split screen, static mattes, and rear projection effects for the film. Gordon also used live locusts which were placed on still photographs, and were encouraged to move by blowing air at them.
Two hundred non-hopping, non-flying, live grasshoppers were purchased in Waco Texas and could only be imported into California for filming when state agricultural department officials had counted, inspected and determined the sex of each one. Only male locusts could be imported in order to prevent the possibility of breeding.
While the insects were kept in a box for a few days, they collectively decided it would be a good idea if they set about devouring their fellow inmates. Only 12 locusts were left when Gordon began shooting them!
Cost factors ruled out the construction of miniature buildings for the hoppers to climb on. Instead, still photographs of various Chicago landmarks were used upon which the hoppers crawled around. Whenever we see a locust being wounded or killed by gunfire, the photograph was simply tipped allowing the creature to slide down it. Occasionally a locust was filmed scuttling off a building and stepping onto apparently thin air!
You’ll notice that the good old informative film as was used in “Beginning of the End” was a device that became a staple of sci-fi films in the 1950s. It was used as a means of adding some credibility to the proposition being put forward in the film: Giving the term “science” a leg-up as opposed to the “fiction” element. Remember the Woody Woodpecker film in “Destination Moon” and the documentary-style film in “Tarantula?”
“Beginning of the End” uses a very simple dramatic and cost effective technique in which much of the action happens off-screen. What we learn is conveyed by means of a telegram or via interviews with those involved. Shakespeare employed the same technique in his plays and often relied on the audience’s imaginations to fill in the details. How different to today’s cinema where every technicoloured, 3D’d, surround sounded and Hi-def. imagination-cleansing detail is thrust into our faces and merely awaits to be topped by the next big multiplex box office hit.
As mentioned earlier, the lead female role played by Peggy Castle largely portrays a strong woman who is (at least so for the era) respected as an equal by most of the male characters. Even when one of the military types sees a good opportunity to ask her out, she simply ignores his overtures and presses on with the matter at hand. There are no 21st Century-style politically correct social media cries of sexism and misogyny or calls for heartfelt, hand-wringing public apologies and immediate court-marshal / dismissal. Aimes is a strong professional woman whose extensive experiences allow her to be able to handle such situations with ease and without fuss. One amorous military man’s ego deflated without a word needed to be spoken!
End Thoughts
“Beginning of the End” revisits that recurring bogeyman of 1950s sci-fi movies called “atomic power.” Friendly atoms for future peace and plenty or evil mushroom cloud of darkness enshrouding an irradiated and mutated future destiny?
How similar does the Frankenstein-like scenario of “Beginning of the End” seem to be to our own modern era’s fears concerning scientific developments in areas such as genetic engineering of crops, animals and human beings, as well as research into viruses and bacteria. Both fields of research may provide benefits to humanity but they could also prove to be disastrous for humanity’s survival should the subject and by-products of such research escape our ability to contain and control them. Not to mention deliberate misuse!
This leads us to a consideration of an interesting dilemma faced by our civilization. In “Beginning of the End,” the locusts invade Chicago. As a last resort, General Hanson decides it is necessary to give the order to obliterate the threat posed by the locusts (along with Chicago) by use of an atom bomb. Ed Wainwright, however, discovers a way to use technology to reproduce the high-pitched noise of the giant insects in order to lure them into the water. Here we have a situation whereby our civilization's progress depends largely on scientific advancements, which in turn may create potentially disastrous consequences for our very survival which then necessitates further scientific advancements to remedy the situation! Science: Saviour or self-sustaining industry?
Be afraid....Be VERY afraid!
Locust Fact File
“Locust” is the name given to the "swarming" phase of short-horned grasshoppers.
Locusts;
Are generally between three to six inches in length
Breed rapidly under certain conditions
Can become migratory
Swarm as adults
Can fly for 15 hours at a time
Can travel great distances (They’ve been known to fly from Africa to England!)
Are able to rapidly strip fields and damage crops
As individuals can eat their own weight in plants every day
As a swarm can eat up to 400 million pounds of plants each day!
The largest known swarm covered 1,036 sq km (400 sq miles) and was made up of 40 billion insects.
The swarming behavior of locusts is a response to overcrowding and is triggered when their hind legs are increasingly stimulated. All it might take to induce swarming is just several contacts per minute over a four-hour period.
The humming sound made by locusts is produced when they rub their legs and wings against their body. They can hear this sound through ears located on their abdomens.
How can you distinguish between a male and a female locust? Males have a boat-shaped tip at the end of their abdomen, while females have two serrated valves that can be either together or apart and may be used when digging the hole in to which she will deposit her egg pods.
The Black Scorpion (1957)
An undemanding but entertaining sci-fi / horror film
Directed by Edward Ludwig
Produced by Jack Dietz, Frank Melford
Written by Robert Blees, David Duncan
Music by Paul Sawtell
Cinematography: Lionel Lindon
Stop motion animation special effects: Willis O'Brien.
Edited by Richard L. Van Enger
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Running time: 88 minutes
Cast
Richard Denning as Dr. Hank Scott
Mara Corday as Teresa Alvarez
Carlos Rivas as Dr. Arturo Ramos
Mario Navarro as Juanito
Carlos Múzquiz as Dr. Velasco
Pascual García Peña as Dr. Delacruz
Pedro Galván as Father Delgado
Arturo Martínez as Major Cosio
Fanny Schiller as Florentina
The Black Scorpion is the kind of film that tends to grow on you the more you watch it. This low budget film delivers with whatever resources it has as its disposal. The end result is an enjoyable and entertaining 88 minutes of escapism.
(Spoiler Alert…….)
The film opens with stock footage showing the explosive forces of volcanoes and scenes of destruction that nature has visited upon human life and property. The volcano shown was Paricutin which erupted in 1943 and was active for about a decade.
A narrator’s voice then informs us that, “For centuries, the prayers of Mexico's peasants have been their only shield against the devastating furies that have wrecked their homes and destroyed their lives. And so today, again they kneel, terrified and helpless, as a new volcano is created by the mysterious and rebellious forces of nature. The Earth has split a thousand times. Whole acres of rich farmlands have cracked and dropped from sight. And millions of tons of molten lava are roaring down the slopes, in a quake recorded on the seismograph of the University of Mexico as the most violent of modern times. To the benighted citizenry of this remote countryside, the most alarming aspect of the phenomenon is the fact that its unabated hourly growth is without precedence, having reached a towering height of nine thousand feet within a few days. And with each added foot, it spreads its evil onslaught into a wider circumference. But what is now most feared is that rescue work will be severely hampered by the hazardous inaccessibility of the terrain.”
Having established the savage mastery of Nature, an alternating series of black on white and white on black title and credits are then shown.
12 miles from the village of San Lorenzo a Jeep is being driven over volcanic terrain by an American Geologist, Dr. Hank Scott (played by the familiar and dependable stalwart actor, Richard Denning) accompanied by Dr. Arturo Ramos, a Mexican Geologist. They soon encounter a couple of telephone linesmen working to repair the damaged telephone service. After asking for directions to San Lorenzo and inquiring if anyone has made it through, they are informed that a police car went through earlier but has not as yet returned. A feeling of impending trouble is set up in the mind of the audience.
Close by to a farm house, a mysterious sound causes Arturo and Hank to stop driving. The Jeep’s radiator needs water, so they approach the farm house calling out to find out if anyone is there. They soon discover to their utter surprise a damaged and abandoned police car. Hank asks, “what could do this to a car out here?” We can only imagine that the something in question would be big, powerful and dangerous.
Arturo calls in the “accident” on the damaged patrol car 511’s radio and reports that “no one is here.” But why?
They suddenly hear a rattling sound which immediately sets us up to expect a rattlesnake. As the two men search for the source of the sound in the house, they come across a pot of beans still boiling on the stove. So whatever did happen, probably happened quickly and not that long ago!
Just as we have had one set of expectations set up for us, the two men come across a baby who is still alive. As we breathe a collective sigh of relief, Hank carries the baby back to the Jeep.
The tension is not long relieved when a sound draws Hank and Arturo toward a bush that conceals the body of the dead sergeant Vegas. What is especially shocking about the gruesome find is the look of sheer terror on the dead policeman’s face and that an inspection of his gun shows that “every cartridge has been fired.” Something so horrible has managed to leave an indelible post-mortem imprint of terror on a grown man’s face. That something had also caused the policeman to empty his gun at it without having been able to kill it. What exactly are we up against here?
When Hank and Arturo arrive in San Lorenzo they are greeted by a cacophonous din emanating from a panicked crowd of terrified peasants. Hank calls out amidst the uproar, “We're from Mexico City! I say, we're from Mexico City! We're scientists! Is the mayor here?” His bellowed query is at last answered by the presence not of civil authority but more importantly in the eyes of the rural Mexicans, by religious and spiritual authority in the form of the local Priest, Father Delgado.
Hank hands the baby over to the priest while a local woman identifies him as Manuel Tiburcio, whose parents are missing and are presumed dead. The woman takes the baby after declaring that there is a “demon killing us one by one.”
Later during a meal, Father Delgado explains that the deaths began the first Sunday after the eruption of the volcano. In accordance with his science-based view of the world, Arturo declares that there must be some “simple logical cause.” Delgado goes on to explain about the superstition of the huge "demon bull" by saying that it is a “symbol of evil among many ancient civilizations." The men from the Mira Flores Ranch brought the demon bull story with them having abandoned the place two days ago.
The next morning. Major Cosio asks Hank and Arturo not to embark on their “unnecessary expedition.” Regardless, they set off on their mission to the volcano, informing Cosio that they intend to return to San Lorenzo that evening.
When the two men later stop to get their bearings and plan their next moves, Hank suddenly spots a woman riding a white horse. When Arturo peers through the binoculars all he sees is a horse, as the rider has just fallen off her steed. Now why on earth would a lady be riding a horse so close to an active volcano? In keeping with many films of this kind from that era, she’s bound to become part of some love interest feature of this film. I guess we’re going to expect her character to follow the usual stereotypical female role? We’ll see…
Hank and Arturo drive off to find the woman and discover that she is unharmed and that her name is Teresa Alvarez (played by beautiful actress, Mara Corday), owner of the Mira Flores Ranch. As Arturo goes to retrieve her saddle, he notices a piece of obsidian which he picks up and takes back to the waiting Hank and Teresa. We know that this cooled piece of lava is probably important and will feature later in the story. The two geologists are now to make Mira Flores their base camp.
Back in San Lorenzo Hank and Arturo are summoned to see the Major and Dr. de la Cruz. De la Cruz’s findings suggest that the dead policeman's subcutaneous cells have “run rampant” and that an “organic poison” is involved. There is the presence of a wound but no blood. There is also the presence of bacteria. Even more intriguing is the evidence of strange footprints of which casts have been made. Further investigations will need to be made using more sophisticated equipment.
Hank Scott: One question, doctor...
Dr.De la Cruz: I hope I can answer it.
Hank Scott: Well, the alcohol, the distilled water, the salt solution - I can understand that, but what's the tequila for?
Dr.De la Cruz: Well, in your country I believe they call it a coffee break!
All: Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Oh, Puncho! Oh, Cisko! We are so funny!
With the sullen volcano brooding ominously in the background, Arturo, Hank and Teresa drive to Mira Flores. At the ranch, one of the ranch hands comments that the “cattle knows there’s something evil in the wind.” After being introduced to the young Juanito and a bit of romantic verbal ping pong between Hank and Teresa, our attention is drawn back to the strange obsidian rock Arturo picked up earlier. Inside the obsidian is a trapped scorpion. When Arturo breaks it open, a micro-cosmic foreshadowing of later events emerges in the form of a live scorpion. But how could this be?
In a remarkable piece of irony, Hank places the scorpion in a jar while Arturo goes off to fetch a magnifying glass “to watch this little monster.” If only they knew!
As if on cue, the next event is heralded by the ringing of the telephone. The lineman has rung to inform Teresa that her phone line was the last to be fixed and he is testing the line. Suddenly his fellow linesman on the ground is confronted by a huge scorpion possessing an almost human-like face with a countenance full of evil intent dribbling a saliva-like substance from its mouth. The effect is enhanced by the camera zooming in for a close-up shot.
One can imagine special effects genius, Ray Harryhausen nodding his head in approval as one of Willis O'Brien’s creations snatches up the man and carries him off under a bridge.
See the fluid motion of the creature together with the clever camera work as it tracks the scorpion effortlessly flipping the truck over and killing the linesman. The giant scorpion then chases the other lineman back up the pole, plucks him off, and kills him.
Panic soon ensues with yet another volcanic eruption as the scorpion launches an attack on Mira Flores. Peasants and cattle stampede. We have a shot of one woman falling and almost being trampled to death until one man stops to pick her up and rescues her from certain death. Therein lies that one hope for humanity: a single act of selflessness and kindness - commodities that are all too often in short supply.
By the next day, the occupants of Mira Flores have evacuated to the city of San Lorenzo. Surveying the scene of human desperation, Father Delgado comments, “This is all that remains.”
Hank, Arturo and Teresa encounter Dr. Velazco who has just arrived. He has managed to identify the poison “as that of a scorpion.” This creature that has come from the “bowels of the earth” is known from fossils. It is also known to come out at night an to be slow and lethargic. Dr. Velazco proposes the use of poison gas as a weapon to combat this newly discovered species: Scorpionida Rex.
At this point of deciding who’s going to do what, the then natural inclination would have been to shield the female from all possible danger and let the guys go off and do manly stuff. Well, Ms Alvarez will have none of it. In fact, Dr. Velazco admits to her, “I think you have found yourself a job.” Still, she did feel as though she had to ask their permission! I guess you don’t get anywhere in life unless you persist and keep asking and insisting.
A search for the scorpions’ lair is conducted involving ranch hands and the army when suddenly one of the horsemen, Mendoza, falls into a crevasse at the site of the volcano. The depth of the crevasse can be gauged by the fact that when a stone is cast down into it, no sound of impact can be heard.
Hank and Arturo decide to descend into the dark doom-laden depths of the demon’s abode. Before doing so, they discover that intrepid Juanito has stowed away on the trailer. Equipped with climbing paraphernalia and protective clothing, the two geologists enter a metal cage and are slowly lowered down into the abyss.
Midway down they are greeted by a large and rather irate scorpion lurking on a ledge. After Hank takes its picture they continue their descent. These days he would have taken a selfie with the scorpion and tried to collect as many Pokémons as he could on the way down!
At the end of their descent, they find themselves in a “huge cavern.” Hank and Arturo are at this point unaware that the pesky kid, Juanito has secreted himself behind the gas bottles in the cage. A perfect recipe for up-coming trouble!
The two geologists photograph a huge inchworm that they estimate is at least “30 feet long” and then stumble across the remains of the clumsy and unfortunate Mendoza who had earlier fallen in.
As our erstwhile little trooper, Juanito ventures forth to explore on his own, a battle royal erupts between the giant inchworm and some large scorpions. Eventually the largest scorpion which is “the granddaddy of them all” emerges victorious to claim the Andre the Giant trophy.
What has not gone unnoticed is the fact that the scorpions are able to kill each other by puncturing the weak spot in the throat and injecting their venom there. As Hank observes, “That's how they kill each other - that weak spot in the throat!”
Meanwhile, our little gnat, Juanito decides it would be a good idea to tug at a trap door only to then be chased by a thoroughly incensed giant spider for his troubles. Fortunately for him, Hank and Arturo are able to kill it by blasting it with their rifles.
[Note: The trapdoor spider and the giant worm were original models or props from the original “King Kong” (1933). In addition, the sounds of the scorpions are the same sounds that were used by the ants in “Them!” (1954)]
In his defence, Juanito tells the two men, “I came to help you.” Before they can say to him, “We’ll give you ‘I came to help you,’” the three are overcome by an urgent need to dash back to the cage with alacrity. Unfortunately, they find that the scorpion has arrived there first and is expressing its dislike of the aesthetic qualities of the recent addition to its cavern’s decor.
With the cage now detached from the line, Arturo in a tension-filled long moment hangs on to the line as it is being pulled up. He eventually makes it safely back to the surface. The process is repeated for Hank and Juanito but this time with the aid of a loop on the cable. After they are pulled to the surface, Velazco orders the opening to be sealed with explosives.
Later on, Velazco in Mexico City calls Hank in San Lorenzo and orders him and Arturo to Mexico City to complete their report. It is believed that it would be better if Hank “assumes that the danger is completely over.” Why it is thought that subterfuge is needed to be resorted to I’m not sure. Hank and Arturo are professionals and could have had the urgency of the real situation explained to them.
After Hank and Arturo, together with Teresa arrive in Mexico City, they are taken to the University to meet with Dr. Velazco. Recent aerial photographs of the San Lorenzo area showed the presence of a giant scorpion. Together with the possible survival of giant scorpions, there is also an underground system of caves and caverns that could be made use of by the scorpions. One branch of the cave system sits uncomfortably close to Mexico City, a city of 4 million people. In time-honoured sci-fi film (and all too often real-world) fashion, it is felt that secrecy is needed to be maintained as the resulting panic could prove to be worse than the scorpions.
While Hank and Teresa have a drink at a night club and plan dinner, Teresa declares that they “won’t have a worry in the world.” The irony of this remark comes crashing down when in the next scene a train from Monterrey to Mexico City is attacked by the scorpions and is derailed.
Bulletin Announcement
(excerpt)
“…express train from Monterrey has been derailed……
129 persons killed……. Giant scorpion headed toward Mexico City
…. City is under martial law!”
The largest scorpion, the Black Scorpion, has arrived at the train wreck site and kills some of the other smaller ones. Meanwhile Mexico City is ordered evacuated.
Enter the might of the 1950s Mexican military! Yes, we saw their air force of about three P51s take on Kronos in the movie of the same name and…. Oh, yes…never mind!
A plan is hatched to lure the scorpion into an arena using steer carcass meat, then shoot it with a projectile that will be used to electrocute the creature with 600,000 volts.
When the scorpion arrives at the stadium, a pretty impressive battle takes place with the military utilizing tanks and helicopters to attack the creature. The first shot of the projectile misses. An unintentionally funny moment occurs when a soldier is retrieving the projectile and declares, “I won’t miss this time” only to be accidentally electrocuted himself! Ouch!
The second shot, however, is successful and the electricity is applied. The scorpion finally lies dead on the ground of the stadium and we end with a long shot of the dead scorpion.
End Note
Willis O'Brien was the creator of the stop-motion effects for the original King Kong. Back in 1933, as a young boy, Ray Harryhausen would have gone to see the film King Kong with his parents and would have marveled and been inspired by the magic spun on the screen by Willis O’Brien. The Black Scorpion was the final film for which Willis H. O'Brien designed special effects.
Scorpion Fact File
There are about 1500 - 2000 known species of scorpions world-wide. They are most often thought to be desert creatures, but scorpions can also be found in quite cool and wet regions such as in the forests of Brazil, in British Columbia, in North Carolina, and even the Himalayas.
Scorpions;
Belong to the arachnid group which are invertebrates with four pairs of legs and two body parts.
Are part of a group of creatures that includes spiders, ticks and mites.
Possess a large pair of pincers and a tail with a venomous sting on the tip.
Have been around for some 450 million years.
Are largely nocturnal in their activity.
Digest their food externally.
Mate by performing a mating dance during which the male deposits a packet of sperm on the ground before guiding the female over it to be picked up.
Give birth to live young that spend their early life on the back of the mother.
Spend most of their lives resting under rocks, pieces of wood, or in burrows.
Expend very little energy.
Typically eat insects.
Can slow their metabolism, use little oxygen and live on as little as a single insect per year!
Require soil to thrive being burrowing creatures.
Are resilient: Specimens have even been frozen overnight, placed in the sun the next day to thaw out and then have simply scuttled off unscathed!
People fear scorpions because of the sting on their tail and their venom. Several thousand people do die each year from scorpion stings, mostly from species in northern Africa, the Middle East, India, Mexico and some parts of South America. Only 30 or 40 out of the 1500 – 2000 species of scorpion have venom strong enough to kill a person.
There are no giant scorpions.
……as far as we know
The Deadly Mantis (1957)
An entertaining low budget sci-film with lots of action
Directed by Nathan H. Juran
Produced by William Alland
Written by William Alland, Martin Berkeley
Music by Irving Gerts, William Lava
Cinematography: Ellis W. Carter
Edited by Chester Schaeffer
Distributed by Universal-International
Running time: 79 min
Cast
Craig Stevens: Col. Joe Parkman
William Hopper: Dr. Nedrick Jackson
Alix Talton: Marge Blaine
Donald Randolph: Maj. Gen. Mark Ford
Pat Conway: Sgt. Pete Allen
Florenz Ames: Prof. Anton Gunther
Paul Smith: Corporal
Phil Harvey: Lou
Floyd Simmons: Army Sergeant
Paul Campbell: Lt. Fred Pizar
Helen Jay: Mrs. Farley
“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
“The Deadly Mantis” opens with a camera zoom-in on a map showing the North Atlantic Ocean followed by a small island in the Weddell Sea close to the Antarctic Circle. A huge volcanic eruption then occurs after which the camera tracks across the map to Greenland and then on to a point close to the North Pole.
For those of us today who are accustomed to experiencing the increasing effects of global warning, we witness with somewhat less surprise than what might be expected huge areas of ice breaking up.
What is surprising is that the breakup and melting of the ice reveals the body of a giant praying mantis!
What If?.........
(Spoilers follow below)
WASHINGTON OBSERVER
Special Feature:
Dew Line Draws the Line!
America is guarded day and night by a fence – an electronic fence made of RADAR “designed to protect us against attack.”
Our way of life, our values and freedoms are continually being protected by successive impenetrable electronic radar barriers: The Pine tree radar fence, The mid-Canada radar fence and The Dew Line or Distant Early Warning line.
Rest assured that “the work continues day and night around the clock….”
*********************
WASHINGTON OBSERVER – City Edition
(Special Report)
POLAR TRAGEDIES REVEALED!
AIR FORCE DISCLOSES MYSTERIOUS CRASHES
AND DISAPPEARANCES
Weather Station Found Destroyed
On _____, at an advance warning radar station outpost in northern Canada called “Weather Four,” two technicians reported having detected something unusual on their radar. It appears that before they could work out what was going on, the entire outpost was destroyed.
Pilots of the aircraft that were dispatched to investigate reported to radar station “Red Eagle One” (part of the DEW line early warning system) evidence of heavy damage to the building.
Col Joe Parkman of Red Eagle One station flew out to the destroyed outpost to inspect the damage. Col Parkman found that the outpost building was totally destroyed and all the electronic equipment had been smashed. He was at a loss to explain the disappearance of the two men who were stationed there but was convinced that the shack had not been destroyed by a gale.
Upon checking the perimeter of the outpost, Col Parkman discovered a series of strange marks resembling furrows scratched into the snow. Each long furrow ended in what appeared to be three prongs.
While the mystery of the furrows was being puzzled over, Red Eagle reported a strange intermittent radar contact. A red alert was sounded and jet fighters were scrambled to intercept the contact.
With the bogey at 90 miles’ distance, it suddenly disappeared and the jets were subsequently ordered to “return to home plate.”
It was later reported that a C47 transport plane flying in the same vicinity was attacked and destroyed. The plane’s wreckage was located on a glacier.
When Col Parkman went to investigate the C47 wreckage, he discovered similar furrow-like markings as those at the weather station. As was the case at the weather station, no human remains were found at the crash site.
What was discovered, however, was a strange 5-foot-long appendage embedded in the plane’s fuselage. By all accounts it looked “like it had been broken off something.”
The situation involving the destroyed outpost, the detection and attempted “bogey” interception, the C47 crash and the finding of the mysterious object was soon referred to CONAD in Colorado Springs.
CONAD or the “Continental Ait Defence Command” is the “focal point of the sonic shield that guards the North American continent.” In essence, its existence could mean the difference between “life and death for millions of Americans.”
At a conference of scientists called by General Mark Ford, it was determined that the appendage-like object did in fact come from some living creature and was therefore organic, but that the identity of the creature it belonged to was unknown. It was then proposed that Prof Nedrick Jackson, a palaeontologist at the Museum of Natural History be contacted to help determine the object’s origin.
*******************************
From Prof Nedrick Jackson’s diary
After examining the 5-foot-long mottled green object, I am convinced that it is like cartilage but definitely not bone. I know that it “can’t be from an animal.” Now that we “know what it can’t be” we can with more confidence determine “what it can be.” I am certain that the object is a torn-off hook or spur from an insect's leg. It is also a creature that can eat human flesh. What flesh eating insect of normal size would have such a hook? Grasshoppers or crickets are not meat eaters. Or course! “There is no more deadly or voracious creature than the praying mantis.” The appendage we have is a spur or hook section of that creature’s forelimbs. Yes, that’s it! A gigantic praying mantis!
In prehistoric times insects grew to much larger sizes as evidenced by fossils of 2 foot dragonflies. I believe that if a creature was frozen quickly enough, like say, the frozen mammoths that were found in Siberia, there might be a chance that if the creature thawed out, it may be able to reanimate.
“I'm convinced that we're dealing with a Mantis in whose geological world the smallest insects were as large as man, and now failing to find those insects as food, well... it's doing the best that it can.”
At the institute, Marge has been pressing me for information. Can’t say I blame her as she only wants the chance to run a scoop in her museum magazine. She certainly has not lost her nose for news.
***************************
THE WASHINGTON GLOBE
Greenland Eskimos Terrorised!
In Greenland, Eskimo or Inuit villagers have reported seeing a gigantic beast which has attacked them causing death and injuries to an unknown number of locals.
Whole communities are reported to have scrambled to evacuate to safety in their canoes……
******************
Shortwave Broadcast from Moscow
This is Radio Moscow. Reports have reached us here in the Soviet Union that the Imperialist American war-mongering Government is now afraid of being attacked not by the peace-loving peoples of the USSR and like-minded defenders of Socialism, but instead by giant insects! In the last few years we have had reports of giant ants, spiders, locusts and even scorpions! What is next? Mosquitos? So what is going on in the paranoid minds of the capitalist military and Industrial bourgeois establishment?
Oh come on, Imperialist swill in Washington! Your so-called free media and the public is hungry for information. And so what is the response? Authority in the form of your administration’s lackey, Gen Ford trots out the same tired worn out excuse for withholding information from your public and I quote;
‘…cooperate with us to avoid panic and hysteria…. I know I can count on you.”
Is this the kind of America you want where your media, your military and your government collude against you, the American public and your so-called democratic ideals and values under the guise of acting to protect you and that somehow you’re all in this together in some concocted crisis?
INTERMISSION
[You may as well take the time to Go to The Lobby and get some treats while Jackson and Marge visit Parkman at Red Eagle One. There’s no need to stick around and cringe at a bunch of adolescent military praying mantises as they gather around and oggle Marge. They’re almost robbed of the power of speech but not enough to prevent them from babbling such inane lines as;
“He’s with a woman. A FEMALE woman!”
“I thought they stopped making them.”
Dr. Ned Jackson: “It looks like you don't have too many women up here, Colonel.”
Col. Joe Parkman: “Well, we have a little joke up here. The boys say there's a girl behind every tree. Only try and find a tree.”
Oh of course, there’s the odd wolf whistle too.
If the Soviets decided to invade the US, all they had to do was send in an advance force of pretty Russian women causing the American GI’s to stop in their tracks and wonder if they’re women – FEMALE women! By the time they had worked out whether or not they had stopped making them, it would be all over!]
**************
Back to the story…..
Excerpt from Report of Col Parkman to Dept. of Defence
Prof Nedrick Jackson reported from crash site the presence of strange marks measuring over 8 and a half feet in length.
Red Eagle One attacked by giant Mantis. Base personnel ordered to combat stations, ‘Condition Red.’ Aircraft scrambled. Threat driven off by use of flame throwers and machine guns.
After a nine-hour period “Hunter 4” from the air patrols that were sent out in response to threat posed by giant Mantis reported failure to locate the creature after its attack on the base. Pilots ordered to continue search.
Reports received of a fishing boat out at sea in heavy fog attacked, most likely by the hostile mantis creature. Two deck hands reported missing, presumed killed by the creature.
Group Capt. Hawkins of Mid Canada Line radar station reported an intermittent unidentified radar contact at 0400.
By plotting the previous attacks, it has been confirmed that the creature appears to be heading south to the tropics and specifically to South America where the conditions will be similar to what it is used to.
Creature last sighted heading south from Newfoundland.
********************
MAINE HERALD
MANTIS REPORTED AT BANGOR
NEW ORLEANS GLOBE
CURFEW ORDERED IN NEW ORLEANS
WASHINGTON OBSERVER
CONGRESSMAN CALLS MANTIS “HOAX”
DEMANDS INVESTIGATION
******************
Special Broadcast
“This program is being presented by the Continental Air Defense Command”
Gen Ford: “I want to say at the outset that contrary to speculation and rumor and certain newspaper headlines, the so-called ‘Deadly Mantis’ is no imaginary scare…. It’s a very real and present danger.”
Col Parker: “I saw this creature attack our base…. It will be one of you, the devoted men and women of Civilian Observer Corps that will spot it the next time it appears.”
“TAKE NO CHANCES: REPORT ANY UNUSUAL FLYING OBJECT!”
*****************
Radio News Broadcast
We interrupt this transmission to bring you the latest news from an aircraft carrier patrolling along the Atlantic coast. The “Deadly Mantis” has been spotted and aircraft were immediately dispatched to intercept the creature. It appears that the attack was successful but one of the pilots was not able to confirm the kill due to low overcast conditions.
If the creature has managed to survive, it is thought by experts that it would have flown low into the clouds and close to sea level under cover of the fog.
TV News Broadcast
Reporter: I’m here in Maryland at the scene of a freak train accident in which an engine and five cars were overturned.
(Walks slowly further on with the scene of destruction in the background)
I am about to speak with one of the local police officers to see if any further light can be shed on this horrific incident. Officer, what seems to have been the cause of this train crash?
Police Officer: (As a man wearing a military uniform and a woman he had been speaking to move off) All we know so far is that the accident seems to have been caused by the fog ……
(Unnoticed on the sodden soil is an impression made by something huge….)
TV News Broadcast (later on)
Reporter: As you will remember, I had earlier reported from Maryland on the train crash incident. It turns out that it may not have been an accident after all. Another incident, possibly related has occurred in which an Interurban bus has been demolished.
(Shot of mangled metal carcass of bus lying on its side like a mortally wounded disemboweled beast)
According to an eye-witness who was on the bus, not long after she disembarked, a giant Mantis using the fog as cover ambushed and attacked the bus. Rescue workers who arrived to attend to the injured witness found the bus empty.
So far this makes a total of 7 “accidents” in the last 24 hours!
***************
Emergency Broadcast System
This is a general alert!
“The mantis has been sighted over Washington”
All defense personnel are to be on high alert!
***************
Military Chiefs Briefing the US President
General Blunthammer: Mr President, the creature has penetrated the airspace over Washington. Reports have come in of its flying low over the city causing widespread panic. It even proceeded to climb the Washington monument!
The President: I heard of worse behavior from some tourists! So, what do you propose we should about this entomological intruder?
(A functionary scuttles into the room and hands the general a message)
General Blunthammer: Mr President, the bug has left Washington and has swung north east towards Baltimore. Sir, I recommend ordering all AA guns along its flight path to open fire on anything unidentified, unusual, untoward and unexplained!
The President: Very well general, make it so. Things were so much easier when all we had to worry about were just the Russians!
********************
As the creature drops below radar coverage range and heads North East towards New York City, aircraft are scrambled in an attempt to engage and destroy the creature. On board one of the jets is our erstwhile Col Parkman:
Parkman: (Singing) Here we go into the wide blue yonder, heading straight into the sun!
(Suddenly the giant mantis looms up right in front of him and rams his plane)
Parkman: (bailing out) Here we go……. wo, wo, wo, woooo!!!!!!
Pilot of Beagle 17: “We’ve splashed mantis.” One jet hit. Pilot bailed out.
****************
Television Interview:
Interviewer: So after you bailed out of your crippled jet and were picked up by military personnel, what happened next?
Col Parkman: I learnt that the creature had been badly hurt by the accident involving my jet and had landed in New York where it managed to crawl into the Manhattan Tunnel.
The Tunnel was filled with smoke and sealed by using water saturated tarpaulins. Even though it was felt that the creature had been mortally wounded by the aerial attack and accident, Gen Ford was of the opinion that it might try to break out.
Interviewer: What measures were taken to prevent this from occurring?
Col Parkman: I was given permission to lead an assault on the creature. Donning protective suits and armed with guns and special chemical mines, my team pushed into the tunnel under cover of the smoke.
The smoke formed a heavy eerie mist-like atmosphere in the tunnel and the only sounds that could be heard were strange echoing footfalls, a peculiar roaring coming from the injured creature, and the heavy thumping of our hearts beating. Strangely missing was the sound of my own breathing within the protected little environment of my suit.
Suddenly, the sound of metal being hurled about shattered the tense stillness of the tunnel as the creature began moving around and attacking abandoned cars as if it held them responsible for its predicament.
Upon spotting my team, the creature emerged out of the cloud of thick smoke like some impossible monstrous gargantuan behemoth entering our world from another dimension.
Interviewer: How did you respond to this threatening situation?
Col Parkman: As the giant Mantis advanced towards us, we opened fire with our guns and special mines. Our initial response only managed to slow the creature down, not kill it. It took one final assault until the creature finally succumbed.
Interviewer: Colonel, I along with our viewers feel proud of our brave military personnel who will go to any lengths to protect our country from all threats to our way of life and all we hold dear. Don’t you agree, Professor Jackson?
Jackson: Well, yes, but I can’t help but feel sorry for that giant Mantis that found itself out of place and out of time through no fault of its own. It only acted on its instinct to survive but how could it possibly survive in our world?
Interviewer: Thank you Col Parkman and Professor Jackson. We’ll be back after this word from our sponsor, Garden Grub and Pest Power Pellets……...
Points of Interest
Of particular note in “The Deadly Mantis,” are the night scenes involving the Mantis, as well as the final tunnel sequence. The black and white photography combined with the use of a fog and smoke-shrouded atmosphere as well as a forceful and suspenseful musical score are all combined quite effectively.
As it moves through the smoke-filled Manhattan Tunnel, the giant Mantis seems almost like a forerunner to the impossible monsters in more recent films as The Mist (2007) and Cloverfield (2008).
“The Deadly Mantis” is definitely a film that reflects the Cold War period. It is almost as if it sets out to let the Soviets know about the strength of the US air defense system and that a sneak attack on their part would not succeed. There’s also a measure of reassurance for the domestic audience who are expected to believe that they are all in it together when it comes to national defence and security.
In the movie, the Ground Observer Corps are asked to help in spotting the Mantis. This was an actual group that existed during and after World War Two.
The first Ground Observer Corps was a World War Two Civil Defense program of the United States Army Air Forces to protect against air attack. The 1.5 million civilian observers at 14,000 coastal observation posts used the naked eye and binoculars to search for enemy German and Japanese aircraft. This program ended in 1944.
The second Ground Observer Corps operated during the Cold War as an arm of the United States Air Force Civil Defense network which provided aircraft tracking and had more than 200,000 civilian volunteers. This program ended in 1958 with the introduction of the automated 1959 USAF radar network (SAGE) and the automated Army networks (Missile Master).
The Dew Line or The Distant Early Warning Line, referred to in the film was an actual system of radar stations set up in the far northern Arctic region of Canada, with additional stations along the North Coast and Aleutian Islands of Alaska, including also the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. It was set up to detect incoming Soviet bombers during the Cold War, and provide early warning for a land based invasion. DEW Main and Auxiliary site operations ended in the 1990s becoming part of the North Warning System (NWS). It seems that whoever was behind this part of the film depicting The Dew Line had some detailed inside knowledge of the early warning system.
CONAD or Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) was the Cold War military organization of Army, Navy, and USAF air defense commands for the Continental United States. The primary purpose of continental air defence was to provide sufficient attack warning of a Soviet bomber air raid to ensure Strategic Air Command could launch a counterattack without being destroyed.
William Hopper who plays Ned Jackson has also appeared in “Conquest of Space” (1955) as Dr George Fenton and “20 Million Miles to Earth” (1957) as Col Bob Calder.
Praying Mantis Fact File
Mantises are an order (Mantodea) of insects that contains over 2,400 species and about 430 genera in 15 families.
The praying mantis is named for the way its prominent front legs often seem to suggest that the insect is at prayer.
Mantises are;
Formidable predators.
Green or brown and well camouflaged on the plants among which they live.
Distributed worldwide in both temperate and (mostly) tropical habitats.
Preyed on by vertebrates such as frogs, lizards, and birds, and by invertebrates such as spiders and ants.
Mantises have;
Two large compound eyes and three other simple eyes located between them.
Triangular heads poised on a long elongated thorax.
Stereo vision.
Mantises;
Turn their heads 180 degrees to scan their surroundings.
Locate their prey by sight.
Lie in ambush or patiently stalk their prey.
Use their front legs to snare their prey.
Prey on moths, crickets, grasshoppers, flies, and other insects
Sometimes eat others of their own kind such as during mating when the adult female may sometimes eat her mate just after and even during mating!
Live for about a year
The earliest mantis fossils are about 135 million years old! Yes, they were here long before us!
The Monster That Challenged the World (1957)
A somewhat predictable and formulaic sci-fi film which has enough action to hold audience interest for much of the 83 minutes viewing time.
Directed by Arnold Laven
Produced by Arthur Gardner, Jules V. Levy
Screenplay by Pat Fielder
Story by David Duncan
Music by Heinz Eric Roemheld
Cinematography: John D. Faure
Edited by Lester White
Production company: Gramercy Pictures, Inc.
Distributed by United Artists
Running time: 83 minutes
Budget: $200,000
Cast
Tim Holt as Lt. Cmdr. John "Twill" Twillinger
Audrey Dalton as Gail MacKenzie
Hans Conried as Dr. Jess Rogers
Harlan Warde as Lt. Robert "Clem" Clemens
Max Showalter as Dr. Tad Johns
Mimi Gibson as Sandy MacKenzie
Gordon Jones as Sheriff Josh Peters
Marjorie Stapp as Connie Blake
Dennis McCarthy as George Blake
Barbara Darrow as Jody Simms
Robert Beneveds as Seaman Morty Beatty
Charles Herbert as Boy with Morty's Cap
Jody McCrea as Seaman Fred Johnson
Wallace Earl as Sally as Eileen Harvey
Classic Sci-Fi Film Stew
Also known as “The Monster That Challenged the World” and in some quarters as “The Jagged Edge” and “The Kraken.” (“Release the Kraken!” Sorry, I had to say it!)
(Spoilers follow below....)
Ingredients
A central unoriginal premise involving giant molluscs that emerge from California's Salton Sea and pose a threat to life on earth. (Ants, huge locusts, giant spiders, supersized praying mantises could just as easily be served as substitutes.)
A protagonist, in this case, a Lt. Cmdr. John "Twill" Twillinger military variety with a crusty outer skin concealing a soft centre.
A large dose of fairly forgettable dialogue.
A rather sugary sweet beautiful and available love-interest in the form of Gail MacKenzie
An annoying little girl and a couple of pesky little boys.
Assorted naval and scientific characters.
A disposable young couple or two.
A handful of old geezers.
A sympathy-evoking, expecting and soon to be widowed woman.
A narrator.
A Salton Sea setting for flavour. (Any number of isolated desert locales could also be used in a pinch)
An earthquake or two.
The usual requisite informative film.
A half dozen or so giant eggs.
A variety of finely chopped high and low plot points.
Total cooking time: 83 minutes. (Remember a watched pot never boils and this one will seem to take longer to cook than the time indicated!)
Total Cost: $200,000 [Great when you’re on a budget!]
Serves: Any number of undemanding classic sci film fans.
Method
Stage 1: The Opening
[In the opening sequence of putting together our sci-fi stew, we will attempt to mix in a kind of an unusual scientific phenomenon that defies our conventional notions of how Nature is supposed to work. If done correctly, these new laws or rules of nature will set almost immediately and remain so throughout the rest of the film.]
Roll title and credits over a night view of the Salton Sea in California.
Next, prepare an aerial view shot of the Salton Sea during the daytime.
Place a narrator at this point to set the scene for us by informing us that;
"This is the Salton Sea in Southern California. A strange phenomenon in which nature has placed 400 square miles of salt water in the middle of an arid desert. In the desert, close to shore of the sea, the government has established one of its most important Naval Research Bases. At the laboratory on the secluded south tip of the base, top secret atomic experiments are carried out under rigid security controls."
[Tip: Don’t let the “Research” and “Atomic” ingredients put you off this dish. They are an essential component of any good sci-fi film stew.]
Unleash an underwater earthquake in the Salton Sea, causing a fissure to open.
Follow this up by giving the base a good shaking with
an earthquake.
Introduce a parachute jump over the sea and then spoon out a patrol boat to recover the parachutist.
At this point add a pinch of mystery by having the recovery team locate only the parachute.
Next, have one of the team dive into the water to search for the missing man but don’t allow him to resurface!
Follow this up by having the remaining sailor being confronted by what we see only as a shadow that causes him to scream as he is stricken with horror.
End this stage of the process with the land radio operator attempting to re-establish contact with the patrol boat.
Stage Two:
[At this stage of the process, you’ll be confronting the protagonist with a lethal consequence of this unusual scientifically unnatural phenomenon. The protagonist will be forced to realize something unnatural is going on and that it will have to be dealt with.]
When the patrol boat fails to answer the radio calls, introduce the Lt. Cmdr. John "Twill" Twillinger ingredient by having him lead a rescue party on a patrol boat to investigate.
Next, ensure that the rescue party locates the deserted patrol boat containing the dead body of seaman Sanders and be sure to lightly coat the port side of the boat with a strange slimy substance.
If all has gone well, at this point the parachutist’s body should float to the surface, with its skin darkened and be completely drained of bodily fluids.
While this is being left to simmer, thoroughly combine the following characters: Twill, Gail MacKenzie and Dr. Jess Rogers for later use.
Once the analysis of the substance is complete back at the lab, ensure that Dr. Rogers will have determined that it is just a marine secretion while the Coroner Nate Brown concludes that a puncture wound as being Hollister’s (the parachutist) cause of death and that his body has been inexplicably drained of blood and water.
Add an additional layer of likely cause of death may be applied with sailor Sander having died of a stroke a due to extreme excitement or fear.
[Tip: It is imperative that at this stage you have the sheriff quarantine the beaches!
It is also recommended that that George Blake notices that the white substance is radioactive.]
Take a disposable young couple, Jody Simms and her boyfriend Seaman Morty Beatty, and have them go missing after a swim.
Follow this up with two pesky boys fighting over a sailor's cap.
Next, have one of the tow-headed brats take Twill to the place where he found it.
Allow Twill to discover the seaman's and Jody's clothing.
While Jodie’s mother, Mrs. Simms sobs with grief, ensure that a liberal coating of the radioactive white substance is placed on the rocks for Twill to come across. This will help to thicken the plot.
As soon as the plot thickens, use your egg-beater to mix a couple of divers, Dr. Johns and George Blake, a giant spherical egg and the body of one of the victims. As you do so, carefully monitor the radioactivity readings: (At 60 feet everything should be normal.)
At 125 feet at the bottom of a canyon there should be a large white balloon-like radioactive sphere.
This sphere must be cut loose and sent to the surface.
Now ramp up the tension by revealing the shrivelled body of Jody Simms and having a large marine monster attack and kill Blake.
Next, spare Dr. Johns so that he can swim for the boat and inform the others about the creature.
Before proceeding to the next stage, the creature will need to surface and attack the boat where Twill stabs it in the eye with a grappling hook causing the creature to sink back into the water and settle at the bottom of the sea.
Stage Three:
[For this stage, the events are to lead toward a confrontation between the protagonist and the unnatural phenomenon or antagonist which threatens to destroy both the film’s hero and the world. You will have to work quickly here as the action rises and builds up to a final climax. Get it wrong and the sci-fi film stew will surely turn into a pot of runny slop!]
First of all, transfer the spherical egg to the U.S. Navy lab for investigation and have it kept under temperature control to prevent it from hatching.
Secondly, tug on the audience’s heart strings and stir in a sense of outrage by making sure that Connie gradually learns about the fate of her husband. Her fate: widowed and pregnant.
Thirdly, whisk up a plan to kill the creature with depth charges.
Next, go back to the incubating egg at the lab and keep the temperature of the water in which it is immersed at exactly 38 degrees in order to control its growth.
Finally, it is time to introduce plausible-sounding information by running a film featuring mollusks together with presenting photographic evidence suggesting that at least ten other creatures exist that will need to be destroyed.
By now you should give thought to stressing the importance and magnitude of the threat that even one re-productively active creature could pose to the “entire world” if it gets into the All-American Canal.
Having done this, add the following ingredients needed to string out the audience with a series of high and low points in the plot:
a man discovered covered with the white substance, stumbling in distress and rambling something about "Mary Jean."
reports of shriveled livestock.
deductions concerning the existence of a possible underground river connecting the Salton Sea to the canal system.
an old map from the Imperial County Museum revealing nothing useful.
lock keepers checking in with the base but not reporting any sightings with the exception of some boys splashing in the canal.
young Sandy (while her mother is talking on the phone) adjusting the temperature on the incubating egg in the lab thinking it will warm the room for the rabbits.
the watchman at Lock 57 hearing something outside, assuming once again it is kids and being attacked by the creature when he investigates.
Twill and Dr. Rogers spotting from a helicopter a small lake with the white foam-like substance floating on the surface.
Twill diving with Dr. Johns and planting explosive charges near the shells of dormant creatures.
Explosions as the two divers ascend and make it to shore.
Final Stage:
[Prior to putting your stew on to cook, top it off with a climactic battle in which the hero-protagonist vanquishes the creature.]
In this final stage;
Ensure that Twill calls the lab but receives no answer.
Have Sandy sneaking into the lab while her mother is on the phone and finding all the rabbits dead and their cages torn apart.
Next, shift Twill over to the lab to discover that a hatched mollusk has Gail and Sandy cornered in a closet as it chews through the door.
Pour Twill into the action by getting him to fight the creature with lab chemicals and a CO2 fire extinguisher, giving Gail and Sandy a chance to escape the closet.
Sprinkle into the lab an assortment of Navy personnel with guns to finally dispatch the mollusk.
When the stew is ready, serve with a dollop of predictable sentimental happy ending with Twill carrying Sandy out of the lab and Gail walking beside them.
Close with the three of them walking towards the camera and away from the lab building, destined to live happily ever after as a family.
Bon Apetit!
Points of Interest
David Duncan who wrote the story for “The Monster That Challenged the World” also wrote scripts for “The Time Machine” (1960) and “Fantastic Voyage” (1966)
Filming took place in 16 days with most of the underwater scenes shot at Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles. Close-ups were later filmed in a tank filled with water and plastic seaweed.
The film’s story is well-structured and the pace of the first half of the film is quite good. Thereafter, it does seem to drag on a bit until the final climax.
The special effects are reasonable for the time but are constrained by the film’s budget. Unlike many other films at the time, the creature in “The Monster that Challenged the World” appears to a mechanical or early animatronic model which looks more like something that resides in the bottom of my garden and feasts on my cabbages rather than a mollusc.
Sci-Fi Film Stew?!
The rather loose use of the recipe format for presenting the film was undertaken in order to highlight some the limiting and restrictive aspects that conventional systems can have on the way we view the world and our place in it. Such systems may cover the arts, politics, education, science, economics and more.
To an extent, we need to have some order and structure and agreed methods and criteria with which to describe, categorise and explain existence, our world and the universe. How else can we expect to live, to survive or exist?
The problem arises when the systems (any system!) we create to achieve the above serve to restrict innovative, unconventional and progressive thought and action by erecting unyielding walls of conservative, conventional, and orthodox thinking, whereby only certain specified and approved ingredients are prescribed; preparation and cooking times are predetermined and set; and only approved procedures are to be followed to the letter and not deviated from.
The end result of this is that we wind up having such things as films, literature and so on slotted neatly into genre boxes with the end product being predictable, formulaic and shallow. No matter where we are in the world, as we keep on slavishly following the recipes set down for us, before we know it our own thinking becomes predictable, formulaic, shallow and closed to other possibilities.
Sometimes you just need to rip up the recipe, gather your own ingredients, formulate your own method, share the results with others and……challenge the world!
Earth vs. the Spider (1958)
A cheap, brisk, enjoyable and cheesy fun film
Directed by Bert I. Gordon
Produced by Bert I. Gordon
Written by László Görög, George Worthing Yates
Music by Albert Glasser
Cinematography: Jack A. Marta
Edited by Walter E. Keller
Distributed by American International Pictures
Running time: 73 minutes
Budget: $100,000
Cast
Ed Kemmer as Mr. Kingman
June Kenney as Carol Flynn
Eugene Persson as Mike Simpson
Gene Roth as Sheriff Cagle
Hal Torey as Mr. Simpson
June Jocelyn as Mrs. Flynn
Mickey Finn as Sam Haskel
Sally Fraser as Mrs. Helen Kingman
Troy Patterson as Joe
Skip Young as Sam (the bass player)
Howard Wright as Jake
Bill Giorgio as Deputy Sheriff Sanders
Hank Patterson as Hugo (high school janitor)
Jack Kosslyn as Mr. Fraser (camera club teacher)
Bob Garnet as Springdale pest control man
Shirley Falls as switchboard operator
Bob Tetrick as Deputy Sheriff Dave
Nancy Kilgas as a dancer
George Stanley as one of the men in the cavern
David Tomack as the power line foreman
Merritt Stone as Jack Flynn (Carol's dad)
Dick D'Agostin as the pianist
1958: A Taste Of The Times
Economy & Society
In 1958 if you lived in the US, you could expect on average to;
Cross the Atlantic by air instead of by sea.
Face an inflation rate of 2.73%
Buy a new house for $12,750.00
Rent a place for $92.00 per month
Fill your car up for 25 cents a gallon of gas
However, there are a few clouds looming on the horizon that could affect your standard of living……
At a time of declining demand for commodities and other raw materials, the Recession (Eisenhower Recession) of 1958 in the United States forced over five million people or nearly 7% of the labour force out of work.
The sharp worldwide economic downturn was the most significant recession during the post-World War II boom between 1945 and 1970 and lasted for about eight months.
And now we turn our attention to……..
Earth vs. the Spider
In our own age of gross hyperbole, overstatement and exaggeration, the title, “Earth vs. the Spider” makes perfect sense as a means to achieving a particular end. After all, who would want to go and see a film titled, “Small town of River Falls takes on big spider?” Strip away the arty farty bullshit and what are we really left with? As far as Earth vs the Spider is concerned, read on to find out…..
(Spoilers follow below….)
The film opens with credits appearing over a spider web graphic towards which we are drawn in ever closer to the spider in its centre. “’Will you walk into my parlour? said the spider to the fly!’”
The first scene begins one night with a pickup truck making its way down a deserted rural mountain highway. The driver, Jack smiles as he examines a birthday present intended for his daughter. In the box, there is a handwritten note that reads, "To Carol with Love, Dad" together with a bracelet. Suddenly, Jack notices something on the road ahead, just before his windshield is shattered as he drives into a cable stretched across the road. Jack screams and his face is covered in blood. We next hear the sound of his car crashing somewhere off the road.
The next morning the scene shifts to the small town of River Falls.
Notice how many of these films seem to be set in small town mid-west America! I guess cost and convenience are factors in the choice of location. Then there’s a possible interesting aspect of the American psyche to consider. For instance, what could be more poignant than to picture in the mind, a small isolated community being besieged by powerful forces beyond their control and hell bent on their destruction? I’d bet that despite being armed to the teeth and bristling with unimaginably powerful weaponry, many Americans might still harbour a belief that their own community and even the whole nation is somehow a lone isolated bastion surrounded by hostile forces hell bent on bringing down their way of life! Certain politicians would certainly like to foster such fears and beliefs – not mentioning any names, of course!
Anyway, back to the age of hot rod jalopies, ponytails, poodle skirts, blue jeans and college jackets, where we learn that Jake’s teenage daughter, Carol is concerned that her less than perfect role model father didn't come home last night. As they walk to school, Mike gives Carol a little birthday gift. Carol clearly has other things on her mind and she returns the gift after they have a petty argument.
In the classroom, Professor Art Kingman is giving his students a lesson on electricity. Unlike youngsters of today who would use their tech devices to communicate in class, we see Mike and Carol employing old school surreptitious methods of communication by passing a note between each other.
After school, Mike and Carol head off to their friend, Joe to borrow his hot rod to use in their search for Carol’s father. Out in the hills, they drive along the road her father most likely would have taken the night before. They eventually discover a thick, sticky rope-like material attached to a tree and lying across the road, together with broken pieces of automobile windshield glass. Carol then locates a box on the road, opens it and finds the note written in her father's own handwriting.
Carol then notices a wrecked pickup truck in a ravine and she and Mike go down to get a closer look. The truck is her father’s but they can find no sign of him. Not far from the truck, they spot a cave entrance and walk over to it. Mike soon finds a battered and torn up hat which he hides behind his back when Carol approaches and then drops it out of sight so she can’t see it. It’s all to obvious why.
Mike starts to enter the cave and suggests to Carol that her father might have gone inside to shelter from the cold last night. After following him in, Carol calls out for her father which causes a stalactite to become dislodged, almost striking the two teenagers.
Further into the cave, Mike and Carol discover the gruesome skeletal remains of two unfortunate individuals. Carol then falls through an opening followed by Mike and both land on a net-like construction made of the same sticky material as that cable they found on the road.
As they struggle to free themselves from the sticky strands of the net, they hear a strange screeching sound and then spot the cause of the din - a huge tarantula intent on turning the young couple into entrees. Before the spider can execute his Master Chef plans, Carol and Mike manage to extricate themselves from the web and beat a hasty retreat to the car.
Isn’t it interesting how in many films and indeed in real life, threats and potential enemies are often made out to be of enormous proportions, magnified and of an order of magnitude almost beyond comprehension. The established authorities are then made out to be unaware or disbelieving of the nature of the threat being posed and need to be prodded into action. Who better than the expert hero scientisty-type person to do the prodding? However, all too often in real life, expert consensus is simply ignored if it’s politically or ideologically unpalatable.
Mike and Carol return home with a piece of the giant spider web thread cut from the strand on the road as proof of what happened to Carol’s dad and of what they witnessed. After examining the strand, Kingman concludes that it appears to be a large piece of silk. He finds the teenager’s story to be somewhat incredible, but decides that the Sheriff ought to be notified. Mike informs him that they already did so while Mr. Simpson notes that the Sheriff did not believe their story. Kingman then phones the Sheriff himself.
The phone rings as Sheriff Cagle is playing checkers with his deputy Pete Sanders. Kingman wisely uses the incident of Carol’s missing father instead of the story about a giant spider in order to propel the Sheriff into action. Cagle agrees and sets about forming a posse to search for Flynn. Kingman also suggests that the Sheriff call a pest control company and bring adequate quantities of DDT:
“Well, speaking of spiders - are you sure rifles are just the thing? Insects have a pretty simple nervous system, sheriff. You could plug holes in one all day and never hit a vital spot. If you want to be on the safe side, call the pest control people in Springdale and have 'em send out all the DDT they can find.”
We now shift location back to the ravine leading to the cave where a pest control operator suggests using a two to four percent solution for spiders, but Kingman insists on the use of a fifty percent solution. We all know why, don’t we? Cagle leads a group of people including Mike and Carol who are to provide directions. Suddenly, Carol screams, and the rest of the party run to find her sobbing in Mike's arms, along with the desiccated remains of her father.
A sceptical Sheriff Cagle wants a coroner's report made out with the cause of death stated as being "cause unknown" and that they should “let the coroner worry about the rest.”
After the body of Mr Flynn is removed from the cave, The Sheriff and Kingman continue searching the caverns and manage to locate the giant web. Cagle orders the DDT be deployed.
Perched on the sticky web, the deputy and the other men begin spraying. Not surprisingly, the spider bursts on the scene only to be greeted by rifle fire. The bullets have no effect though and Deputy Sheriff Pete Sanders is soon killed by the spider.
The spider receives a hail of bullets and a drenching in DDT until it is apparently rendered lifeless.
I remember the days when DDT was the chemical weapon of choice used in humanity’s war against plant-eating critters, that is until its devastating ecological and environmental consequences were recognised. Now we just from time to time throughout our history unleash chemical holocausts on our own species in the form of such innovations as agent orange; mustard and chlorine gas; sarin and VX nerve gas and other lethal agents that are deemed necessary by tin-pot dictators, nation states, cult and terrorist groups. You can bet there are plenty of stockpiles around the world to deal with the potential threat of……..well, certainly not giant spiders!
Upon exiting the cave, Carol, notices that the box she had in her pocket is missing. She concludes that she must have dropped it in the cave. She is unable to re-enter the cave as it is now full of gas. Mike tells her they can come back later to retrieve it. Cagle tells Sam Haskell, the Road Foreman, to make arrangements to seal the cave entrance. Kingman, however, wants the spider for scientific investigation, but that is the last thing on Cagle’s mind.
Science teacher Kingman has indeed managed to make arrangements for the giant spider’s body to be brought to the school and stored in the school’s gym. He intends to send photos and a report to the State University and then send the carcass off to them so that they can study it, and determine how and why it exists. Unlike most similar films of the time, no explicit reason is given for the giant spider’s existence.
Kingman identifies the giant specimen as a Bird Spider when suddenly It moves and strikes a young man by the name of Fraser, knocking him to the floor. Kingman assures him that it is in fact dead and that its movement was only the result of a muscle contraction or Galvani's reaction.
BUT WE KNOW BETTER, DON’T WE?
The arrangement favored by Kingman doesn’t go down too well with Joe, whose rock and roll band needs to use the gym to rehearse for their performance at the school dance. They can’t use the auditorium on account of the drama club using it. Hip cat Joe declares, “If we don’t swing solid, the kids won’t have a blast!”
If there’s one character who deserves to wind up as a desiccated husk, it’s that twerp who looks like he’s a 35-year-old playing the part of a 17-year-old. Joe protests when he learns that the gym is off-limits for the time being. Anyway, he and the band manage to convince Hugo the janitor into opening up the gym.
After the band sets up, they start to “play loud enough to wake the dead!” and we see Joe dementedly flailing his arms about while his legs are busily going every which way in an attempt to…. well, you work out what he’s doing! The result is a session of rock and roll complete with teenage dancers. This of course brings us to the kind of audience this film is pitched at. Nothing different to what modern films do that feature teenage and prepubescent stars tackling all the problems in the universe.
Speaking of the intended audience, there is the scene in which Carol phones the local movie house where Mike works for his father who is the owner. She pleads with Mike to take her back to the cave so she can find her bracelet. The movie theatre in which Mike works displays a film poster not too subtly advertising The Amazing Colossal Man. The film currently running at the theatre is Attack of the Puppet People, which “coincidentally” stars June Kenney. Amazingly, both films were also directed by none other than Bert I. Gordon!
So, kids, make sure you go along and see these two films! But that’s OK. We’re all too familiar these days with shameless mutual product advertising and product placements in films. Raised laptop lids with partially eaten apple logos anyone?
It turns out that our big daddy-o arachnid likes to bop as the music seems to have reactivated it. With great alacrity, everyone exits stage right leaving poor old pops Hugo to deal with the situation. After locking the door on the spider, Hugo shuffles over to a payphone to call Kingman at his home. Just as Kingman answers, Hugo screams and drops the phone as the spider breaks through the wall and kills him. Hugo….a-go-go, Hugo, a-gone….
In the meantime, Mike and Carol have returned to the cave, unaware the spider is now on the loose in the town causing mayhem and panic. Tell me, who among the fleeing frightened townsfolk would stop to pay attention to Kingman calling out through the open door of the Sheriff’s office for them to get off the streets and find shelter?! Really helpful. Meanwhile, Sherriff Cagle has been trying to call the state capitol for help but the long-distance lines are down.
Having learned that the giant spider is now “down on Maple Street" which is where he and his family lives, Kingman races off home fearing for the safety of his wife Helen and their infant son.
As luck (or the writers) would have it, the spider sets about besieging Kingman’s home and its occupants. Kingman drives his car into the spider and survives because you see in those days, cars like Kingman’s ‘58 Plymouth were made out of good ‘ole US steel and were built like tanks.
The spider having taken exception to this decides to pursue Kingman’s car back to the cave. Kingman manages to evade his hairy-legged pursuer and drives back home to find his house wrecked, but his family safe and well.
While all this is going on, those two dang fool kids, Mike and Carol manage to get themselves lost in the caverns after having located the missing bracelet. As they wander around with the spider gradually approaching, Sheriff Cagle and a party of men arrive at the cave entrance and start unloading the dynamite. Eventually, Mike and Carol manage to locate the web and the right way out of the cave, but of course they get stuck.
Mr. Simpson and Mrs. Flynn who have come to warn the Sheriff that the teenagers might be in the cave, spot Joe's car just as Haskell dynamites the cave entrance. The blast triggers a partial collapse of the cavern Mike and Carol are in. When Cagle learns that the teens are in the cave, he gets Haskell and his men to begin an excavation. Brainiac Kingman suggests that they try to electrocute the spider using power lines. Ah Ha! Practical application of science classroom theory. Always pays to pay attention in class!
Mike and Carol are shaken up after the explosion but are not seriously hurt. Outside the cavern, the excavation crew have struck bedrock and will need to use dynamite to create an opening. Mike and Carol, however, are trapped on a ledge with the spider close-by. Finally, the excavation crew breaks through the rock and lowers a ladder down which Kingman comes armed with power cables and electrodes.
While Kingman makes his way toward the teenagers by using their cries for help to guide him, the spider has been able to position itself between Mike and Carol on one side and Kingman and Cagle on the other. Cagle throws one of the electrodes over to Mike, while Kingman hangs on to the other electrode. As power surges through the cable, the spider is caught between the two electrodes and an arc of electricity passes right through its body causing it to fall off the cave wall.
After Carol and Mike are rescued and reunited with their parents, the cave is once again resealed with dynamite. The film closes with a shot of the giant spider impaled on a stalagmite.
Points of Interest
A fact about spiders (which are not insects by the way) is that they don’t make any growling or screeching noises and being an arthropod, they don’t possess lungs and vocal-cords like we mammals do.
When the 1958 film, The Fly was released became a blockbuster, the title of Earth vs the Spider was shortened to just The Spider on all the advertising material. The original screen title, Earth vs. the Spider however, has remained and is the title by which it is known.
Some of the cave interiors made use of stills from Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico, while live action scenes were filmed at Bronson Caves in Griffith Park near Los Angeles.
At least the action and pace of the film more than makes up for the very ordinary special effects (another rear projection superimposed giant bug crawling over miniatures!), the routine story line (a rip-off of Them 1954 & Tarantula 1955) and the mediocre acting performances.
One thing has definitely changed over time in terms of sci-fi (and other genre) movies. I’m not referring to improved technical aspects or production values, story structuring, characterization and so on. While these aspects have vastly improved over the course of sixty years, this has often been at the expense of pure fun and enjoyment. So much of a sense of fun and wonder has been squeezed and sapped out of film-making while we are expected to wring our hands over things like intense inter-personal relationship wrangling and whatever social issue and politically correct world view happens to be the current flavour of the month. We just take ourselves too damn seriously!
So, despite the some of the shortcomings of their films, thank you to those pioneer film makers like Bert I. Gordon who without spending amounts equivalent to a small country's GDP, gave audiences a ripping good yarn with bucket loads of pure fun and entertainment.
Monster from Green Hell (1958)
An average 50's giant bug film that peters out at the end.
Directed by Kenneth G. Crane
Produced by Al Zimbalist
Written by Endre Bohem, Louis Vittes
Music by Albert Glasser
Cinematography: Ray Flin
Distributed by DCA
Running time: 71 minutes
Cast
Jim Davis as Dr. Quent Brady
Robert Griffin as Dan Morgan
Joel Fluellen as Arobi
Barbara Turner as Lorna Lorentz
Eduardo Ciannelli as Mahri
Vladimir Sokoloff as Dr. Lorentz
(Spoilers follow below….)
Journey into Green Hell
(Full account of the “Green Hill” incident from the personal journal of Dr Quent Brady)
Entry….
My colleague, Dan Morgan and I have been put in charge of a U.S. government program that has been designed to send various animals and insects into earth orbit to test the effects of exposure to space radiation.
Why do we do this?
"This is the age of the rocket, the jet, atomic power. When man prepares to reach for the stars. But before he dares to launch himself into space, there is one great question to be answered: What happens to life in the airless void above Earth's atmosphere? Will life remain untouched, unharmed by its flight through space? Or will it change into…what? There was only one way to find out and we were working on it."
And how will we do this?
Thanks to the former Nazi German rocket scientist bastards we spirited out of Germany at the end of the war, we have lots of V2 rockets with which to conduct our tests and prepare human beings for what lies beyond the comforting confines of our planet. It is into one of these rockets that we were able to “load the passengers” and at 10.15 minus 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 we sent them off “into the wide blue yonder!”
Entry…..
After what seemed at first to have been a successful launch, the radar operator informed us that the rocket was “out of normal radar range.”
There was nothing for it but for Dan and I to consult the……COMPUTER! Who would have thought it possible? We live in an age where we can simply ask a computer something just like asking a person and hey presto, it tells us the answer! I bet one day we’ll wind up miniaturizing these suckers and everyone will have their own personal computer from which they can get answers to any of their questions. Gosh, we may never have to think for ourselves again! The computer will just tell us everything we’ll ever need to know. People will probably even be able to use these devices to communicate with one another! Imagine being so dependent on a piece of technology!
Upstairs in the computer room, Dan read the numbers into the computer: “Trajectory 319…burn efficiency…. friction coefficient.” The answer we received came out only as an approximation from which we were able to determine that the rocket would land “just off the coast of Africa” or more specifically, western Central Africa.
Author’s Note (added later after the “Green Hell” incident) …..
Unknown to me at the time was that in a remote part of Equatorial Africa near a place called Mt. Virunga, a certain Dr. Lorentz and his daughter, Lorna had conducted an autopsy on a native and determined that he had died of paralysis of the nerve centres caused by an injection of a massive amount of venom. It was concluded that the venom couldn’t possibly have been that of a snake. Their able African assistant, Arobi was reported to have told Lorentz that a monster was terrorizing the people in an area known as “Green Hell,” as well as causing the animals to flee. Lorentz was of the opinion that this so-called monster was nothing more than “a thing of nature, not of evil spirits.”
Entry….
Months after the rocket incident, I have come across a newspaper account with the headline:” CENTRAL AFRICA IN TURMOIL.” It turns out that the turmoil in Central Africa involved riots caused by (as reported) the presence of gigantic monsters!
I reminded Dan Morgan that the failed rocket landed in Africa six months previously. I also showed Dan the side effects on test animals to exposure to cosmic radiation. Short exposure caused changes in coloration of the guinea pigs’ fur as well as behavioral changes in the lizards which seemed to be in a trance-like state. The baby spider crab was four times larger than its mother for crying out loud!
The “doubling of size of offspring” set me thinking about the wasps in the missing rocket that were exposed to huge amounts of cosmic radiation – “40 hours exposure” compared with the minimal overexposure of the test animals.
My God! Did the Ruskies have to go through this when they beat us into space this year and then sent that dog up there? How come our rockets keep malfunctioning?
Entry…
“No-body was anxious to believe in my theory, not even Dan. On the other hand, no-body could afford to ignore it. I had written a report and sent it to project headquarters. They didn’t like it much there and promptly sent it on to Washington.
“Finally, my request for leave of absence for Dan and myself was granted. They gave us a letter for the Territorial Agent at Libreville and wished us luck.
“If there was anything in my hunch we were going to need it. We booked passage on TWA for immediate departure. Destination, Africa.”
It seems that once again we Americans feel called upon to venture into distant lands in order to clean up a mess we're responsible for creating in the first place!
Entry……
When we arrived in Libreville, equatorial Africa, the Territorial Agent helped us put together a plan to travel to meet Dr. Lorentz. The agent informed us that there are problems in the interior and that the situation is highly disturbed, possibly dangerous. The area in question is situated around Mt. Virunga, also known by the natives as “Green Hell.” The agent suggests we visit Dr. Lorentz before going to Green Hell. This will involve a 400-mile trek to Dr Lorentz’s hospital compound.
Entry….
“We are still here in Libreville. The Territorial Agent was co-operative but not too quick in arranging for our departure. As we sit around the hotel waiting, I find myself wondering just what is happening in the interior and to the natives and to Dr Lorentz.”
Author’s Note (added after the “Green Hell” incident)
We didn’t realise at the time that Dr. Lorentz and his assistant, Arobi had formed a small exploration party. While exploring, they heard strange buzzing noises which Arobi seemed to recognise. This was followed by a stampede of obviously panicked elephants.
Two of the party then decided to make off and leave Lorentz and Arobi on their own. Both bearers were apparently killed in most unusual circumstances but no trace of their bodies could be found. All that could be found was an unidentifiable giant footprint and one of the missing men’s good luck charm.
Dr Lorentz decided to continue on towards Mt. Virunga despite Arobi’s protests. While instructing Arobi to remain behind, Lorentz justified his decision to go on despite the danger on the grounds that that “we’ve got to know” and that “knowledge drives out fear.” You gotta’ admire the old fella! By all accounts a regular Albert Schweitzer.
Entry….
As I peel away another scab of impatience from the month of March and Friday the 23rd becomes the weekend of the 24th & 25th, it has been ten days of champing at the bit in this hotel. At least we have our supplies gathered for the safari as well as some little beauties: hand grenades or baby bombs which are “potent, portable, pulverising.” They are the newest development of the US army. In the good old US of A, if we can’t solve a problem one way, we can solve it another way by blowing the holy shit out of it!
Entry…...
“On the morning of the 25th, our safari got under way. The best guide in Central Africa, an Arab named Mahri, Dan and I ….worked out a schedule. In order to reach Dr Lorentz’s hospital……we had to walk a little over 400 miles.
“Our schedule called for 15 miles per day on average. All things being equal, we figured to reach Dr Lorentz in about 27 days.”
Goddamn! Didn’t I cut a magnificent figure out there in my crisp white jacket with the huge padded shoulders! There I stood commanding and impressive, directing and encouraging the native bearers onward with the majestic sweep of my arm. I felt sure that under my sure-footed stewardship and command we would make good time and achieve our goal with ease!
Entry….
“I found out soon enough that being on safari involved putting one foot in front of the other and then repeating the process. The first few days were murder. It was obvious that working over test tubes was not the right way to train for a hike across the plains of Africa.”
Entry….
“A week went by and then another…I should have been pleased but I wasn’t. Something was eating at me. It started like a simple itch in my brain but as the days passed it grew into a feeling. I tried to put my finger on it but couldn’t. Instinctively I knew that something was going to happen. The only trouble was I didn’t know what….”
Entry….
My sense of dread and foreboding was soon realized with the rhythmic sound of war drums in the distance. “There wasn’t anything we could do except hope we hadn’t been spotted but if we had, the natives would permit us to pass through without causing trouble. It didn’t take long before we learned we were wrong on all counts.”
Why is that local inhabitants of a place get so annoyed when outsiders enter their territory armed and without permission and proceed to violate their sovereignty? I just don’t get it. After all, Dan and I are Americans, for goodness sake!
Like an advancing carpet of soldier ants, the native horde advanced towards us while all we could do was flee to higher ground. We then hit upon a tried and true tactic when faced with having one’s back against the wall: scorch and burn! We set fire to the surrounding countryside and hoped that the resulting conflagration and devastation would prevent the advancing hostile natives from reaching us. The plan worked. The natives took to their heels and fled the scene helter-skelter.
Entry….
“To avoid any more native tribes, we changed course which added another 75 miles of hot wide-open country. The sun beat down as though it hated us. And then we began to run out of drinking water. In Africa, that means running out of time…..”
Entry…
It wasn’t long before Dan began to succumb to the effects of dehydration. Brave little bastard! I actually had to force him to drink. We later stumbled upon a watering hole, but Mahri warned us not to drink. The reason was the presence of vultures “which only come when death is near.” In this case, a dead lion which had been poisoned after drinking the water. One poor desperate fellow defied the warning and drank the lethal water which caused him to scream and foam at the mouth before quickly expiring.
Entry….
On we trudged, dehydrated and almost defeated until the heavens opened up and a rainstorm brought us much needed relief. The effect on me was instantaneous. I began to giggle hysterically and was overcome with an irresistible urge to rip open my jacket, bare my chest to the world and slowly and sensuously rub my torso with my hands, much to the amusement of the native onlookers and local wildlife I think.
Entry….
“The rains kept coming, more than we needed. Africa is a crazy place. It either tries to dehydrate you or drown you. We sat it out for two days. Dan recovered nicely, but I was getting restless.”
Author’s Note (added after the “Green Hell” incident)
I don’t remember much after the rains because after a few more days of trudging onward I had developed a fever and had to be carried on a stretcher. I also seem to recall a lightning strike and a tree toppling over and then…. nothing!
I next remember waking up at Dr Lorentz’s hospital and catching sight a woman – a white woman, the only one for perhaps hundreds of miles! I learned that she was Lorna Lorentz, the doctor’s daughter. She was not exactly a beautiful woman nor even all that attractive. In fact, throughout most of the time I spent in her company, she seemed to mope about with a semi-permanent frown and scowl on her face. Still, there was something about her……
Entry….
It wasn’t long before I was declared fever-free. In the meantime, I learned that Dr. Lorentz had left on an expedition to search for the source of all the problems that were being experienced in the area.
“After a shave and a shower, I began to feel like myself. I watched Lorna play a few lonely notes on the organ. I wondered how long we had to wait before Dr Lorentz returned from his expedition. I wanted to learn of his findings before Dan and I started on the job that had brought us to Africa.”
Entry….
We finally received news about Dr Lorentz but in the worst possible way. Arobi returned to the hospital and reported that Dr. Lorentz was dead or as he put it, “he’s with his God.” He died on the path leading down to the volcano where according to Arobi, a monster killed him and he lay there in the dust, “his life fled away.”
Arobi then showed us a fragment of a larger object that was embedded in the doctor's shoulder. I was able to analyze the object and determine that it was part of a stinger -from a giant wasp! In addition, Dan discovered that it contained venom.
All that remains for us to do is to go down into Green Hell and try to do something about the giant insects. The fear is that if the monsters breed and get out of Green Hell, the entire world is endangered.
Entry….
Lorna by this stage felt that she had “no tears left.” I tried to explain to her that “experiments sometimes fail” but that “they have to be done.” My words sounded rather hollow when Lorna told me that they wouldn’t make her father live again.
I think I’m beginning to understand what I see in that girl. It made no difference to her that the natives were reluctant to come on the safari as bearers. Nor was she fazed when I suggested to her “this isn’t the kind of thing for a girl.” Lorna simply shamed several local villagers into helping as “they couldn’t admit their fear was greater than a woman’s.” She also insisted on accompanying us to Green Hell. Never try to argue with a woman is what I always say!
Entry…
The next morning, we set off on our trek to Mt. Virunga. Along the way a monkey thought it would be a great idea to chuck coconuts at us from high up a coconut tree. Yeah, we sure laughed it up but I was thinking as my finger itched and hovered over my gun’s trigger, ‘laugh it up hairy legs. I won’t miss from here.’ I decided to resist temptation and the likelihood of Lorna’s scowl deepening and taking on additional accusatory dimensions.
Amid reservoirs of perspiration rapidly filling up around our armpits and salt water canals forming on the backs of our shirts, we pressed on ever deeper into the heart of Green Hell. And suddenly we came upon a scene straight from Dante’s Inferno: a village full of dead natives, whose bodies were lying every which way, enveloped in the eerie kind of silence that presses and suffocates the heart and mind.
What is that old saying? “A stampeding herd of water buffalo are not stopped by an arrow or a word.” It seems that our native bearers had never heard of it before as they unceremoniously departed the scene with great alacrity. Cowardly swine!
And so, with the African and the Arab left to bear our burdens (as it always seems to be the case in these kinds of situations for some reason) our depleted party set off for Green Hell with ominous sign posts as our guide: the giant footprints from an ungodly creature and the angry rumblings of a volcano. Perhaps Arobi is right about the volcano: “She is angry today.”
Entry…..
That evening in a camp-fire scene more reminiscent of an outdoor camping scene involving the toasting of marshmallows and the telling of ghost stories, I gave our small party a brief but highly informative lecture concerning the subject of wasps. I informed them that “wasps are insects that form a colony with the queen at the head. The queen mates, lays eggs, multiplies even more rapidly than any other form of life. The creatures we pursue are wasps. No matter how changed their shapes, no matter how large they’ve grown, they’ll multiply as rapidly as the tiny insects from which they spring. They will overrun all of Africa unless we destroy their colony or more importantly, their queen.”
I then went on to explain to Mahri that ‘we’ve brought weapons from our country”: small bombs filled with a special explosive to use against the monsters we encounter. Yesiree, ‘Made in America!’
Lorna posed an interesting question when she asked me, “Why should you be so concerned about what happens to us?” I simply told her, “a feeling of responsibility, I guess.” I guess! Are you kidding me! None of this would have happened if we had been more concerned with the consequences of our actions for others in the world!
As I made my notes by the fire before retiring, my attention was diverted by a buzzing sound which Arobi recognized. Upon investigation of the source of the sound, we came across an unbelievable sight: A titanic battle raging between a gargantuan snake and a behemoth-sized wasp. The snake was soon dispatched with the wasp’s venom.
Suddenly our camp site was surrounded by a number of giant wasps. Our adversaries, however failed to launch an attack. It then occurred to me that “maybe they don’t like fire.” There was only one thing for it! We proceeded to pour kerosene on the fire and set the surrounding jungle ablaze. If it worked for us earlier against the hostile native horde then it might do the trick on our six-legged foes.
Entry….
The next morning “I could see no sign of the beast or creatures that surrounded our camp the night before. Luckily, I was right. Whatever it was, didn’t like fire, and we kept ours brightly burning until the night faded into the dawn.
“As I looked out over the plain, I could taste the fear I felt: not only fear for myself, but for everyone else in the group. I felt certain we were going to discover what killed Dr Lorentz and I wondered when we found it, would we be able to stop it?
“As we broke camp, I told Arobi and the others to check on the ammunition. I kept asking myself the same question: If we found it, would we be able to destroy it? I didn’t know the answer, so I did the one thing everyone else does when they face the unknown – I quietly prayed……”
Author’s Note: (added after the “Green Hell” incident)
Mt. Virunga was becoming more and more active. Dan summed it up by observing that the “old girl is really smokin’ this morning.” We proceeded to enter a valley accompanied by the cacophony of sounds coming from the giant insects. When we got to the area the sounds were coming from, I went on ahead alone to reconnoiter. Soon after I identified the queen and colony, we made good use of the grenades and went on the attack. You can imagine our disappointment when we discovered that the explosives had no effect on the insects. In fact, our actions only served to enrage them. Next time I pray it will be for the kind of Mother Of All Bombs that could take out any number of insects, a mount Virunga and a sizable chunk of central western Africa!!!!!
Not being in possession of such a product of American know-how, we just managed to escape with our lives by ducking into a nearby cave. I had to lob one of the grenade-bombs into a box of bombs to prevent one of the giant insects from harming us. The resulting explosion succeeded in closing the cave entrance.
There we were, entombed in a sealed cave illuminated only by the light of torches. After considerable time spent rummaging around and exploring our subterranean prison, Morgan and Mahri finally managed to discover an exit.
As we emerged from the tunnel, Mt. Virunga erupted with lava. The hot magma flowed down into the area containing the wasps, finally destroying them. Just like that!
I could only stare aghast and observe, "Well, it took a volcano to do what we failed to do." Dan added, "Nature has a way of correcting its own mistakes." As I watched the growing lake of molten lava, I couldn’t help but silently ponder how all our efforts to correct a wrong we had committed were virtually for nothing. No matter what we did, the result would have been the same……...
*******************************
Points of Interest
“Monster from Green Hell” was originally shown as a double-feature with the film “The Brain from Planet Arous.” It was also distributed in 1958 on a double bill with the English-dubbed Japanese film, “Half Human.”
The stop motion animation for the monsters was, considering the small budget, quite well done, especially during the scene where a giant wasp and snake do battle.
The film had quite a lively start but gradually became duller, especially with all that interminable trekking through the jungle punctuated by a substantial helping of stock footage scene at the expense of featuring more of the giant wasps committing acts of carnage and mayhem. And that all too frequent voice-over narration!!!!! AAAAHHHHH!!!!!!
WASPS FACT FILE
Importance
Nearly every pest insect is preyed upon by a wasp species, either for food or as a host for its parasitic larvae. Wasps also consume dead insects and eat flies around the garden.
Dangers
Wasps can present a threat to those who are allergic to their sting. Their sting causes anaphylactic shock which can be fatal. The venom in wasps contains a pheromone that causes other wasps to become more aggressive which can pose a problem if we try not to swat them near their nest or other wasps.
Stingers
Unlike bees, wasps can sting repeatedly, but only females have stingers, which are modified egg-laying organs.
Habitat & Organisation
Wasps live everywhere except Antarctica. They live in colonies forming self-contained communities with each following a caste order of queens, males and workers. A colony can grow to 50,000 wasps in one summer.
Life-cycle & Habits
A male wasp is called a Drone whose function is to mate with the Queen. After they have fulfilled this function, they die soon afterwards.
Wasps feed their young meat such as insect larvae.
The only wasps that survive the winter are young fertilized queens as the cold weather kills the males, workers and foundation queen.
The new queens emerge in the spring to build new nests. Initially the queen lays up to a dozen eggs and when they hatch into larvae and she feeds them until they become workers.
The workers forage for food, feed the new larvae and defend the nest.
In late summer, the colony produces males and new queens. They then fly away to mate and the queens find a place to hibernate.
Wasps make nests from paper by chewing up strips of bark and spitting it out again to form a rough paper.
Some wasps make nests in basements, sheds or dark, cool places.
In Australia and elsewhere there is some concern about European wasps and their aggression. People are warned to be careful about drinking from soft drink cans and at picnics when wasps are around.
I hope you enjoyed this volume of “Sci-Fi Film Fiesta.”
Keep an eye out for Volume 9: Accidents and Experiments
Useful Resources
Abbott, Jon., Giant Bug Movies of the 1950s., Independently Published., 2019
Atkinson, Barry., Atomic Age Cinema The Offbeat, the Classic and the Obscure, Midnight Marquee Press, Inc.; 2013
Bliss, Michael., Invasions USA The Essential Science Fiction Films of the 1950s, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014.
Chambers, Jim., Recollections: A Baby Boomer's Memories of the Fabulous Fifties, Lulu.com, 2009
Fischer, Dennis., Science Fiction Film Directors, 1895-1998, McFarland, 2011
Geraghty, Lincoln., American Science Fiction Film and Television, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009
Hendershot, Cyndy., Paranoia, The Bomb, And 1950s Science Fiction Films, University of Wisconsin Press, 1999
Hogan, David J. (Editor)., Invasion USA: Essays on Anti-Communist Movies of the 1950s and 1960s, McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers, 2017
Koca, Gary., Good and Bad Sci-Fi/Horror Movies of the 1950s: And the Stars Who Were in Those Films, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017
Lemay, John., Monster Insects of the Movies Bicep Books; Illustrated edition 2020
Moore, Theresa M., & Carlyle, Patrick C., Science Fiction Films of The 20th Century 1950-1954, Antellus, 2019
Moore, Theresa M., Science Fiction Films of The 20th Century 1955-1956, Antellus, 2019
Moore, Theresa M., Science Fiction Films of The 20th Century 1958 Anrellus, 2019
Seed, David., Science Fiction: A Very Short Introduction., Oxford University Press, 2011
Warren, Bill., Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Films of the Fifties: McFarland; 21st Century Edition, 2016
Useful Links To On-Line Resources
“Insect Fear: Big Bug Movies of the1950S” by Stefan Blitz at forceofgeek.com
“Out of the Woodwork: Attack of the Big Bug Movies” at
Them! (1954)
Tarantula (1955)
Beginning of the End (1957)
The Black Scorpion (1957)
The Deadly Mantis (1957)
The Monster That Challenged the World (1957)
Earth vs. the Spider (1958)
Monster from Green Hell (1958)
DVD / Streaming:
A Century of Science Fiction, 1996 Directed by Ted Newsom., American Documentary, narrated by Christopher Lee (available free on Tubitv and showing on other streaming services)
Hollywood in the Atomic Age: Monsters! Martians! Mad Scientists! Marshall Publishing & Promotions, Inc. 2021 (Stream on Tubi tv for free)
On-line Critter Fun Facts
1. Tarantulas
Tarantula Fact Sheet - Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
2. Locusts
3. Scorpions
4. Praying Mantis
Praying Mantis Insect Facts - AZ Animals
Praying mantises: Order Mantodea - The Australian Museum
5. Wasps
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