Mara Corday – Missile Test

Giant Monstershow: The Black Scorpion

The Black Scorpion The poor performers in films like this. They come to a production, ready to put in enough work to make some mortgage payments, maybe dig a pool in the backyard, and they do a decent enough job. But then they go to the premiere of the film, with not the highest of expectations (after all, it ain’t John Ford or Howard Hawks they were working with), and they find the audience howling with laughter at the monster effects. Take a moment to appreciate the plight of the bad movie actor.

The Black Scorpion, the 1957 film from director Edward Ludwig and screenwriters David Duncan and Robert Blees, opens, as so many of these monster films from the ’50s do, with stock footage. But, for once, it’s not footage of Air Force jets or Arctic wastes. This time it’s footage of volcanoes oozing lava over the land. The expository voiceover informs the viewer that a new volcano is rising out of the ground in Mexico. In little over a month it has grown to gigantic size, threatening the surrounding ranches. Continue reading “Giant Monstershow: The Black Scorpion”

Giant Monstershow: The Giant Claw

The Giant Claw In the Arctic, vigilant eyes watch the skies. America is in a mortal conflict with communism. In order to protect the free peoples of the west, early warning stations have created an impenetrable net across the Arctic. Should the commies try anything, we’ll be ready. But, it’s not spy planes or ICBMs that menace the nation in this film. A giant monster from places unknown has appeared, and is wreaking havoc. If this sounds at all familiar, that’s because the setup to The Giant Claw is basically the same as yesterday’s giant monster film, The Deadly Mantis. The only major difference is in the monster. The Deadly Mantis featured a giant praying mantis, while The Giant Claw features…well, I’ll get to that.

Released in 1957, The Giant Claw comes to us care of writers Samuel Newman and Paul Gangelin, and director Fred F. Sears. This is the ninth giant monster flick of this year’s Horrorshow, and the pattern established by The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is getting somewhat wearying.

Something terrorizes isolated communities. Some dashing military officer or other authority figure is on hand to take charge of the situation. A scientist or doctor is also present to form wild, yet ultimately correct, hypotheses about what could be happening. Said scientist has an attractive assistant, who catches the eye of the square-jawed lead. Monster continues to attack, leading to a final confrontation in a major city in which the beast is dispatched. Make some cosmetic changes here and there, pick out some reels of stock footage that Bert I. Gordon overlooked, and one has a 1950s giant monster flick. Continue reading “Giant Monstershow: The Giant Claw”

Giant Monstershow: Tarantula

For a giant monster flick, there isn’t a whole lot of giant monster in 1955’s Tarantula, the film from director Jack Arnold and screenwriters Robert M. Fresco and Martin Berkeley. An adaptation of a Fresco teleplay for Science Fiction Theatre, the main action in the original plot surrounded the efforts of scientists to develop a synthetic nutrient. Not happy with the progress of the experiments, the scientists tested the nutrient on themselves, with horrific results. I’m not sure of the process involved, but at some point in the mid-1950s, someone involved in the production thought, “Hey, what if we took that TV episode we made a couple of months back, and added a giant tarantula?” Continue reading “Giant Monstershow: Tarantula”