The Valley of Gwangi (1969)

 

1969 was one of the most bipolar years in history – it simultaneously represented the best and worst mankind had to offer. The same year that brought us Woodstock and the Moon Landing also brought us the Zodiac murders, Charles Manson, and Altamont. The counterculture reached its peak with Woodstock and then quickly dived into obscurity; until the only remnants were a bunch of burn outs roaming aimlessly through the country.  The movie that best represented this turbulent time in US history was Easy Rider – the two protagonists have essentially dropped out of society and are more interested in driving across country on their motorcycles, doing drugs, and hooking up with random women.  It’s a movie that spoke to a generation that had become greatly disillusioned with the American Dream.

It was in this environment that The Valley of Gwangi was released, which to a 1969 audience must have felt a bit old hat. After all, a movie that features cowboys and dinosaurs is the type of fare children would have watched in the 1950s (when both westerns and monster movies were extremely popular).  The Valley of Gwangi was not the first movie to combine the western genre with science fiction – there was an independent feature released in 1956 titled The Beast of Hollow Mountain. In that movie, two rival ranchers encounter an allosaur that is eating their cattle. However, it is also an incredibly dull movie – the title creature doesn’t appear until the final fifteen minutes.  It is interesting to note that The Valley of Gwangi and The Beast of Hollow Mountain stem from the same source – an unrealized Willis H. O’ Brien project called Valley of the Mists. The project went into preproduction, at RKO, in 1941, but was cancelled when the studio changed ownership.  O’ Brien passed away before his dream project was fully realized, though some of his ideas were used in Mighty Joe Young.  In 1969, O’ Brien’s protégé, Ray Harryhausen, decided to take a crack at the project and the results were a mixed bag.

The biggest flaw of The Valley of Gwangi is its derivative nature – it is essentially a remake of King Kong (with Gwangi in the role of Kong).  A struggling wild west show discovers an allosaur in a hidden valley, proceeds to trap it, and then brings it back to civilization to put on display. The allosaur escapes its cage and runs amuck through a Mexican city before coming to a fiery end.  It not only apes King Kong (pun intended) but other Ray Harryhausen movies as well: in the movie’s climax, Gwangi fights an elephant, recalling a similar scene in Harryhausen’s superior 20 Million Miles to Earth. 

The other major distraction is the obvious dubbing of lead actress, Gila Golan. It’s obvious the filmmakers hired Golan for her looks; she is a lovely decoration. However, the filmmakers didn’t do her any favor by giving her a shrill, hoarse voice that tends to be grating at times – it is a very poor attempt at a Texas accent.  Golan was from Israel, and her heavy accent made her dialogue incomprehensible at times. Still, couldn’t they have chosen a softer, more pleasant voice. 
A potentially moving scene, where Tuck confides to TJ about possibly settling down, is completely undermined by the atrocious dubbing. James Franciscus gives it his all – and nearly sells the scene- but he cannot overcome this huge handicap. T.J. often comes off as being a total shrew – between her constant nagging and flip-flopping, it’s hard to really sympathize with her.  This is a problem, because TJ is supposed to be the heart of the story; the one character who can look at things from a more moderate perspective.   When it looks like a fight might break out between Carlos and the other stuntmen, TJ breaks it up and insists they must stick together.   

Tuck is one of the more interesting characters in the entire Charles H. Schneer/Ray Harryhausen filmography.  Tuck is a grifter – he works for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, where his job is scout, and buy, potential acts from other shows.  He is hoping to buy Omar, the Wonder Horse from TJ’s Wild West Show, but she is less than thrilled to see him. Tuck is TJ’s ex–lover – he used to work for her Wild West Show as a stuntman but left her dry to pursue a different career path.  Of course, it’s only a matter of time that the two of them get back together.  Tuck may be a scoundrel, but we immediately sense that he is not the SOB that he appears to be.  The screenwriter relies on a tried-and-true gimmick of showing us Tuck’s good side – having him befriend Lope, an orphaned boy, who Tuck meets while trying to find the arena.  This is designed specifically to elicit a positive response from the viewer, “Look! He has befriended that lonely Mexican Boy; he can’t be that bad of guy!”  Whether this is successful or not depends on how you feel about Lope – I personally never had an issue with the character, he is agreeable enough. Plus, it is cleverly set up that Tuck and Lope are kindred spirits – they both have survived by grifting. Lope makings a living by charging tourists outrageous prices for his services, while Tuck was able to survive by bullshitting his way through life.  Tuck, like Lope, never had a real education, he is a man of pure instinct. He has been on his own his entire life, which is why the idea of settling down frightens him. He is great at grifting, but being the head of a household is truly a frightening concept to him. 

I rather like James Franciscus as Tuck – he is a step up from all the other leading men in Harryhausen’s filmography.  Franciscus was basically a pint-sized Charlton Heston – I suspect that he often was given roles that were initially meant for Heston (two of them would later co-star with each other in Beneath the Planet of the Apes).  Like Heston, he was in great shape and made for a convincing action star.  More importantly, Franciscus brings an impish sense of humor to the proceedings, which is greatly needed in a movie like The Valley of Gwangi.  When TJ and company are trying to capture El Diablo, a small horse, Tuck manages to capture it but TJ shouts at him to let it go and he happily obliges; TJ realizes her faux pas when she sees it run off.  There is also a sense that, despite the ridiculous material, Franciscus is trying his hardest– it would have been easy for him to phone in his performance, or devolve into self-parody, but he is committed to giving the best performance possible. It’s also interesting to note that Tuck’s character arc is the polar opposite of the protagonists in Easy Rider; Wyatt and Billy drop out of society and that is essentially their arc. Tuck, on the other hand, begins the movie as an outcast but gradually assimilates back into society – to the point where he becomes a surrogate father to Lope.

After Tuck and TJ have made up, it is revealed that TJ has a potential ace up her sleeve; a tiny horse named El Diablo.  The best word to describe El Diablo is “charming.” It’s one of Harryhausen’s lesser creations, but it still works in the context of this movie.  TJ’s idea is to have El Diablo dancing in a glass cage that is saddled on Omar’s back. While riding to the arena, Tuck meets a British paleontologist, Professor Bromley, who has stumbled upon ancient hoofprints belonging to an extinct horse called the Eohippus. It turns out that El Diablo is an Eohippus, which leads to Tuck and the Professor asking, “Where did it come from?” They try to get an answer out of Carlos, an ex-member of a gypsy tribe who now works for TJ, but he shrugs them off.  It also turns out that Carlos’s former gypsy tribe view El Diablo as a curse and want to return it to the “Forbidden Valley.”  Professor Bromley then conspires with the gypsies – he helps them steal El Diablo and, with Lope in tow, follows them to the Forbidden Valley. Tuck gets wind of this plot, but is too late to stop the theft and he chases after the gypsies. 

This also leads to an annoying subplot where Carlos, out of pure spite, fingers Tuck as the one responsible for the theft – he claims Tuck knocked him out and conspired with the gypsies to steal El Diablo. TJ and company, naturally, believe Carlos and brand Tuck a “no good horse thief.” Of course, this gets cleared up rather quickly, which begs the question: why introduce this subplot in the first place?  Though, it is to the movie’s credit that Carlos is never painted as a total villain. Sure, he blatantly lies to smear Tuck’s character, but he does it for two obvious reasons:  Carlos has strong feelings for TJ and wants to be with her, but Tuck’s arrival dashes all of that. He just can’t believe TJ would pick this conman over him.  The other reason is that Tuck’s, and the Professor’s, interest in El Diablo threatens the plans he has made for himself. After the gypsies run off with El Diablo, Carlos can only watch helplessly as his dreams go up in smoke. Naturally, he blames Tuck because it was Tuck who showed El Diablo to the professor.  Yet, Carlos greatly redeems himself later in the film by constantly putting himself at risk to save others; most notably, when he saves Lope from a pterodactyl.

While trying to recapture El Diablo, Tuck and company discover the entrance to the Forbidden Valley, and that is when they encounter Gwangi. This is also when the movie begins to work for me; the first half of the film is bogged down by endless exposition and a few melodramatic moments, but once Gwangi enters the movie it is nonstop action.   Gwangi is one of Harryhausen’s best creations. He manages to give the temperamental Allosaur a few quirks – at one-point Gwangi takes a break from the action to scratch his head. The interaction between the live action and animation is nearly seamless – the highlight of the movie is when the stuntmen lasso Gwangi. It is often hard to tell where the live action ends, and the animation begins – Harryhausen not only had to animate the Allosaur but the ropes as well. Next to the Skeleton fight in Jason and the Argonauts, this is Harryhausen’s best realized sequence.  As was the case with most Harryhausen creations, Gwangi is less of a monster and more of a tragic creature – like King Kong before him, Gwangi is taken from his home and put in cage, where all the locals can gawk at him after having paid for their ticket. Gwangi kills for two reasons: to feed and when he feels threatened.  He doesn’t have the same volatile temper as King Kong, but you don’t want to piss him off. It would make for an extremely awkward plot if Gwangi fell in love with TJ.  

The most recognizable name in the cast, at least for sci-fi fans, is Richard Carlson, who plays Champ, the MC of the Wild West Show and TJ’s guardian. Carlson was one of the better leading men in 1950s science fiction – he often managed to bring humanity to the roles he played. His characters often displayed a healthy curiosity about the unknown and desperately wanted to understand it; in It Came from Outer Space, his character, John Putnam, contacts aliens that have crash landed in the desert and attempts to help them fix their ship so they can return home.  In Creature from the Black Lagoon, his character, David Reed, is sympathetic to the Gillman. He wants to study it, for sure, but he also wants to protect it from the more opportunistic Mark Williams.  Carlson often brought an air of credibility to the proceedings – if Richard Carlson believed in the title creature, then it must be serious.  Sadly, he is given very little to do in The Valley of Gwangi, except occasionally sneer at Tuck and Carlos. He also has a hard time hiding his embarrassment at having to appear in a movie like this. 

I like Laurence Naismith as the slimy Professor Bromley. In most science fiction films, a character like Bromley would be shown in a virtuous light, but Bromley is stern believer in “the end justifies the means.” He is willing to help to gypsies steal El Diablo so they can lead him to the Forbidden, even if it means committing assault – the gypsies attack and knock out Carlos.  He is able to convince Tuck of his logic – why settle for one El Diablo when you can have a dozen of them?  This was the second movie Naismith made for Charles H. Schneer and Ray Harryhausen, he previously appeared in Jason and the Argonauts as the ship builder, Argo. He played a more sympathetic character in that movie. Bromley is not only shady, but he is kind of a scatterbrain – at one point he is stranded in the desert because his horse has died, so instead of accepting a ride of Tuck’s horse, he decides to ride on Lope’s donkey, even though the animal is clearly too small to handle his weight.  When Tuck tries to warn the professor that Gwangi is coming, Bromley is too enamored by the corpse of a pterodactyl that he dismisses Tuck’s warnings. It’s only when Gwangi appears that Bromley understands what Tuck was trying to say. 

While The Valley of Gwangi is highly flawed, I still enjoy it. Charles H. Scheer and Ray Harryhausen considered it the least of their efforts, but I humbly disagree – I think it comfortably belongs in the very middle of their filmography. I would rank it higher than: Clash of the Titans, One Million Years B.C., It Came from the Beneath the Sea, First Men in the Moon, The Three Worlds of Gulliver, and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. It’s by no means a classic, but it’s not nearly the disaster many critics have made it out to be. 

Cast: James Franciscus (Tuck Kirby), Gila Golan (T.J. Breckinridge), Richard Carlson (Champ Connors), Laurence Naismith (Professor Bromley), Freda Jackson (Tia Zorina – the witch), Gustavo Rojo (Carlos), Curtis Arden (Lope), Dennis Kilbane (Rowdy), Mario De Barros (Bean)

Director: Jim O’ Connolly
Writers:  William Bast, Julian More
Running Time: 95 minutes

The Son of Kong (1933)

King Kong is one of my all time favorite movies and is, probably, the best monster movie ever made. It's just as exciting to watch now as it was when I was a twelve year-old kid. However, it's also one of the most written about movies in cinema history, meaning there's really nothing more I can say that hasn't been said already. The Son of Kong, however, has been fairly neglected by more film historians; if it is mentioned, it's usually in passing, and very rarely do they have anything positive to say about it. In his book "Movie Magic," John Brosnan has this to say about The Son of Kong:

Unfortunately the film had none of the grandeur of it's predecessor, and the script, by Ruth Rose was abysmal. Robert Armstrong, who played the hero in King Kong, returns to the island looking for a comparable attraction, apparently not having learned anything from his previous experience, and discovers 'Little Kong.' This baby Kong would have made his illustrious father roll over in his presumably giant grave - a mere twenty feet tall, he has the instincts of amiable puppy. The effects were impressive, but the overall result was disappointing. 

There's no doubt that The Son of Kong is an inferior film to it's famous predecessor, but Brosnan's summary makes me wonder if he's actually ever seen it. For instance, Carl Denham (Armstrong) doesn't return to Skull Island looking for a "comparable attraction," but rather goes there hoping to find an ancient treasure that Helstrom, a down on his luck Norwegian skipper and the film's main antagonist, has told him about. .  Kong Junior is, indeed, a much more friendlier creature than his chest pounding, bad tempered old man, but if the filmmakers would have made him a ferocious beast, then the film would merely be a rehash of the first film. Finally, Junior isn't twenty feet tall, but twelve feet. In his movie guide book, Leonard Maltin gives the film two and a half stars, which is about right. It's not a remarkable movie, but it is entertaining.

As for the script being "abysmal," I'd say that given the circumstances, Ruth Rose churned out a fairly adequate screenplay. After the success of King Kong, the sequel was rushed into production and made for less than half the budget of the first film. These budgetary lapses are fairly noticeable; Junior doesn't appear until the 42 minute mark (it's a 69 minute movie), and the Skull Island scenes are isolated to a small section of the island.  In King Kong, we were treated to many exciting scenes of Denham and company trekking through the dense jungle and bumping into all sorts of prehistoric life. In The Son of Kong, the prehistoric life has a knack for wandering into Junior's territory. The Son of Kong is a mini-adventure, completely lacking the epic scope of the first film.

However, there are two things are I find extremely interesting about The Son of Kong that most film historians tend to overlook:

1) Carl Denham's character arc.

The Son of Kong takes place a month after the events in the first film and Carl Denham is up to his neck in lawsuits. This experience has made him a more humbler person. In the first film, he was an extremely reckless filmmaker, who often regarded Ann Darrow as prop, rather than an actual human being. He didn't have a single, compassionate bone in his body; all he could think about was how swell everything would look on film. He's so single minded in his obsession to bring entertainment to the masses that he doesn't even harbor any sort of romantic feelings towards Ann Darrow (despite her being an attractive blonde) and is fairly indifferent when she and Jack Driscoll fall in love. In The Son of Kong, Denham has learned from his mistakes and when he finds Hilda alone in Bakang, mourning the death of her father, he does everything he can to cheer her up.  When he finds Junior trapped in quicksand, his initial reaction is not one of fear, but of saving the clumsy gorilla from certain death.  He knocks over a tree and Junior uses it to pull himself out. After Junior has injured his finger battling a giant bear, Denham (at Hilda's urging) bandages up the finger, such an act of kindness would have been foreign to the old Carl Denham.

2) Helen Mack.

I'm going to say it, The Son of Kong has a better leading lady than it's predecessor. I understand that Fay Wray's performance as Ann Darrow (or rather her screaming) is fairly iconic, but Helen Mack is much better actress. In the first film, Ann Darrow's character development essentially ends at the midway point, she falls in love with Jack and that's about it. It can be argued that Ann Darrow is more of a plot device than an actual character, as she's the reason Kong rampages through New York at the end. Ann's role in the second half of the film is that of a nonstop screamer (which is understandable given that the she is being carried around by a giaint ape), while Hilda remains brave throughout, often urging Denham to help Kong Junior.
 Hilda is a much more interesting heroine; she's first introduced as the star attraction of a rundown circus managed by her alcoholic father. She plays a guitar and sings a song called the "Runaway Blues," which is greeted with complete indifference by the small audience. Helen Mack specialized in playing feisty females (she's absolutely wonderful as Harold Lloyd's tough as nails sister in The Milky Way) and The Son of Kong is no exception. When Denham and Englehorn leave Dakang, Hilda stows away on board, partly because she has "nowhere else to go," but mainly to be around Denham. Robert Armstrong is old enough to be Helen Mack's father, but the romance in The Son of Kong is fairly believable; Denham is quite possibly the first person to offer any words of kindness (and encouragement) to Hilda in a long, long time, therefore it makes sense that she would take a liking to him. They are kindred spirits,  both of them have essentially lost everything; Denham is in complete debt at the beginning of the film and is facing being indicted by the grand jury, Hilda loses her father and the rundown circus she's called home for many years (it goes up in a fire). Yet, despite these obstacles both characters keep fighting on, never looking back. Though, the romance itself is fairly chaste, they don't even share an onscreen kiss. Then again, romance (and women) aren't exactly Denham's forte, he slowly learns the ropes as the movie progresses.

Because it was decided to make Kong Junior a good guy, the film is fairly lacking in the villain department; the closest thing we get is Captain Helstrom and he's fairly inept. It is revealed that Helstrom is the Norwegian skipper that sold Denham the map to Kong's island and since then his life has taken a turn for the absolute worse; he has lost his ship, is penniless, and is stranded in the Dutch Port in Bakang. He accidentally kills Hilda's father in a drunken brawl, which in the process burns down the circus tent (and Hilda's home).  Hilda threatens to report him to the Dutch magistrate, which only fuels his desire to get away. He stumbles upon Denham and Englehorn at a bar, and then makes up a story of a lost treasure (unaware that there really is a treasure on Skull Island) as a way to get off the island. However, Helstrom has no desire to go to Skull Island, once aboard Englehorn's ship (The Venture), he starts talking to the crew and leads them in a mutiny against Englehorn. Denham, Hilda, Englehorn, and Charlie are set adrift in a lifeboat, while Helstrom and the crew look on. However, Helstrom's reign as captain is short lived, after the crew refuses to  obey his orders, he pulls a gun on them, but is overpowered and thrown overboard. Denham and company pick him up, albeit reluctantly, and row their way to Skull Island. Once on Skull Island, Helstrom really is given nothing to do. He also has a fairly anti-climatic death; the sight of Junior frightens him and he runs towards the lifeboat, however, as he is ready to shove off, a giant serpent emerges from the water and devours him.

What The Son of Kong lacks, and what it's predecessor did so well, is the grand build up. The original King Kong effectively builds up to Kong's first appearance; he's first brought up in a conversation between Denham and Captain Englehorn. We first get a hint at his physicality, when we view the great wall for the first time. Why is the wall so big? What is it shielding the natives' from? The natives are holding a ceremony, where they sacrifice one of their virginal girls to be Kong's "bride." Then there's Kong's first appearance; we first sense his presence when we hear footsteps on the soundtrack, then the sound of trees being pushed over, and, finally, a load roar. After all this build up, Kong finally emerges from behind the trees and we (along with poor Ann Darrow) overwhelmed by the sheer size of this gorilla. There's a practically no build up in The Son of Kong, the closest thing we have is when Charlie, the Chinese cook, says to Denham early in the film, "I guess next time you leave big monkey alone, huh." Junior's introduction is fairly unremarkable; Denham and Hilda literally stumble upon him as he struggles to get out of a quicksand. Going by Denham's reaction, he doesn't seem a bit surprised that there is miniature Kong running amuk. It's also extremely odd how the filmmaker choose to introduce Junior from a stylistic stand point; there is a long shot of Denham and Hilda as they climb up an ancient stairwell, then the film cuts to a three way shot of Helstrom, Charlie, and Englehorn as they converse with each other. Helstrom tries to apologizes for leading a mutiny against Englehorn, but Englehorn will have none of it. Then it cuts back to a long shot of the top of the stairwell, with Junior's heading bobbing up and down in the background, the rest of his body obscured by the stairwell.  Denham and Hilda walk into frame and after a few seconds, they finally notice Junior. It's curious how very little build up there is to Denham's discovery of Kong Junior. A more effective way would have had the camera follow Denham and Hilda up the stairs and then have Junior's head pop into frame once they reached the top of the staircase (it's what Ishiro Honda did twenty years later in Godzilla).

The specials effects by Willis O' Brien are, just the like the first film, dated, but incredibly fun and often effective. Practically all of the movie's action is crammed into the film's last half hour; Junior fights not one, but two monsters, a giant bear and a dinosaur-like creature. The interaction between Junior and the actors is extremely well done, and often seamless, in it's execution. When Junior  is battling the giant bear, Denham and Hilda look on from the background. The eye line of the actors perfectly matches the action that is unfolding in the foreground. Of course, the audience is not paying attention to either of the actors in this scene, their eyes are entirely focused on the fight, but it does show that at least the filmmakers put an actual effort into making the film, as opposed to being lazy and coasting on the goodwill of  the predecessor.
While Hilda and Denham have front row tickets to one of the greatest wrestling matches of all time, Englehorn and company get trapped in a cave fissure by a nasty Styracosaurus. Helstrom is extremely cowardly in this scene, trembling in absolute fear while hiding behind Charlie.

The ending is rather abrupt, Denham finds the treasure, Helstrom gets devoured, and all of a sudden an earthquake happens, sinking Skull Island in the process. Englehorn, Charlie, and Hilda row away to safety in a lifeboat, but Denham gets caught, along with Kong, inside a cave. They both scale a cliff to a higher height as the island slowly sinks beneath them. Finally, they have reached the highest peak. Hilda and company spot  Denham and row in his direction. Junior grabs Denham and holds him above the ocean, while he slowly sinks underneath. The row boat arrives just in the nick of time to save Denham, but it's too late for Junior. This scene is almost the inverse of the Empire State Building scene in Kong Kong, in that film Kong sense his death, picks up Ann for one last look and then puts her down, resigning himself to his grizzly fate; he loses his footing and falls to his death. In Son of Kong, grabs Denham and holds him above the ocean until the rowboat comes to his rescue. One death is tragic, the other  is heroic. All of the action I mentioned takes place over the course of FIVE MINUTES! There's nothing earlier  in the film that foreshadows the earthquake, it just unexpectedly happens.

Monster fans tend to whine about the decision to make Junior a friendly ape and are aghast at his comedy routines. It's never bothered me one bit, largely because I went into Son of Kong with relatively low expectations; the only reviews I ever read were negative, so when I saw for the first time in 1993 (age 14) I was pleasantly surprised. Is it a vastly inferior film to it's predecessor? Most definitely! Is it a bad movie? Most definitely NOT! If you catch it in the right frame of mind, it's rather enjoyable (and rather sweet) 70 minutes. Of course, I'm biased as I believe that Helen Mack is one of the most underrated actresses of all time and tend to enjoy practically everything I have seen her in. Not to mention, the sight of Kong Jr. beating the crap out of a giant bear still manages to bring out the child in me.

Credits

Cast: Robert Armstrong (Carl Denham), Helen Mack (Hilda Peterson), Frank Reicher (Captain Englehorn), John Marston (Captain Helstrom), Victor Wong (Charlie), Ed Brady (Bo'sun Red), Lee Kohlmar (Mickey), Noble Johnson (Native Chief), Gertrude Short (Reporter), Kathrin Clare Ward (Mrs. Hudson).

Director: Ernest B. Schoedsack
Screenplay: Ruth Rose
Running Time: 69 min.

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953)

When film critics talk about influential movies they often rattle off titles like: Citizen Kane, 2001: A Space Odyssey, King Kong, Breathless,The Gold Rush, Psycho, etc. However, a title that you never find in their lists is the 1953 film The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. What? Are you kidding? How can anyone even think of putting The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms in the same company as these great films? It's just a silly 1950s sci-fi film made for children!!! The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms may not be in the same league as the titles  listed above, it is nonetheless one of the most influential movies of all time; at least in the science fiction genre. The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms is important for two reasons:

1) It would establish the template that many science fiction films of the decade would follow.
2) It helped launch the career of special effects master Ray Harryhausen, who in turn would influence many great future filmmakers.

It wasn't made by a cinematic genius, but rather a director for hire (Eugene Lourie) who only made three other films (two about dinosaurs, one about a robot). Its two leads (Paul Christian and Paula Raymond) had rather forgettable careers.  And it was made for an extremely low budget ($200,000).  Yet, despite it's rather humble beginnings, it spawned many imitations for years to come; the most famous being Godzilla.

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms owes a great debt to King Kong; both in terms of story structure and allowing for the film to be made. In 1952, King Kong was re-released in movie theaters and proved to be a huge success; even bigger than its initial release in 1933. The success of King Kong naturally allowed for The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms to be green lit. Would Warner Brothers have shelled out $450,000 for the rights to The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (a film that cost only half the amount) had King Kong gone unnoticed or hadn't been re-release at all? Probably not! While King Kong's influence is undoubted, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms managed to bring new things to the genre that have been copied ever since.

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms was the first film to introduce the idea of atomic testing awakening a giant menace; in the film The Beast (the fictional Rhedosaurus) is awaken from its slumber in the Arctic by the blast of an atomic bomb. This plot device was later repeated in films like: Them!, The Giant Behemoth, The Deadly Mantis, It Came From Beneath the Sea, and most famously, Godzilla. The fact that Godzilla movies are still being made to this very day only further enhances just how influential The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms was. In the film's climax, the Beast has been wounded and drips blood over the city streets; when soldiers come into contact with it they become extremely ill. It is later revealed that the Beast's blood has been poisoned by radiation. Godzilla replaces the radioactive blood with radioactive breath. It should be noted that shots of people fleeing from the Rhedosaurus would later be reused in other Giant Monster films of the 1950s; most notably The Giant Behemoth. 

As far as I know The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms is the first film to introduce the attractive lady scientist. The Thing From the Another World had a strong female presence in Margaret Sheridan, but she was in the more traditional role as a secretary; not to mention doesn't really advance the plot. Her main function is to be the  love interest to Kenneth Tobey's Captain Henry. In The Day the Earth Stood Still, Patricia Neal plays Helen Benson, a woman who is sympathetic to Klaatu's mission. However, Neal's character is an ordinary character caught up in events beyond her wildest dreams. In The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Lee Hunter (Paula Raymond) is an expert paleontologist and is the only person who believes Tom Nesbitt (Paul Christian) when he claims to have seen a dinosaur. Lee helps drive the narrative of the story by investigating Tom's claim and persuading her mentor, Professor Elson (who has credibility with the military) that this demands serious attention. It is also to the film's credit that the romance between Tom and Lee is hinted at, rather than made into a major, time consuming subplot: the audience gets that these characters are in love just by the occasional glances they throw each other's way. The attractive, but extremely intelligent woman scientist (with a guy's name) would become a staple in 1950s sci-fi films, most notably in: Tarantula, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, Them!, It Came From Beneath the Sea, and many more. The relationship between Lee and Professor Elson (Cecil Kellaway) was mirrored a year later in the movie Them! In that film, Dr.  Medford  (the terrific Edmund Gwenn) is called upon to help the military and local state authorities into stopping the threat of giants ants and accompanying him is his beautiful assistant, Pat (Joan Weldon), who also happens to be his daughter. Professor Elson/Dr.Medford are both elderly men who are at the end of their careers and often out of touch with the modern world. They tend to be absented minded and need their young female assistants to help keep them focused. Elson is like a father figure to Lee, while Medford is Pat's father. It's also no coincidence that Pat has a strong resemblance to Lee (both brunettes). And like in The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, the romance between Pat and  Robert is implicit, rather than a major plot point.

Lee Hunter and Professor Elson in
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.

Dr. Medford and his daughter Pat
in Them! 

Ray Harryhausen is a legend among special effects men and got his start by working as an assistant to Willis O' Brien. In 1949, Harryhausen's work on Mighty Joe Young helped O'Brien win the Oscar for Special Effects. The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms was Harryhausen's first major work as a solo artist and the success of this film made it possible for him to make other films like: Earth vs. The Flying Saucers, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, and a film that has been tremendously popular with my generation, The Clash of the Titans. Harryhausen's special effects work has inspired so many filmmakers that is almost impossible to imagine the cinema without him.

The film was inspired by a short story by Ray Bradbury called "The Foghorn." In that short story, a dinosaur destroys a lighthouse after hearing the foghorn coming from it. This short story gets condensed into one memorable scene in The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, in which The Rhedosaurus destroys a light house. This scene is nicely shot, set in the dark, where only the outline of The Rhedosaurus can be seen as it collapses the light house. Bradbury himself didn't care too much for the film, but he was happy for the pay check it brought him and the work that it gave to his good friend Ray Harryhausen.


There have been many Giant Monster movies made since the release of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, but for my money, none has ever topped the scene in which the Rhedosaurus rampages through New York, toppling buildings in its way and picking up cars in its jaws and tossing them across the street. In one memorable moment a foolish police officer tries to stop the Rhedosaurus by firing his pistol at it and promptly gets swallowed whole for his effort.

Sure, special effects have improved over the years, but this sequence is still a lot of fun to watch. Despite being limited by an extremely low budget, the filmmakers were able to turn out a very memorable moment in cinema history; Spielberg would later pay homage to this bit in Jurassic Park, with the lawyer on the toilet being eaten by the T-Rex. This scene also popped up in Gremlins 2: The New Batch; the Gremlins are channel surfing and come upon this clip, and laugh when the police officer gets eaten.  

Harryhausen's effects hold up surprisingly well; it's amazing how he was able to give the Rhedosaurus a personality, despite it being rubber model. The beast's death at the end is oddly moving, despite all the terrible things it has done. This is largely due to the fact that the Rhedosaurus never seems malicious in  its attacks, but rather just an animal stumbling into a new world that it is not equipped to handle. Its attack on the lighthouse seems to be done out of curiosity, rather than for any sinister motive. 

While the Rhedosaurus is the "star" of the film, it must be said that the actors do a fairly admirable job. There is not much depth in the characterizations, but the actors add credibility to the film by playing their parts completely straight; a sense of urgency is prevalent throughout the film, thanks to the seriousness the actors bring to their roles. In the 1950s, many actors dreaded being in science fictions films and often their condescension to the genre came out in their performances. The main flaw in many big budgeted films of today is that the actors are so cheerful and lackadaisical in their performance, that it's hard to take the "threat" of the film seriously. It seems very out of place for characters to be cracking jokes while being surrounded by endless death and destruction; the Transformer films spring to mind. It should be noted that The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms helped launch the careers of two actors; Lee Van Cleef, who would go on a great career in westerns, plays the role of the marksman who fires the isotope into the Rhedosaurus open wound. And James Best, who played Sheriff Roscoe on The Dukes of Hazzards, appears briefly as a radar operator.  

I first saw The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms when I was nine years old. I had often heard my dad speak about it; he would often mention  it while I was watching my Godzilla films, telling me that it was the movie that inspired Godzilla. Finally, on one fateful Saturday I finally saw it on the local program "Saturday Night a the Frights." In my mind, nothing could top the awesomeness that was Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster or Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, but I was wrong, this film did. The ending in which the Rhedosaurus is tearing up a roller coaster is the stuff of dreams. It was exciting when I was a kid and it's still exciting now.

Credits:
Cast: Paul Christian (Prof. Tom Nesbitt), Paula Raymond (Lee Hunter), Cecil Kellaway (Prof. Elson), Kenneth Tobey (Col. Jack Evans), Donald Woods (Capt. Phil Jackson), Lee Van Cleef (Corp. Stone), Steve Brodie (Sgt. Loomis), Jack Pennick (Jacob Bowman), Frank Ferguson (Dr. Morton), King Donovan (Dr. Ingersoll).

Director: Eugene Lourie
Screenplay: Lou Morheim, Fred Freiberger
Running Time: 80 minutes.

My Top 25 Horror/Monster Films, Part III (10-1)

10. The Thing (1982)

Dir: John Carpenter
Running Time: 108 min.
The Thing was largely criticized when it came for being  overly violent and too gory, yet compared to the horror films of the last decade it is pretty tame. More importantly, the gore effects in The Thing actually serve a function to the overall story; the titular creature survives by assimilating the creatures around it. The audience never truly realizes the sheer horror of the Thing, until it is shown trying to assimilate sled dogs that are around it, and later when one of the humans is revealed to be a part of the Thing. The real tension in the film doesn't lie in its gruesome effects, but on the idea that the characters (and the audience) can never be certain as to who is human and who has been assimilated. This one of the few remakes that improves upon the original film, The Thing From Another World.  This is largely due to the fact that it’s more faithful to novella both films are based on, “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell. Lots of scenes from Carpenter’s film are taken directly from the novella, like the famous blood test scene.

9.  The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Dir: James Whale
Running Time: 75 min.
It’s often a tough choice for me to decide which film I like better: Frankenstein or The Bride of Frankenstein, because both are wonderful movies. In the end, I choose Bride of Frankenstein because it’s a far more complete film. The original Frankenstein sets up a love triangle that never pays off; it is hinted throughout that Henry Frankenstein’s fiancée, Elizabeth, will inevitably end up with his best friend, Victor, but this subplot gets abandoned by the film’s end. In the sequel Victor is completely forgotten about and Henry is allowed to create another monster with his demonic mentor, Dr. Pretorious (the wonderful Ernest Thesiger). Boris Karloff once again plays the monster in a sympathetic light and the ending in which his “bride” rejects him is truly saddening.  Once Karloff relinquished the role of the monster, it essentially was relegated to a walking prop, occasionally showing up at the end of future films to stumble around the set for a few minutes before everything went up in flames.

8. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Dir: Roman Polanski
Running Time: 136 min.
Rosemary’s Baby is a wonderful piece of misdirection: the first few minutes play like a cheesy day time soap; two newlyweds get an apartment in New York and are hoping to add a child into the mix. Then surely, but slowly everything starts to unravel, until it is revealed that the weird old couple next door are actually Satan worshipers and Rosemary’s husband is in on the plot to impregnate Rosemary with the devil’s child. In lesser hands this film would be completely laughable, but director Polanski builds tension with the power of mere suggestion.  In one famous shot, the character of Minnie (Ruth Gordon) is seen talking on the phone in her bedroom, but her face is blocked by the doorway; it’s a seemingly normal scene, but the blocking suggests something isn't quite right. Also, because the film is largely seen from Rosemary’s point of view, there are a few times where the audience starts to question her sanity; is there really a conspiracy going on or is all in her head? In fact, there are many people who claim that the film’s film scene is in fact, a hallucination caused by the stress Rosemary has put herself through. I don’t agree with the interpretation, but these ambiguities are what make Rosemary’s Baby such a classic horror film.

7. Island of Lost Souls (1932)

Dir: Erle C. Kenton
Running Time: 70 min.
Island of Lost Souls was the first adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel “The Island of Dr. Moreau” and it’s by far the best, even though the author himself hated it. In the novel Moreau is seen in a more kindly light, whereas he’s completely diabolical in the film version. Charles Laughton is a magnificent as the maniacal Moreau, who through vivisection hopes to accelerate the evolution of animals by transforming them into humans.  Bela Lugosi is terrific in a small, but memorable role as the Sayer of the Law.

6. Evil Dead II (1987)

Dir: Sam Raimi
Running Time: 84 min.
Evil Dead II is simply a joy to sit through. The first Evil Dead was a straight forward horror film filled with lots of gore and Bruce Campbell stumbling through the scenery as the cowardly Ash. Evil Dead II takes the same premise, but adds humor to the mix to make it one of the more memorable films of the 80s. It’s hard to dislike such a silly movie like this, hell, even Roger Ebert gave it a good review. Yet, despite the humor, there still are a few genuine scares scattered throughout, like the sudden emergence of the possessed Ed, or when the corpse of Henrietta bursts from the cellar floor. However, the highlight has to been Ash’s continuous battle with his possessed severed hand.

5. The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

Dir: Roger Corman
Running Time: 80 min.
Vincent Price is one of my all time favorite actors; so it’s a sure bet that at least one of his film would be included in my top five. I decided on The Pit and the Pendulum largely due to the fact that it was the first Vincent Price film I ever saw, at the tender age of six. It was one of the first films my dad recorded on our new VCR, and I remember staying up late to watch it with him, my sister, and my cousin Mike, but not being able to finish it, because it creeped me out. It’s still rather chilling nearly 26 years later; especially the idea of being buried alive. The film presents this motif twice: When, in a flashback, Nicholas’ (Vincent Price) dad is shown interring his mother alive by building a wall of bricks around her, and later when it is revealed Nicholas wife was buried alive, which drives him to the brink of insanity.  And who can ever forget the ending, with an insane Price leering on as poor Francis (John Kerry) is strapped to a table while the pendulum swings ever closer to his body.

4. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Dir: Don Siegel
Running Time: 80 min.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers doesn’t contain too many effects shots, but it’s far more effective than the many effects laden monstrosities that have dominated the horror genre in the last two decades. The film moves at a fast pace, largely due to the fact that the characters are constantly on the run. The premise is genuinely frightening:  the people in our community are not who we think them to be and, are in fact, duplicates lacking in the emotion department.  The most horrifying shot is when Miles (Kevin McCarthy) kisses Becky (Dana Wynter) and realizes she has been replaced due to the dead look in her eyes. A lot of political subtext has been attached to the film; there are some people who claim that it is anti-communist, while other are adamant it is anti- McCarthy, but regardless of its intentions (or lack thereof) it succeeds as a scary sci-fi/horror film.

3. Psycho (1960)

Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Running Time: 109 min.
What’s amazing about Psycho is that despite the fact that I went in knowing both of its twists (the heroine get killed halfway through in a shower, the reveal that Mrs. Bates is actually her son Norman in drag), I was still drawn in by the narrative. The film succeeds because the audience relates to the character of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), which makes even more shocking and appalling when she is killed off right before our eyes forty five minutes into the film. If there is a flaw in Psycho it is the fact that the second half of the film is far less compelling, largely due to the fact that Marion’s sister Lila (Vera Miles) is not a particularly likable character. However, Psycho still remains a favorite due to its wonderful set pieces:  Marion being stalked by a highway patrolman, the shower scene; Norman (Anthony Perkins) cleaning up after his mother, the murder of detective Arbogast (Martin Balsam), and the reveal at the end. If you have hard time appreciating Psycho, then I suggest you watch the many imitations that followed it (William Castle’s Homicidal, I Saw What You Did, and Hammer’s Paranoiac and Nightmare); I guarantee these minor films will make realize what a genius Hitchcock truly was.

2. King Kong (1933)

Dir: Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack
Running Time: 100 min.
The first time I saw King Kong was when I was twelve years old. I was stayed up until three in the morning on a Saturday night to finally catch a film I had heard so much about throughout my childhood. Practically everyone knows about King Kong a top the Empire State Building, whether they have seen the film or not. The first forty minutes of the film effectively builds up to Kong’s first appearance, and I remember being excited that I was finally going to see Kong, BUT when he made his appearance…I LAUGHED! I thought to myself, “Wow! These effects are horrible. Kong looks like he’s made of clay.” However, as the film progressed, a funny thing happened….. I stopped thinking of Kong as a dated special effect and began to think of him as a genuine character. King Kong is a highly entertaining film, but it’s most amazing achievement is that somehow Willis O’ Brien and his team of animator were able to inject a personality and life into an 18 inch model covered with rabbit fur. Kong is  a fully realized character; he goes through a whole array of emotions throughout the course of the film and, despite being the villain, his death at the end is truly heart breaking. King Kong is one of the most influential films ever made and it’s a tribute to directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack that the film is just as popular today as it was eighty years ago.

1. Jaws (1975)

Running Time: 124 min.
Dir: Steven Spielberg
Jaws, like Psycho, has inspired countless imitations (and three unnecessary sequels) and once you have seen any of them, it makes you realize just how wonderful the original truly is. Jaws is the kind of the film that in lesser hands could have been absolutely dreadful, but director Steven Spielberg builds the suspense by never allowing the audience a good look at the shark until the film is two thirds over. The icing on the cake is that the characters are extremely likable and are capable of having genuine conversations; the most memorable being Quint (Robert Shaw) recounting surviving the U.S.S. Indianapolis sinking. It’s a scene that’s not necessarily relevant to the plot, but it adds depth to the character of Quint and explains why he’s so obsessed with killing this one shark.  It’s a highly entertaining and, in my opinion, one of the greatest films ever made.