“The Monster That Challenged the World” (1957)
The US Navy vs. giant sea slugs in the California desert. (makes perfect sense, right?)
This
classic takes place in one of my favorite places
to visit, the Salton Sea in California. The hobo camp/post apocalyptic
“town” of Slab City was once a military base and that is where this
story takes place.
The name of the film is a bit misleading I
think. It really should be, “The Monsters that challenged a few people
in a very underpopulated area of southern California”. But, I suppose
that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. The movie is about an
earthquake that opens up a crack in the bottom of the Salton Sea where
some giant mollusks have been hibernating since prehistoric times. The
warm, slightly radioactive water(from recent atomic bomb tests) revives
these creatures somehow and they began to lay eggs and terrorize the
local community.
This was another in the series of giant monster
films that were popular in the 50′s. Some of them are goofy fun, some
are just bad. This one actually stands out as a fairly decent film
despite the somewhat silly premise. The story is actually quite similar
to “Jaws” in some ways and I have to wonder if Spielberg was at least
partially influenced by The Monster That Challenged the World.
Much like Police Chief Brody in Jaws, both the Sheriff and the base
commander in this film must deal with some backlash with their decision
to close down the
beaches because of the monster. It’s the middle of summer, extremely hot and peak tourist
season. People expect to go to the beach and if they can’t, they’re
going to be upset about it.
Also, the two stories unfold in similar ways. In both cases the monster
is a
massive underwater creature that we don’t see right away. It’s not
until almost halfway through the movie that
we finally see the giant mollusk for the first time. There are multiple
deaths prior, (Including one of a couple out for a night swim and the
woman getting pulled underwater by an unseen creature-all while
screaming. Much like the opening scene of Jaws) but we only gets hints
as to what is responsible for the
havoc. This film does a good job of letting the suspense build by
holding off on the
reveal.
During the last part of the movie
the creature actually gets a lot of screen time. Quite a bit more in
fact than the monsters in other movies from the time and unlike many of
the laughable, rubber suit monsters, the mollusk creature actually
looks pretty good for the time.
There are some interesting
performances in the film. The main protagonist, base commander
Twillinger
played by Tim Holt is an uptight workaholic with a cowboy drawl that
seems to fade in and out. That’s probably because Holt was primarily a
star of westerns. The scientist, Dr. Rogers (there always has to be a
scientist in these monster films) is played by
Hans Conried
best know as the voice of Captain Hook in the original Disney’s ‘Peter
Pan’. There are also some fun performances in a couple of small parts.
My two favorites are; the coroner who offers Twillinger a sandwich
which he keeps cool by storing in one of the body drawers. And the local
museum curator, Mr. Dobbs. Who is super creepy and I suspect is really a
serial killer.
I think my favorite scene is at the end. One of
the creature eggs they collected has hatched out in the lab and is
threatening Twillineger’s pseudo love interest, Gail and her daughter.
Twillinger returns to the lab and finds the monster breaking down a
closet door to get at Gail and her daughter. Since he is unarmed, the
Commander looks about for a
weapon. He turns around and looks right at a
BIG FIRE AXE on the
wall. He definitely sees it; we, the audience, see it; a blind man
could see it. The obvious course of events is that the hero will grab
the axe and commence to mollusk hacking mayhem. However, when
Twillinger runs to the back of the room, he instead grabs a
fire extinguisher! What? Really?
If you ever encounter a man-eating snail the size of a horse, I recommend choosing an axe over a fire extinguisher.
Just sayin. Anyway he distracts it long enough for men with guns to come in and kill it. The day is saved. The end.
All
in all an entertaining movie for the most part - if you’re into giant
bug movies from the 50′s. (which I am) Although it did get a little
slow at times and at others it stretched suspension of disbelief to new
levels. Yet, this is one I have watched several times and will watch
again. Check it out.
