"The Monster That Challenged The World" -1957.

Tagline: "Crawling up from the depths...to terrify and torture!" Now, in the Monster's defence, he is essentially a mollusk. I don't think he put a lot of thought into the torturing part.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen! After pouring through all one of the suggestions received, I put that single slip of paper into my "I'm With Stupid" hat, shook it thoroughly and removed that same slip of paper. I read it aloud, which made my cats look at me funny since there was no one there, and dashed to the television to carry out the wishes of my reader (no "s").

Good call, Bellen! I enjoyed this one. It's your better than average monster mayhem movie, complete with people getting ohm-nom-nomed right in front of your eyes!

Call me old fashioned, but I think a movie that doesn't have a mutated monster chawin' on the locals is just dull. I mean, c'mon! At least have a sentient robot with a recently discovered blood lust! That's what's wrong with movies today....too much yakkin'! Get to the action!

Plot: Commander Twillinger is new to the Top Secret Naval scientific research station at the Salton Sea in California.

He's a serious, by-the-books kind of guy and trying to keep the sailors out of trouble is proving to be difficult for him. Plus, a recent earthquake has torn a fissure in the bottom of the Salton Sea and caused prehistoric giant mutated mollusk larvae to begin dining on the fine folks that live and work nearby. Isn't that just the way? You have a nice, quiet little community and then giant mutated monsters move in. Next thing you know, there's beer cans all over and lawns that are not mowed properly and people being devoured alive! And bylaw won't even tell them to pick up the beer cans! Now, back in my day we didn't have hideous mollusk creatures causing problems. And do you know why?....well, I'm not sure. Probably too cold. It is Canada, after all. Anyway...that's pretty much the plot. Twillinger up there discovers first hand that these things (Oh yeah! There's more than one!) are gobbling up his seamen (hee hee!)

and has to destroy all of them before they make their way into the nearby canal system and then out into the world! No prob, Bob! We have the U.S. Navy on the scene!

Well, actually, not as easy as that. There are civilians near this landlocked sea, too, so you can't just blast the ever-loving crapola out of everything. And you can't leave because that would make a crappy movie. So he does what any homely, middle-aged man does in these movies: he falls in love with a lovely 20-something secretary.

Here's the biggest shock in the whole movie: she falls in love with his old, ugly ass too! I smell Oscar! Plus, Gail (the secretary) has a cutie patootie daughter

who has a way of loosening up the Commander. Too bad the monster's probably going to eat her. Luckily there are plenty of other, less significant, characters to slurp on first. Like Jody, here.

Jody's a nice girl who has a habit of dating bad boys, which makes her mother worry. Well, luckily there's a monster on the loose to eat said bad boys. Unfortunately, like most movie monsters, it has problems knowing when to step away from the buffet and ohm nom noms on Jody as well.

Anyway, long story short: through a series of careful checks of the canal locking systems they locate the escaped monsters

and blow their guts to Kingdom come! Yee ha! Oops! I guess they forgot about the egg they put in the lab

right behind the lovely young secretary and her cute-as-a-button daughter. Meh, what's the worst that could happen? I mean, as long as no one touches the unprotected temperature gauge

the egg will be kept cold enough not to mature and wreak havoc. And it's not like cute little bunny rabbits are kept in the lab, too,

so there's nothing to tempt a young girl to go in there. And if the bunnies look cold, it's not like the little girl will turn up the temperature to keep her furry little friends warm. What could possibly go wrong?

Things I learned from this movie: 1- about half the budget went into making various signs so you knew where each location was supposed to be,

2- if you find gross white goo while investigating the disappearance of three men make sure you stick your hand right in it,

3- in these movies whenever someone says the word "radioactive" you invariably get the super-serious reaction shot,

4- coroners keep their lunch in the drawers used for corpses,

5- by God! That is some cutting edge special effects!









6- I'm sorry, Sir, but that hat is clearly too big for you,
                                                   
7- your "egg sac" has a seam on it,

8- this is why Mom always says not to play with sticks,

9- giant mutant mollusks eat people, not ducks,

10- iPhone, circa 1957:

11- I need something to kill this giant monster....I know! I'll grab this fire extinguisher that's right next to the fire axe!,

12- "Heeeeeeere's Buggy!"

13- finally! A monster that can be killed with regular, plain old bullets!

Rating: Four gooshy mollusk thingies out of five.

 

Bonus facts: Tim Holt played the Commander. Holt was the son of an actor named Jack Holt,

famous for playing a tough guy in hundereds of westerns and war movies. Famous in his own right, Tim Holt played opposite Humphrey Bogart in "Treasure Of The Sierra Madre" as well as being in "Stagecoach" with John Wayne.

Tim and The Duke ended up becoming life-long friends. Holt was a real-life war hero, receiving the Purple Heart after being wounded on the very last day of WWII.

Audrey Dalton played Gail, the secretary. The Dublin born actress was famous for being in a lot of westerns, too, but hers were mostly on the television. She is the daughter of Irish war hero turned producer Emmet Dalton. Dalton was 22 at the time of filming "Monster". Her on screen love interest, Tim Holt was 38. Well played, Mr. Holt.....well played.

Hans Conried played the doctor who explained stuff to everyone. Conried is best known by his voice and not so much his face, lending his voice to characters such as Captain Hook in "Peter Pan" and Snidely Whiplash in "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show".

Mimi Gibson played Sandy, the little girl with the bunny addiction. Gibson amassed a small fortune (taking inflation into consideration) in various roles as a child. Among many, many other projects Gibson was in "World Without End", "The Three Faces of Eve", "The Ten Commandments", "Houseboat" and also voiced the character of Lucky in Disney's "101 Dalmations".

 

Disturbing content: maybe it's just me, but I saw similarities between the regular mollusks shown by the doctor in the informational film and a character called Domo. You be the judge.

And now, random photos: