By now I’ve made it clear that I’m a fan of those 1950s science fiction/horror “B” movies, aka “creature features.” A particular favorite is The Monster that Challenged the World (1957). It doesn’t hurt that the setting for this film is practically in my neighborhood.
WHOSE FAULT IS IT?
The landlocked, shallow Salton Sea is a highly saline lake that straddles parts of Riverside and Imperial Counties in Southern California. It also has the dubious distinction of sitting atop the notorious San Andreas Fault, so it makes perfect sense that, in the film, an earthquake is what starts the ball rolling. Here is a brief overview of The Monster that Challenged the World.
“Can we go back now?”
When the aforementioned earthquake widens an underwater crevice, a few enormous, prehistoric mollusks are released into the Salton Sea. The carnage begins almost immediately when a parachutist on a training mission, and the sailors in a patrol boat sent out to pick him up, are victims of close encounters with the beasties.
Enter Lt. Commander “Twill” Twillinger (Tim Holt), who leads a rescue party to investigate what happened to the missing men. They find the patrol boat covered in icky slime, and the remains of the parachutist—totally drained of all bodily fluids. He takes a slime sample back to the base lab, where he meets recently widowed Gail MacKenzie (Audrey Dalton) and her young daughter, Sandy. (You gotta have a love interest in a creature feature, right?) Mother and daughter will have a critical role in later scenes.
THE CARNAGE CONTINUES
“Look, mommy, the egg hatched!”
A young couple, enjoying a swim in the moonlight, become late-night snacks for the mollusks. Then, one of the divers that Twill sends down to find out what is going on. Twill manages to fight off one of the beasties as they retrieve an egg, which he takes back to the lab for study. Uh-oh, a recipe for disaster?
As the mollusks find their way into an irrigation canal system, where livestock and more people become victims, I shall wrap up this brief overview. The Monster that Challenged the World earned some positive reviews as one of the better films of that era. It didn’t hurt that the special effects “monster” was life-sized, and it also had plenty of screen time. No holding back here.
Was I not entertained? Oh, Hell yeah! These are the kind of under-rated gems that my family loved/loves on the late night horror host shows: Seymore, Elvira, Svenghoulie, and so on. A fresh bowl of real popcorn, everyone on the couch, all disbelief suspended, and two hours of entertainment follows. Not every monster movie has to be ‘Alien’.
Mark, I don’t think any 1950s creature feature is two hours long. This one, for example, came in at 83 minutes. But yeah, I’m being anal. 🙂 It was 83 minutes of fun entertainment for everyone on the couch!
Wasn’t Hans Conreid in that movie also. I also enjoyed it.
Yes indeed, Leslie, a very young Uncle Tonoose from THE DANNY THOMAS SHOW. At least he survived the giant mollusks in this film. 🙂
Well, the two hours was/is padded out by the schtick the host performed, commercials for Chicken Delight (Don’t cook tonight, call Chicken Delight!), Cal Worthington’s used cars (Old jalopy on the blink? Go see Cal!), and Rotor Rooter Plumbing (And away go troubles down the drain!). And San Diego’s own Moonalisa and later Sal U. Loyd were memorable additions to the party. Sorry, I accidentally activated the WABAC machine. Of course, nowadays Svenghoulie has his clever ME TV commercials and even cornier schtick to pad out two and a half hours. And let us not forget the flagship of them all, Mystery Science Theater 3000. Good times indeed.
Oh yeah, Mark, I forgot about commercials. I have lots of those ’50s films in my DVD/Blu-Ray collection, and I watch others on a variety of streaming services, commercial-free. I have a real aversion to commercials. 🙂