ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

[Also released as: "Earth versus the Spider"]

A popular favorite from the master of economic film making, Bert I. Gordon. Not quite as slick or as serious as "Tarantula", but loads of fun. The late 1950s produced a flurry of teen-oriented science fiction films with plenty of rock 'n roll music to fire the blood of their intended audience.

Rock n' roll music is what begins all the trouble in "The Spider"; after a high school biology teacher finds a supposedly dead giant spider and stores it in the school's gym, a band practice for the high school prom revives the dormant arachnid.

After terrorizing the town, the spider establishes a lair in a nearby cave and builds a huge web which ensnares two teens. The monster is capable of draining the fluids from the bodies of its victims' (yuck). Electricity is the weapon which the heroes hope will rid the world of this crawling monstrosity.

The screenplay was written by Laszlo Gorog and George Worthing Yates ("Earth v.s. the Flying Saucers", "It Came from Beneath the Sea", etc.).
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[orzel-w]

Ed(ward) Kemmer, in the lead role, had a list of movie and TV credentials as long as both your arms end-to-end. He was best known as Commander Buzz Corry of the TV series Space Patrol from 1950 through 1955. He also served as the live action model for Prince Phillip in Disney's animated Sleeping Beauty in 1959.
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...or not...

WayneO
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[Bud Brewster]

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As giant spider movies go, this one is actually pretty good! I had to wait until the 1990s to finally see it, so I missed my chance to be dazzled by the film at a theater when I was the right age to appreciate it.

Still, I did enjoy it.

Not so much for the second feature, which I remember seeing the chilling trailer for. I also owned the gorgeous poster for it, and displayed it proudly on the wall of my room throughout the 1960s — along with a half-dozen other posters from my sizable collection, obtained from a run-down movie promo supply house in Atlanta that sold posters and stills to me and my friends at very low prices!

None-the-less, I'm sure there were audiences who enjoyed themselves in 1958 when the two movies shown below played together. *



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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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IMDB has eight trivia items for this movie. Here's a few of the ones I found the most interesting.
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In one scene, one of the teenagers is seen with issue #1 of "Famous Monsters of Filmland".


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The last of Bert I. Gordon's "giant special effects" features from the 1950s. He would not do another until 1965's "Village of the Giants."


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The theater where Mike works is showing a stand-up display for "The Amazing Colossal Man" outside in one scene.





Mike mentions on the phone that his father's theater is showing a new film, "Attack of the Puppet People."


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Released by American International in September 1958, this was the third Bert I. Gordon "giant menace" film to be released that year. "War of the Colossal Beast" (1958) and "Attack of the Puppet People" (1958) were released earlier in the year.





The town's theatre is playing a double feature of "The Amazing Colossal Man" (1957) and "Attack of the Puppet People" (1958). Both were recent Bert I. Gordon films also released by American International.


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[bulldogtrekker]

Earth vs. the Spider (aka The Spider) is now in the All Sci-fi Movie Room.

[Bud Brewster]

GETTING TO KNOW OUR FAVORITE MONSTERS!
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For the last few days I've been presenting educational videos that related to the giant monster movies of the 1950s — videos that offered some science to go with the fiction.

The Spider is a special case, because the main character is a science teacher played by Ed Kemmer (Commander Buzz Corey from Space Patrol). A scene in which he presented a science video about tarantulas in the school gym to both the students and the townsfolk would have been perfectly appropriate after the giant spider was discovered in the nearby cave.

Ed would educate the people in the town concerning the big, hairy, eight-legged threat they were about to go out and deal with!

Concerning the video below, my dedication to the members of All Sci-Fi meant that I didn't mind searching through dozens of videos to find just the right one for this post!

Fortunately the third one I found was a doozy, so I didn't have spend much time at all.

I firmly believe that if the executives in Hollywood had seen a video like this one back the 1950s, we'd have gotten a sequel to both Tarantula and The Black Scopion which would feature a titanic battle between the two monsters . . . right in the middle of New York!

This would have been the perfect second feature for the version of The Deadly Mantis I described, with the huge mantis creeping slowly across the grounds of the city zoo and gobbling up lions and tigers and bears.

Oh my!
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_________________ Tarantula hunts Scorpion


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bogmeister]

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_________________ The Spider (1958) Trailer


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Mr. B.i.G. strikes again — Bert I. Gordon, who also gifted us with The Amazing Colossal Man, now tries to do Tarantula one better — a giant spider.

It takes place in a small American town and adjacent wilderness. Some guy driving back to town at night in a truck encounters a horrific impediment. His daughter and her boyfriend go in search of him the next day, and they find the truck crashed off the road, so decide to investigate a nearby cave.

This cave is well-known to the locals and has spawned some local spooky legends. The young couple do find a couple of fresh skeletons a ways inside, but this is not enough to deter them. Then they fall into what seems like a net of rope, but is supposed to be a large spider web. Next thing you know — that's right — a screeching giant spider! Yaggh! Run away, run away!

(Though they remark on how stick the web is, apparently it can't hold them. Not a very effective web. )



As expected, the authorities (a sheriff and his deputy) scoff at the story from the teens, but the teens gain an ally in their science teacher (Ed Kemmer of Space Patrol fame), who convinces the lawmen to check things out.

They all head over to the cave, along with some insect exterminators. The girl finally locates the desiccated remains of her father, and the giant spider makes its presence known to the others.

Fortunately, they brought along enough arachnid pesticide to spray the monster to death . . . .or did they?

Here's where the story takes an even more loopy turn — the science guy (Kemmer) is certain that the creature is dead, so they place the supposedly dead monster in the school gymnasium. Oh, wait — the science guy says (after the creature begins to rampage all over town) it was just stunned . . . .sorry.

Later, the giant spider selects a particular house to attack — it's the science guy's house, where his wife & son are threatened.

Karma?



Mr. B.i.G. does the FX work himself. as he did in most of his films, and it's adequate, especially if you're a kid.

Less successful is the selection of actors to play supposed high school kids. This was a problem in a few films back then, notably in The Blob, also release in 1958.

There's one in particular — I think the character's name is Joe, and he's a buddy of the boyfriend. When we first see him in class, my first thought was, "What is this 40-year-old doing in this classroom?"

Overall, I was surprised that this movie to be better than I thought it would be in terms of suspense in the first couple of acts, and the pace is pretty good.

BoG's Score: _ out of 10

________________ Earth vs the Spider (1958)


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____________ MST3k 313 - Earth vs the Spider


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BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

[Morbius]

I saw this in the Theater, packed with screaming kids on a saturday afternoon.

[Bud Brewster]

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I confess to extreme envy whenever one of our members shares a memory like yours, Morbius.

All my 1950s movie memories were at drive-ins with my parents — which was enjoyable, of course, but it's not the same thing as going to a neighbor theater with your buddies and whoopin' it up with a mob of rowdy kids.

Oh, well. At least I have All Sci-Fi members who allow me to live vicariously . . .
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)