ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

Despite being a very low budget movie, I like this one. And Jimbo Berkey's review of Giant Gila Monster on his website, Free Classic Movies gave me a few new reasons to like it.

He's really good at that.
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In 1959, drive-in theaters were all the rage, and independent film companies were rushing to fill the need for thrillers that would please the young crowd.

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June 25, 1959, school is out for the summer, and young boys with cars were eager to take their sweeties to a drive-in movie, especially a movie where their sweeties might get frightened and cling close for protection!

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Enter 'The Giant Gila Monster,' with a believable plot in 1959, when little was known about the Southwest United States and the native animals. Never mind that despite it's fearsome name, the Gila Monster is a slow and sluggish animal that isn't very big. With a name like that, and the fear of the unknown desert area, this movie filled drive-in theater parking lots.

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I particularly enjoyed this one because I was raised in a small town, and this is a 'small town' movie. It's great to see the action in the big cities and the lifestyles of the large urban areas, but if you were brought up in small town America, it's also refreshing to look back at the simple days of earlier years.

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For instance, the party line telephone — if you hear two short rings it is for your neighbor, if you hear three long rings, it is for another neighbor, if you hear one short and two long, it is for you. It was not only easy for our hero to listen in to a call made to the Sheriff, it was acceptable to the Sheriff to have him listen in. And we think that we have less privacy today than then. In some ways yes, and in some ways no.

Anyway, watch this one not to be frightened of a giant monster, but to see the 'Happy Days' of small town America at the turn of the decade in 1959. Pop a big bowl of white kernel popcorn with warm melted butter on it and enjoy the show.

____Jimbo Berkey

* Note from Bud: The DVD comes with a black-and-white version and a colorized version, on two separate discs. The colorized version is remarkably good — and I usually hate colorized versions!


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

[Rocky Jones]

I grew up in Dallas and this film was one the few film making forays of now legendary local Dallas media mogul, Gordon McLendon. McLendon and his dad made their fortune operating the most popular Dallas top 40 radio station, KLIF, but also owned some movie theaters in the area. This stimulated Gordon to try his hand at film making for awhile. He also made The Killer Shrews around the same time. Both were quite low budget and entirely locally financed. They shot them for the most part on the McLendon family's property at Lake Dallas, just north of the city of Dallas. Back in the '70s I used to go sailing around that property and probably trespassed with sunbathing friends a time or two.

As best as I could tell, Gordon was a guy with money who decided to use it to try his hand at as many fun things as he could and film making was one of them. I think he realized the realities of turning a buck in film production pretty quickly, though, and moved on to other pursuits.

[Brent Gair]

Gordon McLendon was a character and a half and he was more than a local (to Dallas) media mogul.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_McLendon

I watched his commentaries on KCND in Pembina North Dakota in the 1960's and 70's. Pembina was a tiny border town and KCND was essentially a pirate station used to reach the much larger audience here in Winnipeg.

One of the very odd things about KCND was that they censored the news and refused to carry common ABC programming. KCND would just go blank if the news was too violent. When we got cable, we could get the uncensored ABC news from a different affiliate. It was funny to flip between the two stations and see what KCND was not showing. And for some reason, KCND refused to show THE BRADY BUNCH!

Oh...about THE GIANT GILA MONSTER...I'm into any old B movie that has hot rods and music. It's a favorite of mine.

[orzel-w]

Looks like it's lapping up radiator overflow.
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...or not...

WayneO
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[Brent Gair]

Go to the post on this forum about THE KILLER SHREWS.

Look at the angry man in the photo on the right at very top of the post. Guess who...Gordon McLendon himself (yes, he was an actor in the movie)!

[Rocky Jones]

Yes, that's McLendon trying his hand at acting in his own movie. He had one of the most familiar voices on radio here in the Dallas area in the 50s-60s-70s. Since he was the boss, he didn't do jock work, but those commentaries ran all the time. I didn't realize they reached very far out of state, but apparently they did. He also very dramatically voiced his own radio commercials for movies showing at McLendon theaters. One that sticks in my mind was his for Where Eagles Dare, in which he described the treacherous trek to the "Schloss Adler".

[Bud Brewster]

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A package deal: the trailer and the movie, in both B&W and in color!

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______________ The Giant Gila Mosnter - trailer


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_______ The Giant Gila Monster @ Youtube in B&W

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_______ The Giant Gila Monster @ Youtube in color


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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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An IMDB trivia item says, "The 'Gila Monster' in the movie is actually a Mexican Beaded Lizard."

If they'd called the movie The Giant Mexican Beaded Lizard, they could have avoided all those arguments between people who couldn't agree if it was pronounced Gila (hard G) or Hila.

And another interesting IMDB trivia item says, "The voice you hear on the other end of the phone, when Chase eavesdrop on a phone call to the police department, is actor Ken Curtis. Ken Curtis served as producer on this film. He also played Festus Hagen on Gunsmoke."

Curtis was the star of The Killer Shrews, the co-billed feature with The Giant Mexican Beaded Lizard.

(Okay, I get it . . . the correct name for the lizard just doesn't have the same impact. )
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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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The two movies shown in the double feature ad below were literally made to play together, and being a fan of both movies since seeing them on the late show in the middle sixties, I'm sure I would have been even more impressed if I'd seen them here -





- with my family about seven years earlier.



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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]

GETTING TO KNOW OUR FAVORITE MONSTERS!
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We love the giant monsters from our favorite sci-fi films, but just how much science and how much fiction is involved in these movies?

I went looking for videos which reminded me of the great educational film we were treated to in Them!, and here's one that fits the bill perfectly!

Enjoy!
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_____________ Monster Bites | Animal Armory


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

[Krel.]

[orzel-w]

[Bud Brewster]

[Bud Brewster]

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The text under the "Production" section of the Wikipedia article has so interesting info.
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Production

Filmed near Dallas, Texas, the film was budgeted at $175,000 and was produced by Dallas drive-in theater chain owner Gordon McLendon who wanted co-features for his main attractions. McLendon shot the film back to back with The Killer Shrews.

Both films were feted as the first feature films shot in and produced in Dallas, and the first movies to premiere as double features. Unlike most double features released in the South, these films received national and even foreign distribution.

In exchange for doing the special effects, Kellogg was allowed to direct the film. Curtis allowed Sullivan to pick the songs with the teenage market in mind. Knox, who played Horatio Alger "Steamroller" Smith, was an actual disc jockey working at radio stations in Texas owned by McLendon. The "Gila Monster" in the movie is actually a Mexican Beaded Lizard.
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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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I guess the reason I like this movie is the way it presents a small town "somewhere in America" which faces a strange creature that crawls out of the wilderness and starts eating the citizens!

It starts out with a brief scene of a teen couple in a parked car during the late afternoon — and suddenly their attacked and killed by an unseen threat!

The title work follows, with well-done graphics and some very spooky music — followed by an amiable scene in the local teen hangout, where we meet the "kids" who make up the heroes of this story.

This small community is friendly to it teenage element, despite a few hostile adult members. And that's the crux of the story. Eventually the town bands together and defeats "the giant gila monster"!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)