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The Giant Behemoth (1959 England)

 
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 04, 2015 1:03 pm    Post subject: The Giant Behemoth (1959 England) Reply with quote

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Director Eugene Lourie (along with co-director Douglas Hickox) attempted to repeat the success of Lourie's earlier hit "Beast from 20,000 Fathoms".





And to some degree they succeeded with this English-made science fiction thriller about a brontosaurus-like dinosaur on the loose in London.





The model is superb in form and detail. Willis O'Brien (King Kong's famous creator) did much of the animation, although reports say he was rushed to get it finished. The results, however, are fine — although the low budget caused the film makers to recycle certain scenes repeatedly, and it gets damned annoying.





The basic similarities between "Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" and "The Giant Behemoth" are by no means a coincidence, since Eugene Lourie not only directed but wrote the screenplay for "Behemoth".

The cast includes Jack MacGowran, Leigh Madison, Gene Evans, Andre Morell, and John Tuner.

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


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Sun Sep 25, 2022 3:37 pm; edited 12 times in total
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed May 04, 2016 4:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Enjoy the exciting trailer for this movie


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______________ The Giant Behemoth — trailer


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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Bogmeister
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2019 11:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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This was, essentially, a British remake of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, which had come out only half-a-dozen years earlier. The Brits seem to be a bit behind the times in this area — they then came up with Gorgo, which was their version of the Japanese Godzilla.



The film moves at a leisurely pace in the first half, as the plot concerns itself with the radioactive traces left by the Behemoth near a peaceful fishing village.

You see, besides the tromping this Behemoth is prone to do, it also gives off lethal radioactive barrages, burning hapless citizens on the spot! It's like dragon that spews out radioactivity instead of flames.

Don't ask me why . . . Rolling Eyes

Since it appears to be a sea dinosaur, it's designated a Plesiosaur, but once it's on land, it behaves more like a hostile Brontosaurus or Brachiosaurus. Willis O'Brien (King Kong), mentor to Ray Harryhausen, did his last FX for this. As seemed to be the case in much of his later work, he was plagued by time & budget constraints. He previously worked on The Black Scorpion.

BoG's Score: 5 out of 10



BoG
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Last edited by Bogmeister on Sun May 19, 2019 2:13 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Pow
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2019 12:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pete Peterson, who suffered from MS at the time, also did some of the stop~motion animation for TGB along with Obie.

Since Pete was in considerable pain standing, a low level table was used by him so he could sit while animating the creature.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2019 5:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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One of my best friends for many years was Jimmy Harmon, whom I'd known since the 5th grade, and during high school we actually did some stop motion ourselves using clay figures. You can see Jimmy at work creating the clay Ogre he animated by clicking on the pictures below and going to the 3:00 mark.

I animated the dragon, which Jimmy also created. The eyes appear as white spots in the blurry screen grabs from the 8mm film because we used tiny ball bearings, which made the eyes reflective. Very Happy

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For all the years I knew him, Jimmy was an avid collector of rare sci-fi items, and back in the late 1970s he would invite me to his house to show me incredible things from his collection, like 16mm prints of movies like Jason and the Argonauts, and copies of animation test footage by an incredible French animator whose name I can't recall. Shocked

He also had a fine copy of Peter Peterson test real or "The Las Vegas Monster" and "The Beetle Men".

Jimmy had been a cameraman for the U.S. Air Force, and he made training films which showed pilots and flight crews as they scrambled to their fighters — footage that looked like fast-paced scenes from a war movie about Vietnam!

In the early 1980s Jimmy met an untimely death early one morning while working for WXIA news in Atlanta, shooting dramatic footage of a passenger train rounding a bend in the tracks and racing past. It was going to be used for a news story later that day about the decline of passenger trains.

Jimmy had two cameras set up, one on a tripod thirty feet back from the tracks, and another one placed right on the ground just inches from the track, pointed in the direction the train was going, so he could get a shot of the train racing overhead as it sped away from the camera's point of view.

Unfortunately, while activating that second camera next to the track, he was struck and killed by the train.

Here's the YouTube video of the Pete Peterson test footage which Jimmy had a copy of.
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___ LAS VEGAS MONSTER AND BEETLEMEN PETE PETERSON


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


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Pow
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2019 10:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So sorry to read about your friend's Jimmy's tragic death, Bud.

Far too young. May he rest in peace.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 28, 2022 1:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Thanks, Pow. He was a remarkable guy. I've always wondered what happened to his amazing collection. I hope his wife and stepdaughter were able to receive a fair price for it. I doubt she realized how valuable it was. Sad

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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Pow
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 28, 2022 7:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Keep Watching the Skies! Bill Warren

Despite a good performance by Gene Evans and a no-nonsense atmospheric approach, this is a perfunctory monster-on-the-loose film of little distinction. Not badly done, although the budget was too low, the only real problem with the film is there's nothing new about it at all.

In fact, it is essentially a remake of Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and like that, it was directed by Eugene lourie, who also wrote it with the uncredited Daniel Hyatt. The monster shakes up London rather than New York, but many of the elements are almost identical, including the structure and the monster itself.

Willis O'Brien and Pete Peterson were paid out of the paltry $20,000 special effects budget.

Willis O'Brien and Phil Kellison built a wire-controlled model head of the creature for the scene in which it sinks the ferry. An overzealous effects worker fiddled with the model's controls, and broke them. As a result, the ship had to be sunk by an intricately-detailed but immobile Behemoth head.

At this time OBie was over 70, and Peterson was suffering from multiple sclerosis, making it very painful to stand. The table for the animation scenes was built low enough that Peterson could work on it sitting down, but he was still in considerable pain.

Instead of the six months or so that OBie and Peterson were allowed for The Black Scorpion, they had only six to eight weeks for The Giant Behemoth. As a result, some of their work is hasty and incomplete, but occasionally the monster seems awesome and menacing.

Reviews were remarkably favorable, and many people today regard The Giant Behemoth as one of the best of the giant-monster films.

The film is not badly made, except for the inadequate effects budget, but it simply progresses from one expected event to another. The low-key black-and-white photography is good throughout, and both Gene Evans and Andre Morell are intelligent performers. (There is no love interest at all.)

This is one of those films you sit through with moderate interest but no real enthusiasm.

Thoughts: I've always enjoyed this film, the suspense at sea as they attempt to track down the creature is well done.

Given the enormous challenges that OBie & Pete faced making the movie, it is incredible that it is as decent as it is. We can only wonder just how much OBie & Pete would have accomplished with a better budget and longer shooting schedule? That would not make the script any stronger, but the visuals could have been stunning to behold.

The lack of any romantic subplot only benefits the film and shows how unnecessary they really were in SF movies of this ilk.

The Giant Behemoth will never join the pantheon of the finest science fiction films made from the 1950s. However, it remains moderately entertaining and Obie & Pete should be greatly admired for their work under the most trying of circumstances.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2022 3:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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I was saddened to learn about the hardships which O'Brien and Peterson suffered while make this film. The mishap with the broken articulated head just added insult to injury.

I've never been a big fan of this movie, and I wish it hadn't stuck the "radiating dinosaur" aspect of the plot. It was just annoying.

But the poster is cool, and it was one of many which I decorated my room with in the 1960s, changing them around periodically.



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~ The Space Children (1958)
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