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The Cyclops (1957)

 
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 7:30 pm    Post subject: The Cyclops (1957) Reply with quote

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Gloria Talbot ("I Married a Monster From Outer Space") wants to find her lost love in Mexico. She hires a pilot and a scientist to help her find him, and she agrees to allow a uranium-hunting business man (Lon Chaney, Jr. of "The Wolf Man") to accompany them.

Little does she know that her man has been turned into a 50-foot giant (along with several snakes, animals, insects, and spiders) thanks to the radiation caused by all the minerals in the area.

The poor man's face is badly damaged (exposed teeth, burned skin, flesh covering one eye). The same actor (Dean Parkins) played the same basic monster in "War of the Colossal Beast". The makeup is actually quite good, and the special effects are fairly good! Very Happy

]The music is by Albert Glasser, available on a rare album. The film is written, produced, and directed by Bert I. Gordon. Famous voice-man Paul Frees is credited with "special vocal effects"— apparently the grunting sounds which the monster makes!

This movie was originally co-billed with Daughter of Dr. Jekyll, which also starred Gloria Talbot.

_________________
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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 Fri Mar 08, 2024 7:09 pm; edited 18 times in total
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Rick
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 11, 2016 12:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Another ancient memory here.

It was a late Friday night in the summer of 1962. I was trying to find something to watch on TV, so I was flipping channels (flipping, yes, no remotes in those days . . . .strictly hands on the channel knob).

We only had two VHF TV stations back before The Flood — Channels 3 and 11. So I was click-click-clacking from one to another and . . . wait! What was that? Did I see some fuzzy image there?

I backtracked and indeed there was . . . something. I adjusted the rabbit ears and spun the little wheel behind the channel dial (fine tuning I assumed), and there was a picture.






It turned out to be Channel 4 from Indianapolis/Bloomington. I assume it was the long-running late show, hosted by the famous horror host Sammy Terry. All I remember is that the movie was THE CYCLOPS, which I'd never seen before.

I was tickled pink, and settled in to watch.

Well . . . there was not much settling actually. Pretty much through the whole movie I was fiddling with the antenna.

My mom said, numerous times that night, "I can't see anything." But that wasn't quite true. There was something there. A faint, gray, shifting vision. And a pretty clear audio. It was — to be frank — a lousy image.

But it was a monster movie I'd never seen. And a surprise one to boot! Because this was a station we'd never picked up before (and never would again).

We made it through that murky, fuzzy movie, and I proudly entered it into my record of Monster Movies I Have Seen. But it was weird. THE CYCLOPS was the rare film — maybe the only film — which fit into the category of Movies I've Seen . . . But Have Not Seen.

Still, I'm awfully glad to have found that faint, frustrating image, because it would be more than 25 years before I got my second look, and my first REAL look, at THE CYCLOPS.

Too bad it's not much of a movie.
Rolling Eyes
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 11, 2016 1:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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I'd never have remembered a marginally similar experience I had once, Rick, if you hadn't shared your own great tale of phantom TV signals and ghostly images from distant regions.

Yes sir, I'll never forget the scariest night of my life, which came about as the direct result of watching a movie on the Late Late Show.

Back in 1964 (I think) I acquired this little gem shown below, my very own TV with a 12" screen . . . and a earplug jack on the side!

I rigged up a switch that was hidden under my bed — and a long power cord that ran under the rug — so that I could turn on the TV in a very sneaky manner after the official "lights out" on weeknights. With a long extension wire for the transistor radio earplug, I could secretly watch my silent Magnavox TV and enjoy the occasional sci-fi/monster movies that aired on the Late Late Show during "school nights".



But Dad got up one night to hit the bathroom, and he noticed the eerie flicking light coming from the gap at the base of my closed bedroom door.

However, when he opened the door of my room, the TV was already off and I was earning the Oscar for The Most Convince Snore Performed by a Terrified Teenager.

Ah, but Dad was not fool! He just smiled and laid his hand gently on top the TV to confirm his suspicions that it was mighty warm for such a late hour. Then he quietly said, "We'll talk about this in the morning, son. Good night."

Yep, that was the scariest night of my life — and ironically enough, it had nothing to do with the monster movie I'd been watching. Shocked

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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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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 4:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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This is a magnificent trailer with a ton of enthusiasm for this less-than-perfect movie. Enjoy it! Very Happy
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_________________The Cyclops Trailer - 1957


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And enjoy this download from Veoh. Very Happy
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_________________The Cyclops — full movie


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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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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 2:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

The newspaper ads I recently found for double features in the 1950s inspired me to go looking for more!

The idea of going to a drive-in or an indoor theater when I was a kid and seeing some of these co-billed movies is fun to contemplate.

These two are a fine example! Very Happy




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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: Mon Apr 01, 2019 5:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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________________ The Cyclops Trailer - 1957

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This another of my most recent purchases from Sci-Fi Station. I finally watched this after making plans about a year ago (after reading about it while writing up the post for The Amazing Colossal Man).

This was Bert I. Gordon's warm-up for his more famous Colossal Man movie. It's not as bad as I thought it would be, since I'd read that it's one of the worst monster films of the fifties. Gordon actually manages to present some sophisticated characterizations for this type of fare.

The 4 main characters — three men and a woman — use a single-engine airplane to fly into a remote jungle valley in Mexico in search of the woman's fiancee.

At least two of the guys are somewhat deficient, par for the course in these films. Lon Chaney Jr plays the prime troublemaker. His goal is to stake a claim for the uranium he feels certain is there. Tom Drake plays an unemployable pilot. James Craig, playing a scientist, has the hots for the woman, played by Gloria Talbott.

They manage to land safely, but they aren’t ‘out of the woods' so to speak.



It's not long before they start to see giant animal life — a huge rodent is picked off by a giant hawk. (This gigantic bird never flies out of the valley? Oh, it needs to each giant rodents. Right.)

Later, we see a giant spider and a giant lizard. Then the 5th character enters, the woman's fiancee, now a 25-foot tall one-eyed horror, thanks to the radiation in this valley. The radiation affects the pituitary glands of living things. Much of the action in the latter half takes place in the giant man's cave, a direct steal from the story of Odysseus and his encounter with a one-eyed cyclops.

At one point, it's stated (by scientist Craig) that animal growth is unlimited in this valley due to the situation with the radiation. This might have been a set-up for a sequel, in which the animals grew to such sizes that they began to spread beyond this valley.

Maybe Gordon felt this would be copying Food of the Gods by H.G. Wells too much. Hey... waitaminni! Food of the Gods? Is it just me or was Gordon kind of stuck in a rut?


_______________ Joe Dante on THE CYCLOPS


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BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus


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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 01, 2019 5:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Andrew Bogdan watched movies the same way I do — he loved to spot the good parts ("Hey, that's smart!" Very Happy) and the bad parts ("Wow, that's really dumb!" Sad).

I hate it when people say, "Why are you so critical? Can't you just relax and enjoy the movie?" Shocked

No, I really can't. If a movie doesn't make me think, it doesn't hold me attention. Watching a movie and not thinking about it is like eating a meal and not tasting it!

Here's what I mean. Andrew said this is his post above.


Quote:
It's not long before they start to see giant animal life — a huge rodent is picked off by a giant hawk. (This gigantic bird never flies out of the valley?).

This observation means that Andrew did indeed "relax and enjoy the movie". He had fun spotting the good ideas and the bad ideas — figuring out which was which, and being proud of himself for knowing the difference.

I created the first of version of All Sci-Fi back in 2006 (and all the versions that followed) for the sole purpose of finding people like Andrew so we could discuss movies like this one. Very Happy

I'm delighted that fourteen years later I'm still doing exactly that with people like him . . . and all the members of this board! Very Happy

Thanks, guys! Keep posting. It makes this aging sci-fi fan happy. Cool

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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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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 17, 2020 4:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Thinking Outside the "Plot"!
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~ A Question for the Members: Wow, the premise of this movie is ripe for sequels! What will the world do when they find out that a remote region in Mexico is both rich in uranium and also causes animals and people to grow to gigantic size? Shocked

~ My Theory: Getting that uranium out is a no-brainer, naturally! Cool

But wait a minute! What special property of this region causes animals to grow larger . . . instead of being killed by the radiation? Shocked

The only apparent "mutation" caused by the radiation is the rapid growth rate — with no cancer-like maladies of the type that radiation usually causes!

As far as we know, Gloria Talbot's husband suffered his terrible facial injuries because of some accident which occurred after he arrived in the region. But instead of dying from these terrible injuries (and the inevitable infection), his damaged flesh healed over and he survived — without medical attention of any kind! Shocked

Gentlemen, I submit that this strange region might possess the ability to heal traumatic illness in human beings, as well as causing animals to mature at a faster rate than normal — thus providing a method for farmers to deliver mature cattle, pigs, and chickens to market in less time!
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Gosh, guys, I know I'm not only member of All Sci-Fi who loves to do what best selling sci-fi author Larry Niven refers to as "playing with ideas"!

What can you add to this thread that might be fun to discuss?

_________________
____________
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 Wed Oct 26, 2022 1:14 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 01, 2021 12:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

IMDB one has a few trivia items for this production, but two of them caught my fancy. Very Happy
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~ The cyclops myth almost certainly originated in the Greek islands, which in prehistoric times were the home of dwarf mastodons. By the classical period they were all extinct, but their jumbled bones could be found in caves (and still are).

Like the modern elephant, the skull has a central opening for the nasal passage of the trunk, which resembles a human eye socket, whereas the real sockets are further back and rather indistinct - thus it looks like the skull of a giant man with one eye.


Note from me: By gum, I think maybe the author of this trivia item was right! Cool






~ Voice specialist Paul Frees is given credit for special voice effects. His contributions included the vocal sounds of the cyclops, the breathing sound of the giant lizard and the "Mexican" voice heard on the plane's radio.

Note from me: This was probably the least effective use of the great Paul Frees' magnificent voice in the history of his career! It's like asking Doris Day to clear her throat to make a monster sound for a grade Z movie! Rolling Eyes

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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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Krel.
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 01, 2021 3:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
Note from me: This was probably the least effective use of the great Paul Frees' magnificent voice in the history of his career! It's like asking Doris Day to clear her throat to make a monster sound for a grade Z movie! Rolling Eyes

Hey, it was a paycheck. Besides, what's the old saying? There are no small parts, just small actors. Laughing

Mel Blanc started off with Jack Benny doing special sound effects, like J.B.s Maxwell Touring Car.

David.
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