ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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The "green hell" is the African jungle, and the monsters are wasps which become enlarged after being shot into space and exposed to cosmic rays.

When the space capsule touches down in Africa, scientists Jim Davis and Barbara Turner go after it, but their attempts to retrive the insect specimens from the capsule are complicated by the fact that the specimens now prefer to dine on African animals, African natives, and American scientist.

Producer Al Zimbalist and director Kenneth Crane wanted the film to include authentic jungle locations so they borrowed several scenes from 1939's "Stanley and Livingston".

The full-sized mockups of the wasps are fairly impressive, and there are a few very brief stop-motion scenes (poorly done). One scene shows a python attacking a giant wasp. The wasp pulls the snake from around it's neck, pins it to the ground, and pumps it full of poison from long spikes on both sides of its mandibles — instead of a stinger in its tail. Never mind the fact that wasps don't have stingers in front — these are mutated wasps, so entomologist can just go fish!



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

[Rick]

Maybe it's because I was so tardy coming to this one (my late thirties), but it seems to me the very silliest of all the '50s s-f flicks. Not the worst. Just the silliest.

So these guys launch their rocket and don't know where it is ("I'll tell you one thing, if that rocket comes down on a populated area...it won't be good.") Then, a couple weeks later, they read a newspaper story about some natives dying in Africa. Ah, they figure, maybe that's got something to do with our rocket. So our hero decamps for the dark continent to check it out. When he gets to Africa, it's about a three or four week WALK to the remote village in question.

Where to begin? Okay, first...why are the deaths of a few African villagers front-page news in a U.S. paper?

Second...why assume the deaths of a few African villagers are due to the lost rocket?

Third...if the African village is so incredibly remote, how did the fascinating news of a couple of villagers get out so quickly to the anxiously waiting news outlets of the Western world?

Fourth... they have to WALK all the way to the village? They can't take a jeep half-way? Fly a plane to a slightly closer departure point? Take a helicopter right to the center of the village? No?? They have to walk for the better part of a month?

I know they needed trekking scenes to match up with their stock footage, but...come on!

This was one of those cases in which the silliness was so silly and the stupidity so stupid that it pretty much ruined the movie for me. It's not one of those movies where you wake up out of a sound sleep two days later thinking, "Wait a minute..." No, this was one in which the stupidity and illogic hit you square on the head as they occur, rendering the moronic thing just head-shakingly stupid.

Pardon my rant, but I waited anxious decades to catch up with MONSTER FROM GREEN HELL and this is what I get? I was not a happy camper that day and had I not rented the videotape, I probably would have killed it with a hammer.
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Man need not kneel before the angels,
Nor lie in death forever,
But for the weakness of his feeble will.

[Bud Brewster]

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Rick, again you prove that you're my kinda guy — a thinking man who only enjoys sci-fi movies if the fiction is blended with science and logic. This one doesn't even bother with common sense, never mind the science or the logic.

For the record, I enjoy your "rants" against the bad ones as much I as enjoy your fond memories of the good ones. So, rant away, Rick!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[alltare]

Dittos, Rick.

I bought the DVD, and I, too, was very tempted to kill it with a hammer. Instead, I placed it in my quarantine vault, next to ROBOT MONSTER, PLAN 9, and SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS.

[Bud Brewster]

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Today I found a download source for Monsters from Green Hell, and the picture was fairly good. The audio, however, was WAY out of synch with the video, resulting in funny scenes — like when we see the man talking to the woman, but we hear her voice with her answer, ten seconds later.

And when a giant wasp attacks a large group of animals at a watering hole and causes them to run away, we hear the jabbering voices of the natives the wasp is chasing in the next shot, several seconds later.

Boy, you haven't lived until you've heard a stampeding herd of giraffes shouting in fluent Swahili!



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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]

[Gord Green]

Bud, I think your efforts were better than THIS turkey!
Heck....THIS movie is an insult to turkeys everywhere!

[Bud Brewster]

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Enjoy the trailer for this often-ridiculed film. And notice how the narrator mispronounces the title, caling it "Monster from THE Green Hell".
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____________ Monster from Green Hell Trailer


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

[bulldogtrekker]

I remember renting this movie (on videotape) about 25 years ago from Phar-mor (does anyone remember Phar-mor?) and I have not seen it since. I don't think it is worth a second viewing unless a good copy becomes available.

It stars Jim Davis, better known from the Dallas TV series.

[Bud Brewster]

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Ask and ye shall receive!

Knock and the door shall open!

Copy the link and ye shall download!

(And the picture quality is really righteous, Brother!)
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______ Monster From Green Hell on DailyMotion


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

[Maurice]

I scrubbed through it to see the bugs... not much screen time on them, huh?
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* * *
"The absence of limitations is the enemy of art."
― Orson Welles

[Bogmeister]

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_________ Monster From Green Hell movie trailer


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Goldweber, David Elroy (2012-06-14). Claws & Saucers: Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy Film: A Complete Guide: 1902-1982 (Kindle Locations 50046-50071). David E. Goldweber. Kindle Edition.

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What's Happening: Cosmic rays turn wasps into giant wasp-beetles in Africa

Famous For: One of the worst Insect Fear pictures

It's probably useless to criticize a cheap derivative picture that was clearly considered nothing more than a product to everyone involved.

For one thing, Bill Warren has already picked out every bad quality (many) and every good one (few). For another, the only reason people watch these things 50 + years later is for camp.

With help from Warren, I'll list the bad and good qualities. Then I 'll say a little about camp.

Plot, characters, and acting are all substandard. A few typical elements of Insect Fear pictures are present: the discovery of a dead victim, telltale footprints, and scientists working with military men to track the creatures down.

But one key element is surprisingly absent: people in peril. The wasps (who are obviously beetles, not wasps) live only in remote Africa in the "Green Hell" territory where even animals refuse to go. So we never feel worried about anything. The heroes know what they're looking for from the beginning. They never even need to find the One Thing that will beat the monsters.

Good qualities include a striking image in the opening scene — a military science lab with a sloping skylight that reveals a picturesque desert beyond — and some decent, if brief, stop-motion animation. The wasp-beetles look good, even slightly scary, and make a shrill buzzing.

The most sustained stop-motion sequence takes about 10 seconds, when a constrictor snake attacks one of the insects and is duly dispatched. I also thought the Spanish girl looked cute with her slightly crooked teeth.

Fans seeking camp must be ready for boring stock footage — a lot of it — from Stanley and Livingstone (1939). According to Warren, an elaborate ending was filmed, with a giant cave full of wasps (puppets) getting inundated by steaming lava . . . but the steam fogged the cameras and ruined all the footage!

Eduardo Ciannelli (the Arab guide) starred in Mysterious Doctor Satan. Crane also co-directed the astonishing Manster.




BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

[Bud Brewster]

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Bogmeister didn't write the review for this movie, but he certainly formatted a handsome presentation for the excerpt he pasted in from David Elroy Goldweber's gorgeous reference book.

Mr. Goldweber's writing style is similar to Bogmeister's, and I enjoyed his review.
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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 only has 7 trivia items for this movie, but several of them are very interesting.

One of the items are pretty damn funny, and I'm surprised that the folks at IMDB approved them! They've reject a few of my own fact-based submissions just because they couldn't confirm the data!
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~ The sequence in which hundreds of African natives attack the safari before being turned back by fire is taken from Stanley and Livingstone (1939). Note that star Jim Davis is costumed very much like Spencer Tracy was in that film. If you look closely, the rifles used in 1939 footage and this movie's spliced-in scenes are different models.

Note from me: I admire the dedication of the guy who carefully compared Stanley and Livingston to the borrowed footage in this movie and noted the similarities described above.

What it tells us is that the producers of the movie did exactly the same thing so that the borrowed footage would work with the parts that were actually filmed for the movie. And in it's own way, THAT'S admirable, too!

The next two items seem to be referring to the same subject, but I'm not sure they both have their facts straight.

~ In the original uncut version the scene showing lava is in red tint. Most versions shown on television have this in black and white.

~ Even though the film was originally released in black and white, the 1997 VHS release of the film has a scene shot in Technicolor.

Note from me: A B&W scene can be tinted red much cheaper than one can be filmed in Technicolor, so I suspect the second item above is incorrect.

~ Use of a stopwatch might suggest that about 40% of this movie is stock footage.

Note from me: This must be the guy who compared Stanley and Livingston so carefully to this movie. And he had a stopwatch, too!

~ This movie teaches us that in 1957 when the native bearers drop the supplies and run away, the white men do not pick up nor carry anything.

Note from me: This cracked me up. It isn't the kind of "trivia item" that IMDB would normally approve, but I sure love it.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)