ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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IMDB has several interesting trivia items for this production.
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~ Two actors went on to become well-known TV detectives: Craig Stevens became Peter Gunn on Peter Gunn (1958), while William Hopper became Paul Drake on Perry Mason (1957).

Note from me: I've tried watching Peter Gunn reruns on the channels which show old series like that, but I became bored very quickly.

But being a Perry Mason fan (with the box set of the series to prove it), I've often thought that a spin-off series called Paul Drake Investigations would be terrific! Drake's agency would present evident to DA Hamilton Berger so he could try the suspects and get convictions.

It would show the audience that he was skill DA who only lost to Perry Mason!

The series would focus on Drake's skilled detectives investigating crimes, both at the request of Perry Mason and on their own. Occasionally the episodes could include "cross-over" episodes with Perry Mason and company.

~ Alix Talton (who resembles Della Street in this movie) was reunited with William Hopper the following year on the Perry Mason (1957) TV series episode 'Perry Mason: The Case of the Long-Legged Models (1958)', in the role of Eva Elliot.

Note from me: Frankly, I don't see any resemblance between Miss Alix Talton and Miss Barbara Hale, but the lady in this movie is very attractive.

Since I have the complete series box set of Perry Mason, I'll have to take a look at the episode listed above.

~ Hopper's character says grasshoppers and crickets aren't flesh eaters like the Mantis, but this is totally wrong, since they are just as carnivorous as the Mantis — even preying upon the Mantis from time to time. It can be a toss up as to who eats who when they meet in the wild.

Note from me: This is good news for fans like me of Beginning of the End, which present grasshoppers as ravenous carnivores which threaten to devour mankind!

~ Marge reads a newspaper which contains a story with the headline "Mercury New X-ray Source, Two Scientists Report". This same story appears in many movies and TV shows with newspaper close-up scenes. In real life it originally appeared in newspapers in 1934.

Note from me: I'm confused. Was the report review to the planet Mercury being a source of X-rays, or was is talking about the element, mercury?
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Let's see what author and critic Bill Warren has to say about 1957's The Deadly Mantis.

Once the format of giant insects menacing mankind was established, a film about a giant praying mantis was probably inevitable.

It was only a matter of time before one of the scariest and most voracious insects would be enlarged to threaten people.

It's a shame that when this finally happened, it was in a film as leaden and unimaginative as The Deadly Mantis, which is almost as poor as The Mole People, Universal's worst SF film of the period.

Martin Berkeley's storyline is even more unimaginative than other big-bug movies; it's so elementary it seems schematic. And it takes far too long to get underway.

The film is so perfunctory that it almost seems that no one at all wrote it or directed it; it just appeared.

Nathan Juran's direction (20 Million Miles to Earth, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, The First Men IN the Moon) is at its most incompetent in Mantis. He seems completely uninterested in what's going on. A script as dismal as Berkeley's could hardly have been inspirational, but Juran works at a level below that of the script.

Sidebar: OUCH!

The acting is stilted, even from actors Craig Stevens ("Peter Gunn") and William Hooper ("Perry Mason") who were generally smooth and suave.

The mantis itself is done badly and the thing is just too damned large to be believable.

The model work is also poor, and the marionette work on it is lethargic and clumsy.

There is almost no interaction between the model and anything alive.

Berkeley's script abounds in clunker lines; when they aren't laughable, they're dull. Logic is ignored.

Why is the story structured like a mystery? The title tells us that the monster is a praying mantis. In Them! the identity of the creatures was indeed a secret, and Them! was the model from which most other giant bug movies were drawn.

The music by William Lava is quite good. The Deadly Mantis had a 14-day shooting schedule.

The Deadly Mantis is one of the worst SF films ever made by Universal. And it commits the one sin that, until this point, no other film in that genre ever made by the studio had: it is dull.

Sidebar: I hate it when Warren is so ambiguous. Actually, I agree with most of what he said with the exception that "the model work is poor." I've always felt that the special effects people created a wonderfully detailed model for the mantis. You can debate how effective its movements are in the movie, but not the detailed design to the model itself.

And as always, I have to wonder if the mantis had been a stop-motion special effect would that have made it more entertaining even though the production was saddled with an inferior script and uninspired direction?

In fairness, any film shot in just two weeks is probably going to be substandard. Films usually have tow or three month shooting schedules; two weeks is what hour long TV shows take to grind out two episodes.

Not that a longer shooting schedule would have ever helped such a weak script.

[Bud Brewster]

[Bud Brewster]

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Let's Create a Sequel!
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~ A Question for the Members: The mantis did not grow as large as the one shown in this movie — as far as we know. But if they did, I wondered if the process of fossilization would be as effective in fossilizing the "chitin" of insect exoskeletons as it does the bones of dinosaurs.

~ Here's what I came up with.: I found this online.
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Chitin: Arthropods have exoskeletons made of polysaccharide and protein. Chitin skeletons do not fossilize well, and are typically preserved as carbon films on impressions.
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And so, folks, we can't actually say that giant mantis never existed! Hell's bells, those deadly creatures might have been the actual cause of the dinosaur's extinction! Today's mantis are formidable killers of may creatures which are far larger than they are!

Watch this amazing video and you'll easily believe that giant mantis like the one in this movie could have wiped out all dinosaurs on Earth! It shows a mantis killing, birds, mice, lizards, and even snakes!

___ Snakes and Lizards Are Afraid of Mantises!


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So, it's easy to imagine a giant mantis like the one on the movie attacking the largest dinosaurs on Earth!

Guys, don't judge this movie based on what we THINK science knows about the past! We've spent the last 70 years finding out all the ways they've been wrong. The video above proves that a giant mantis could attack and kill dinosaurs!

And remember . . . the prehistoric giant mantis would NOT have to prey on full grown dinosaurs! It could have easily feasted on the young ones with no problem at all!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)