Daily Archives: June 5, 2016

Kronos
Directed by Kurt Neumann
Written by Lawrence L. Goldman; story by Irving Block
USA/1957
Regal Films
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Dr. Hubbell Eliot: We have half of the equation; we can turn matter into energy. But up there, they have the second half; they can turn energy into matter.[/box]

This B sci-fi film is kind of a mixed bag.

A truck driver is humming along to “Something’s Gotta Give” on his radio as he tootles down a desert road.  Suddenly he sees a small beam of light before him.  There is a blinding flash and the trucker is instantly zombified.  His handler sends him to a laboratory where he blitzes a guard.  There is a second flash and the handler takes over Hubbell Ellis, the lab’s head scientist.

Ellis now has a mysterious gleam in his eye.  An asteroid looks ready to collide with earth. Ellis counsels using nuclear weapons to destroy it.  This proves ineffective and the “asteroid”, really a spacecraft, lands in the Gulf of Mexico.  It morphs into a gigantic robot and starts heading for a nuclear power plant.  In the meantime, Ellis is put in an insane asylum.  During his rare lucid moments, the frightening truth begins to emerge.

The film features stylish title credits, a great score, and an intriguing premise about energy conservation.  After a very promising opening, it kind of resolves into a standard creature feature plot, with attendant romance and wisecracks, and lacks thrills.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxwxL6xDT3s

Trailer

The Deadly Mantis
Directed by Nathan Juran
Written by Martin Berkeley;story by William Alland
1957/USA
Universal International Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Dr. Ned Jackson: I’m convinced that we’re dealing with a Mantis in whose geological world the smallest insects were as large as man, and now failing to find those insects as food, well… it’s doing the best that it can.[/box]

The plot is rather bland but the monster is rather awesome.  And we all know what is important in these things.

We start with an explanation of North American missile defense.  Then we travel to the outermost command above the arctic circle.  A weather station is destroyed.  Its occupants simply disappear.  Then an Eskimo village and cargo plane are attacked.  The military locates a bit of evidence.  Scientists determine that it must have come from a living thing.  The part is taken to a entomologist/paleontologist (William Hopper) at the Museum of Natural History.  Turns out it’s the spur from a prehistoric preying mantis!

The mantis is moving southward toward its natural environment in the tropics.  It makes stops in Washington DC and New York City, where its last stand proves to be the Lincoln Tunnel.  The obligatory romance is also included.

I was impressed with the special effects in this one, extremely dated though they are. Several different techniques appear to be used.  Other than one howler of a real mantis climbing a tiny Washington Monument, they are effective.  There’s also some better than average use of stock footage.  Not bad for a giant bug movie.  Why are all giant creatures born in either the Arctic or the desert?

Trailer