Monster
Crap Inductee: The Giant Behemoth
The
Goggles Will Do Nothing Against This Beast
1959
200
Inductions…
Can’t
believe I have gotten this far, but this December’s induction will be my 200th
induction. I mean, I started all of this on a simple lark of having something
to do while I deal with multiple sclerosis and work on getting my certificate
from the Connecticut School Of Broadcasting, and maybe hoping to do something
in that field of broadcasting.
Yeah,
There Was A School In Crystal City, Virginia That I Used To Go To And There
Used To Be A Bar I Would Hang Out With Afterwards For A Soda While Waiting For
The VRE Train Back Home, Called The Hamburger Hamlet. Both The CSB School In
Crystal City And The Hamburger Hamlet Are Sadly No Longer There.
Thankfully,
The Crystal City Water Park Is Still There. If I Wasn’t At The Hamburger Hamlet
Waiting For The Train, I Was At The Water Park, Sitting On A Bench And Reading.
But
more than 14 years later, I am now doing my 200th induction and
originally, I was going to do the much anticipated franken-film of a film that
originally was shot in 1980 and the final parts now being finished in Grizzly
2: The Revenge. But you all know how insane 2020 has been and unfortunately,
all the delays has caused the film to eventually be announced to be released on
January 8, which is too late for this induction. So instead, I am going to do
like I did in my 100th induction and do a film that means something
to me. The 100th induction was my first monster film that I ever saw
and the 200th induction will be my second. So let’s talk about the
history of The Giant Behemoth.
The
Giant Behemoth started off as a film written by blacklisted writer Daniel Lewis
James, who got blacklisted because as an assistant director of Charlie
Chaplin’s The Great Director, he became very associated with Charlie Chaplin
and of course, the House Un-American Activities Committee decided that James
might be a communist, which James & his wife didn’t help their case by
refusing to testify in one of their hearings.
Since
under his alias of Daniel Hyatt, he made The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and
since that film was a success, he was commissioned to write another giant
radioactive monster film and so he did. Originally, it was going to be a
radioactive amorphous blob, but they also decided to get the director of The
Beast From 20,000 Fathoms Eugene Laurie and Laurie, in a bit of laziness,
decided that it needs to be a dinosaur just like The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t get the stop motion effects guy from that film in
Ray Harryhausen (he was busy with the The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad &
The 3 Worlds Of Gulliver) so they decided that they needed to go to the
original stop motion effects star in Willis O’Brien (who did King Kong). Willis
O’Brien at this point had been surpassed in stop motion effects and was at this
point a cheaper alternative. Although they at least used Willis O’Brien this
time.
Unlike
That Film….
Without
further ado, let’s get to the film.
We
begin the way many 50s movies begin with opening credits. Although before that,
we get a bible quote about the behemoth. Then, the opening title.
Then we have an atomic bomb explosion.
Sorry,
Hiroshima And Nagasaki For Having To Keep Reliving This In Films.
Then
we have people in Hazmat suits looking over the radiation from the bomb.
Aw,
Don’t Worry, Jack….No Way This Crap Ever Travels Via Wind.
Anyway,
this is film from some professor who is talking about how this radiation is bad
and how we should never do a bomb like this again.
Yeah,
But You Must Admit This Stuff Makes For One Hell Of A Deterrence.
We
also learn that this guy speaking is Steve Karnes, who if you are wondering is
our main character. One asshole decides to say that “Hey, it doesn’t really
matter as no one lives there”. Except (the main problem of being a bit of a
history buff is sadly knowing a lot of this horrible past) is that people did live
in Bikini Atoll before we forced them out so we could do the freaking nuclear
tests.
Another
gentlemen tells the asshole that he doesn’t believe that Mr. Karnes wishes to
panic us and that in Japan, boatloads of fish did have to be destroyed dozens of
miles away from the test area. Steve says that is exactly what he means about
the negatives of our using of these nuclear tests. Steve continues by saying
that we really only know little about our ocean except for what we have gotten
with our lines and nets. He believes that something that is caused by this
uncaring use of radioactive materials in our oceans could rise to the surface
at any time.
We
then go to a beach with a fisherman Tom Trevethan and his daughter Jean. They
tie their boat down on the beach and take the bucket that has all the fish. Tom
tells his daughter to go to the house and get one of the fish caught prepared
for dinner while he takes the rest to the town of Looe, Cornwall to show the
other villagers. As Tom goes to clean one of the fishes, we start to hear a
noise and then see Tom scream as he sees something that we don’t see. He is
also struck by strong light.
At night, Jean is worried that her father never came home and starts looking for him. She goes to the bar that he normally hangs out at, but none of the other bar patrons (including a friend of Jean’s and her dad named John Duncan) say they haven’t seen him.
John goes with Jean to find Tom and on the same beach where they docked, they sadly find him as he lay dying and Jean screams in horror at his burnt body.
They try talking to him, but all he talks about is the prophecy of a behemoth coming out of the water before he finally dies. Jean cries at her dad’s passing and we go directly to his burial.
The priest says some words as Tom is sent to his grave. Afterwards John goes on a walk with Jean to hopefully comfort her in this time of mourning. They go to the beaches and they find a lot of dead fish that have beached onto land.
Tom then finds a very strange bit of goo and decides to touch it. Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t go well as it burns his hand.
You
Don’t See The Burnt Hand, But Trust Us….It Is Burnt
Back
in London, before Steve can return to the US, he sees a bit of news from Looe
about the fishing industry down there having issues with tons of unexplained
dead fish and also that a sea monster has been sighted, which the broadcaster
doesn’t take seriously.
This incident causes Steve to cancel his plane reservations so he can stay and investigate this incident in Looe. Steve calls his fellow professor James Bickford about the incident.
James also tells Steve that a man died as well there from burns and he finds the whole thing very peculiar Steve says based on the talk of the burns, is that they are the same symptoms as someone who died of burns in Hiroshima. James thinks we shouldn’t go that far as something could have been dumped that caused the burns, but Steve says he is going down there to investigate as he thinks something is up. James just so happens to have a team coming down to Looe and asks Steve if he wants to come along, which Steve accepts the invitation.
A
train comes to Looe that night and they all the situation the next day. James
asks around for a Dr. Morris, but John tells him that Dr. Morris isn’t in right
now. James and Steve introduce themselves as people from the atomic institution
and say they are there to run tests on the dead fish. John also has revealed
that it has been 5 days since the fellow fisherman have been able to find
living fish. Also, none of the fisherman seem to want to go out there after
what happened to Tom. They also learn that one of the fisherman saw lights in a
fog that were strange. John finally decides to take them up to meet Dr. Morris.
They ask him about what happened to Tom. Dr. Morris tells them that he has died of 3rd degree burns and shock. They asked why he didn’t call any consultant and Morris says that man was dead so he saw no reason to do so. Dr. Morris thinks the burns may have been due to some poisoning and not from an acid that he has ever seen. They ask if he has had a similar case and Morris first says no, but then stops and tells them about the burns on John’s hand. John shows them we finally see it.
Told
You To Trust Me, He Was Burned.
Steve
says the burns definitely remind him of something and James tells Morris that
they should send John to London so they can run some tests on the burns. John
explains how it happened and talks about the stuff as being a kind of
jellyfish, but having a shine to it. He also explains that it is the same cove where
Tom died.
The
scientists then start going over the cove with Geiger Counters and find
nothing. They ask Jean about her father’s dying words and once again, we get
mention of the biblical prophecy of the behemoth. Back at the doctor’s office,
Steve thinks they saw something while James thinks that there may be nothing to
this at all. Steve says those are definitely radiation burns on John’s hand,
but James says that he’ll truly know it was radiation when he gets a report
from the clinic that he sent John to. Steve is only sure that something has
happened here that isn’t by the book as something came out of the ocean and
went back into it.
At
a laboratory, everything seems to be normal with the results before Steve
Karnes does some small dissection on some dead fish that they found. Then he
puts the fish through an X-Ray technique that they call Radio Autograph and
while the first two seem fine, the third one has some obviously marks.
They turn off the lights and we see one of the fish is glowing.
After looking at it a bit more, they determine that the fish has radiation in it and that the Fish and Wildlife Agency in Plymouth should be warned as that is where the specimen came from. James gets a phone call and tells them that they have to stop the fish in Plymouth from going to market as if people eat that stuff, it would have terrible results. Steve goes to Plymouth to see what the cause of the radiation was.
As
Steve is on a boat at night, Steve and the captain decide to go in for the
night as they haven’t found anything. When the captain asks Steve what he is
looking for, he says he doesn’t know, but something dangerous is out there like
a tiger in the jungle. They then get a report that a steam ship has gone
missing and that they and other ships out in the area need to help find it.
Suddenly, the radiation starts to spike on the Geiger Counter. The captain
tells Steve that he sees something so Steve gets his binoculars to look closely
and….
Yep….That
Definitely Is Part Of A Sea Monster
The
captain wants to follow it, but Steve warns that it is really dangerous. The
captain is willing to risk it so Steve gives the okay to follow it.
Unfortunately, they lose it as it is too fast for the boat so they circle
around a while before finally heading back.
I
Think That Captain Is Really Unhappy About Losing It.
The
coast guard calls for Steve and tells them that they have to return to port at
once. Once he gets back to the docks, he is told that the missing steam ship
from last night was found beached on the shores and James called for Steve to
go find out what happened.
Yeah,
I’d Say Something Wrecked That Ship
As
the authorities and Steve are going through the ship, they find bodies and they
all have radiation on them. One of the investigators tells Steve that whatever
destroyed this steam ship was pretty huge and very powerful based on the damage
it did. Steve goes back to London to meet with James and the head of the
investigation into the steam ship. Steve tells them that he believes they are
facing a marine animal of tremendous size and shape. Basically, they all
believe that it is monster that they are dealing with. Yeah, in the 50s movies,
it was that easy to get people to see the evidence and convince themselves that
a monster is destroying things. Basically it is like this….
Main
Character: There
is destruction and I believe there may be a monster out there based on
eyewitness accounts.
Main Character: Now we have some actual evidence to show it exists.
Seriously,
when you see so many movies do the tired cliché of having the authority being
so unbelieving of the monster that he will only believe when it is right in
freaking front of him (no matter the evidence already presented) and sometimes
even then says it was still not real, it is rather refreshing when in a film,
someone shows evidence and everyone is like, “yeah, we have a monster”. It
allows for more of the monster having carnage while people find a way to deal
with it.
News
gets around the world rather quickly and we have lots of stock footage of ships
sailing around. We then go to a dog barking the next day.
Aw
Man….As Someone Who Has A Dog, They Better Not Kill It.
Yeah,
I Still Have A Dog.
The
dog’s owners decide to ignore the animal as they are eating dinner. Of course,
the father and son finally go outside with a rifle to see what is up and dog
gets killed (dammit) and giant monster walks by causing radiation which kills
the dad and kid.
This
Is A 50s Monster Movie. They Are Gonna Kill The Damn Thing So I Don’t Have To
Worry About Pointless Child Death. Also, I Believe The Kid Is Old Enough To
Where My Issue With It Expires. Otherwise, I Would Never Be Able To Like
Slasher Films.
That
night, the police come by to show Steve and James a photo from the tragedy that
befell the father and son.
Well,
It’s Official….We Are Dealing With A Dinosaur
Well,
It Looks Like We Are Going To Have To Walk The Dinosaur
Steve
asks James to get his best man in paleontology on this and James does in Dr.
Sampson.
They tell him about the situation and even he has a hard time believing it, but when presented by evidence….he also believes in the monster existing. Oh and he is also able to tell them that it is a paleosaurus. He tells them that the creature is obviously heading towards the Thames as paleosaurus obviously like fresh water more than salt water.
I
guess, I should get into this now. If most of you are not aware, paleosaurus
are (as of this writing) carnivores in eating fish. But, until the 1960s, there
were several species close to the paleosaurus that were also called
paleosaurus, and ultimately, turned out to be a bit different in that they ate
plants. But I am not gonna give the filmmakers too much shit about this because
we also had the whole brontosaurus debacle (look it up as it is rather funny if
you really like dinosaurs) and this is not even the most egregious some movies
decided to use freaking lizards as dinosaurs, even though they look nothing
like the dinosaur they are portraying.
I’m
Looking Particularly At You, King Dinosaur…..Trying To Tell Me This Is The King
Of The Dinosaurs AKA A Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Then we have an atomic bomb explosion.
At night, Jean is worried that her father never came home and starts looking for him. She goes to the bar that he normally hangs out at, but none of the other bar patrons (including a friend of Jean’s and her dad named John Duncan) say they haven’t seen him.
John goes with Jean to find Tom and on the same beach where they docked, they sadly find him as he lay dying and Jean screams in horror at his burnt body.
They try talking to him, but all he talks about is the prophecy of a behemoth coming out of the water before he finally dies. Jean cries at her dad’s passing and we go directly to his burial.
The priest says some words as Tom is sent to his grave. Afterwards John goes on a walk with Jean to hopefully comfort her in this time of mourning. They go to the beaches and they find a lot of dead fish that have beached onto land.
Tom then finds a very strange bit of goo and decides to touch it. Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t go well as it burns his hand.
This incident causes Steve to cancel his plane reservations so he can stay and investigate this incident in Looe. Steve calls his fellow professor James Bickford about the incident.
James also tells Steve that a man died as well there from burns and he finds the whole thing very peculiar Steve says based on the talk of the burns, is that they are the same symptoms as someone who died of burns in Hiroshima. James thinks we shouldn’t go that far as something could have been dumped that caused the burns, but Steve says he is going down there to investigate as he thinks something is up. James just so happens to have a team coming down to Looe and asks Steve if he wants to come along, which Steve accepts the invitation.
They ask him about what happened to Tom. Dr. Morris tells them that he has died of 3rd degree burns and shock. They asked why he didn’t call any consultant and Morris says that man was dead so he saw no reason to do so. Dr. Morris thinks the burns may have been due to some poisoning and not from an acid that he has ever seen. They ask if he has had a similar case and Morris first says no, but then stops and tells them about the burns on John’s hand. John shows them we finally see it.
They turn off the lights and we see one of the fish is glowing.
After looking at it a bit more, they determine that the fish has radiation in it and that the Fish and Wildlife Agency in Plymouth should be warned as that is where the specimen came from. James gets a phone call and tells them that they have to stop the fish in Plymouth from going to market as if people eat that stuff, it would have terrible results. Steve goes to Plymouth to see what the cause of the radiation was.
Main Character: Now we have some actual evidence to show it exists.
They tell him about the situation and even he has a hard time believing it, but when presented by evidence….he also believes in the monster existing. Oh and he is also able to tell them that it is a paleosaurus. He tells them that the creature is obviously heading towards the Thames as paleosaurus obviously like fresh water more than salt water.
Back to the movie and the scientists are a bit miffed that the paleontologist is happy that a dinosaur is still alive. Oh and he mentions that the paleosaurus is like an electric eel in that it emits electricity from it’s body to stop enemies from coming near it, which may explain the people getting fried by being near the creature. And for that, I have no freaking clue where they came up with that idea because I don’t know any dinosaur book I ever read that said they were like an electric eel.
They radio back to tell them that they see the creature, but it seems that the creature cannot be picked up on radar so let’s just say that bad stuff is about to happen. The helicopter follows the creature and the monsters decides to use his radioactive aura to kill them.
Oh and of course they are also evacuating people.
Alerts are raised that the creature is about to attack. The creature immediately starts destroying some nearby structures.
Remember when I said orderly evacuations?
Some people try to hide, but the monster destroys the wall they are hiding behind, crushing them.
We go right back to the monster, who has to deal with those dumbass power lines.
The monster then breaks a bridge and falls into the Thames himself.
Steve goes in too as he will be directing where to fire it. After a few minutes underwater, they find the creature.
The creature tries to destroy them with his radioactive aura, but this submersible has been specifically armored to partway handle that. The creature bites at the submersible, but they are thankfully able to get away before they die as a snack. They find a perfect spot and fire at the creature.
It strikes true and the missile allows the radiation to eventually kill the creature from the inside.
The creature comes up for one last gasp and then it dies.
The military tells them that the creature is dead and everyone celebrates. James and Steve get into a car and the radio says that mountains of dead fish are being found in America (maybe setting up a sequel that will never come).
