The Giant Behemoth

This film was made before the days of cgi and therefore must seem painfully dated to younger viewers but to us who grew up in the atomic monster age it is both scary and charming. We do not look with judgment on the film but rather on the times in which it was produced. Fond memories of drive-in theaters and Saturday night scarfests with friends. Carefree times of youth and adolescence. That said "Behemoth" is ultimately more entertaining with it's challenging fx than many of our modern day films which completely lack any charm. Simply filling a film with eye catching Cgi does not a movie make. Willis O'Brian's painstaking stop-motion effects and Eugene Lourie's talent with a minuscule budget unite to make a scary premise very entertaining and certainly fondly remembered.

Let me quickly begin by putting to rest once and for all a terrible error that is popping up everywhere concerning this film: THE GIANT BEHEMOTH was not, repeat NOT, "co-directed" by Mr Douglas Hickox. He was not an "uncredited" contributor to the film. Period. End of discussion. It was solely directed from start to finish by Eugene Lourie, a director (and production designer) of taste and imagination. How this rumor about Mr Hickox ever got started is beyond me.

If I accomplish nothing else but put this falsehood to rest I will be quite happy.

Now, on to the film. I recommend it highly. It is well-written, well-acted, nicely photographed and edited, and well-scored by Edwin Astley. It is a good example of what can be done on an extremely low budget. The producers were merciless in their budget-cutting which was very hard on master animators Willis O'Brien and Pete Peterson but it is a testament to their skill and integrity that they managed as well as they did. Their animation of the giant creature is of a very high order and is, of course, vastly superior to the work of a second special effects crew which was brought in to do the ferry boat sequence. The less said about that work the better, though the scene played well due to the fine editing and music scoring.

I greatly admire what was accomplished here by these talented people having almost no money to work with. That should be an inspiration to many an aspiring movie-maker.

When it comes to this film, some people love it, while others despise it. There seems to be no middle ground. Actually, BEHEMOTH, THE SEA MONSTER (aka THE GIANT BEHEMOTH) is not a bad giant monster on the loose flick. I enjoyed it when was a kid and I have this film on video and I still enjoy viewing it today. The special effects are pretty good for a quickly made low budget picture, the cast including Gene Evans turn in solid performances and Eugene Lourie's direction is quite good. The radiation scarred victims of the behemoth's radioactive aura (?) shocked me as a kid.

However, the main problem with this film is that we have seen it all before. The film is almost a remake of Lourie's BEAST FROM TWENTY THOUSAND FATHOMS. The original script for this film was about an invisible radioactive monster that dwelled in the ocean. The backers of this film turned the script down, saying they didn't like the idea of an invisible monster. So Lourie went with a radioactive dinosaur and simply rewrote BEAST FROM TWENTY THOUSAND FATHOMS.

The special effects are pretty good. The stop motion effects by Willis O'Brien and Pete Peterson look pretty good for a low budget picture. The main problem is that O'Brien and Peterson had done much more impressive work elsewhere. The effects are not bad, but the effects here are not up to the work O'Brien and Peterson did in KING KONG or even THE BLACK SCORPION. The mechanical and pyro-technical effects by Jack Rabin and Irving Block are pretty ambitious for a picture of this nature.

BEHEMOTH, THE SEA MONSTER is a decent late fifties monster on the loose picture. It is just that we have seen this before and the people who made this film had done better work elsewhere.

Now, let me tell you I could be a little biased here with my scoring. For this film lit the light of remembrance and melancholy within me. As it took me back to my childhood. There was a time when the good old BBC would play these movies on a Saturday afternoon: On BBC2 while BBC1 had Grandstand. I remember watching these Sci-Fi monster flicks with my Nan on cold and wet winter days, usually in front of a warm gas fire. Those were good days. So, I thank the makers of the film for giving me this memory.

What you have is a pretty bog-standard tale of nuclear radiation mutation... as was par for the course in the fifties. Here though, not only does it mutate a creature to an enormous size, but apparently resurrects a long-dead dinosaur. This then goes on the rampage through London. Though what makes this a little better than the average film in this genre is the extra details. We don't start in London but in a little fishing village in Cornwall where strange things have been occurring; a man being burned with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree burns, shoals of dead fish washing up on the beach, and strange lights under the surface of the sea. This pulls the viewer in with the mystery. There's also the brilliant usage of the radiation because if you get too close to the creature then you burn. When we arrive at the rampage, the director uses parts of London not fully rebuilt after the war to create an atmosphere that works well. Also, the large amount of extra's running from the monster is just right - not one or two people, but a hole streets worth of men and women.

The director is very good at his work. He sets the pace of this film perfectly. There's a small crescendo at the beginning when Marine Biologist Steve Karnes' is warning the government about the possible side effects of radiation on the oceans and their populace. Then drops to a steadier pace with the mysterious happenings. Building up slowly to the rampage at the climax. Spot on perfect.

The special effects, for their time, are not quite as good as others. However, they are passable. It's nice the puppeteer changed out to a fully automated Behemoth for the later scenes as the fixed mouth version that attacked the ferry looked a little silly. I have to admit I really loved the part where the Behemoth walks through the dockyards. The part where he wrecks one crane by tearing it apart with his teeth and the other by simply walking through it is one of the better stop animation sequences I've seen. I liked the fact the director filmed it from the position of the pavement, which had the effect of giving size to the creature.

This was a very enjoyable flick, to say the least. The story and the filming were solid as too was the acting. Everybody put their skills into making this a very watchable movie. Not remembering the movie fully, I thought that the two main characters in the fishing village section Jean (Madison) and John (Turner) would be in the whole show, their acting is that good. However, when we leave the village we never see them again.

If you've never caught a '50's sci-fi monster flick then this one would be a nice place to start. And if you are a fan of the genre, then find a copy and watch this once more, it's worth it.

This is one of the last films on which Willis O'Brien worked. If his name isn't familiar, he's the guy who brought King Kong to life through the miracle of stop-motion cinematography. His work led to the likes of Ray Harryhausen and it's quite enjoyable to watch his creatures come to life. However, I must point out that technically speaking, this is far from O'Brien's best work. In fact, I think the story is far better than the stop-motion special effects.

The story is about a giant marine dinosaur that seems to have been created through the typical menace in 50s films--nuclear radiation. At first, the monster appears in an isolated fishing village and its radioactivity kills or maims. Some (especially Evans) take this very seriously. Everyone does after it attacks London! Will the Brits be okay or are they all destined to be gobbled up like a stack of freshly baked scones?!

This film stars a rather unlikely actor--Gene Evans. Evans was hardly the handsome leading man type and is probably most famous for his gritty sergeant character from Sam Fuller's "Steel Helmet" as well as appearing in Fuller's "Shock Corridor". So, seeing him playing the intellectual scientist was a bit odd but it worked well enough. In fact, the acting all around was very good--no complaints. However, the special effects, at times, looked pretty bad--such as when the creatures is swimming underwater.

By the way, the ending was rather clever. Make sure not to miss it.