Das todbringende Ungeheuer (1957)

Das todbringende Ungeheuer: Directed by Nathan Juran. With Craig Stevens, William Hopper, Alix Talton, Donald Randolph. A giant prehistoric praying mantis, recently freed from the Arctic ice, voraciously preys on American military at the DEW Line and works its way south.

“Well I can tell you this scared the bejeesus out of me when I was kid.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWatching it today, there are three things of note.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe first is the military footage. The virtual budget of this was millions of dollars because of the military supplied footage. It was defense policy to let the Soviets know of our massive three-tiered air defense and there was an office to so publicize. The idea was to convince the Russians that an attack couldnu0026#39;t possibly work, that the thing really existed. Thatu0026#39;s why the Pentagon subsidized these things. The scripts were therefore friendly to military success at the end, too.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eA solid third of this is from the department of defense, no model planes here.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003ePerry Mason, the detecting lawyer was a literary phenomenon when this was made, the books about him being outsold only by the Bible. And there was a very popular TeeVee show based on him. Perryu0026#39;s own detective was a guy played by the detective here. And his sidekick is a Della Street (the third member of the gang) lookalike. It was like having Indiana Jones appear. The effect is lost today but was quite something in the day.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe third remarkable thing is what scares us. What we fear in our imagination is largely defined by movies. And what movies use to frighten us is tightly constrained by what they can show. In the fifties, that was often disappearing or morphing things, guys in rubber suits and small things made big by trick photography. u0026quot;Themu0026quot; was probably the first giant bug movie, but it used real bugs. This is already a second generation, using stop motion.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe footage of Aleutians — borrowed from an older film — is great, really great. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eTedu0026#39;s Evaluation — 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.”