FANTASIA OBSCURA: Even a Killer Giant Can’t Save This Monstrous B-Movie
There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.
Sometimes, you find some… interesting things that can’t let you live up to the “If you can’t say anything nice” rule…
Giant from the Unknown (1958)
Distributed by: Astor Pictures Corporation
Directed by: Richard E. Cunha
They say, if you want to say something nice but have trouble doing so, first think about some place nice, so let’s try that:
The northwest cost of the US is one of lushest, fascinating places in hte world. When you head up north of San Francisco, you start running into things that can’t be readily explained with pat answers. Things like whether Sasquatch is actually out there in the woods, whether D. B. Cooper is still hiding after he jumped out of the plane over there, and what made Killer BOB the monster he was.
And also, why this was ever made:
We open in the town of Pine Ridge, California, where the locals are particularly perturbed. They’re not all that happy about the rash of violence done up ‘round Devil’s Crag to their cattle, their chickens, and their neighbor Harold Crag, although Harold seems more an afterthought than the chickens and cattle, but anyways…
The riled townsfolk are asking their constable, Sherriff Parker (Bob Steele), to do something about it. The first thing he does is threaten the local, Indian Joe (Billy Dix) for acting crazy while noting that the folks who walk upon the burial ground of his people up there deserve to be cursed.
No, Dances with Wolves this ain’t…
Next on his list of trying to do something is to go after lodge owner and local archeologist Wayne Brooks (Ed Kemmer) who in his gut he blames for Crag’s death because of… reasons, you know? After trying to make Brooks submit to his alpha dog routine, into town rolls Brooks’ old professor at university, geologist Dr. Cleveland (Morris Ankrum) and his daughter Janet (Sally Frasier).
Ends up that Brooks is something of a Renaissance man, in that in addition to running the town’s biggest business studying rocks he also is looking into the chemical properties around Devil’s Crag where he found an extinct species of lizard that he was able to revive from its state of suspended animation. Which to be honest, is a pretty damn big McGuffin to throw into the film, with plenty of potential that we’ll see wasted later on…
Ends up one of the reasons Cleveland is up in those parts is his own side project: He’s trying to track down the legend of the “Diablo Brigade,” a group of Conquistadores who rode through 500 years earlier (which would be, before Columbus shows up in Hispaniola, but anyways…). The group broke off from the main party, led by a man named Vargas, aka the “Diablo Giant.”
What, they couldn’t get anyone to write in the script “El Diablo Gigante” so that Cleveland doesn’t come across so damn Anglo here, huh? Der verdad, la gente…?
Well, you can probably see where this goes: The local, the scientist, and the scientist’s daughter without any agency of her own go to Devil’s Crag, where they ultimately find proof of the legend when ol’ Vargas himself (Buddy Baer) finally comes on screen. Yep, he was responsible for all the dead cattle we heard about, and we watch him dispatch a few more folk on screen as he tries to live up to his frightful name…
…though it’s hard to scare up much fear or sympathy for this endeavor. The script by Frank Hart Taussig (his last writing credit) and Ralph Brooke (his first) is so color-by-numbers, cribbing a lot of set pieces from James Whale’s Frankenstein, that it’s hard not to notice that no one tied to this move looks to have taken the California 4th Grade Missions Standards curriculum. Or for that matter any classes in cinema theory.
The characters we get are barely above cardboard stock, especially Janet. She embodies every bad cliché for a female in a genre pic from the 1950s, more trophy than trope. We also don’t get a lot of positive characteristics from the script about Native Americans, small town folk, or anyone else really; it’s all about the handsome white dude who seems to do everything except justify our sitting through the film.
And frankly, Wayne Brooks is not the most compelling central character you’d find in a genre pic. His near being overqualified for everything is almost as bad as Janet’s total lack of competence or agency, and as a couple, they have nothing between them. And with Cunha unable to get anything interesting out of this mess, he makes what he did in his next film, Missile to the Moon, feel like Fellini.
It’s hard to find anything nice to say about this pic at all. And the ironic thing of it is, this film has a back story that’s a lot more entertaining than what we got on screen…
Buddy Baer before his first fight
with Joe Louis, 1941
Baer, who before he ended up being wasted here had roles in Africa Screams andQuo Vadis, was better known for his prior career as a heavyweight boxer. He’d meet Joe Lewis twice, losing the first round thanks to a disqualification. (The second time, Baer was unambiguously knocked out.) He retired after the second Lewis fight to serve during World War II, and decided to hang up his gloves and try his hand at acting, which for a man who was six and a half feet high with an 84-inch reach led to some pretty harsh typecasting.
Having gotten the acting bug, the disease spread through the family. The path before the camera was soon taken up by his brother Max, whose made a big impact knocking out Max Schmeling (twice), and his nephew Max Jr., whose big impact was playing Jethro Bodine…
Aaaand, that’s about all that’s nice that can be said about this…
NEXT TIME: For October, we’re going to have a special set of themed reviews, under the overall title, “Season of the Witch” which begins by going old school…
…with heavy emphasis equally on both “old” and “school”…
