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"I Think, Therefore I Ant."
10 Giant Movie Monsters From
Way Back – Where Are They Now?
The streets of Monster Island are
littered with the broken dreams of wannabe giant movie monsters who gave it a
hefty shot, but crashed and burned as only a movie monster can…
Thanks to fleeting B-movie fame,
these towering, tottering creatures were, for the most part, consigned to one
glorious moment in the radioactive sun and then cast away to an ignoble and
unintentionally comical end.
Oh sure, it looked glamorous
enough, what with the easy money and all the humans they could eat. But show
biz is brutal. Even if you’re 500 feet tall, Hollywood can crush dreams
like, well, a movie monster can crush an army tank…
So what became of these great
cinematic beasts? Where are they today? Much like the movies they starred in,
the answers ain’t always pretty…
MONSTER:
The Crawling Eye
MOVIE:
The Crawling Eye (1958; aka The Trollenberg Terror)
QUICK BACKGROUND: A
big slimy eye the size of a Buick, it hails from outer space, slithers through
the Swiss mountains in a radioactive cloud, scares the cheese right out of the
locals, and looks fairly disgusting as these things go.
WHERE IS IT TODAY? Now
blind, thanks to diabetes, the Crawling Eye has lived for decades in a
rundown, inner-city apartment in
Oklahoma
, and spends its days fighting off its own seeing-eye dog. “It’s always
trying to walk me into oncoming traffic or lunging after me so it can tear off
my retina,” the Eye laments. “At least I think it’s my retina, I dunno,
I can’t see a thing. My life sucks.
MONSTER:
The Ymir
MOVIE:
Twenty Million Miles To Earth (1957)
QUICK BACKGROUND: A
creature from Venus is brought to Earth by a group of astronauts led by
leading man William Hopper. The Ymir begins life at less than a foot in
height, but the Earth’s atmosphere causes him to grow to outlandish
proportions. Peaceful unless roused, the creature visits Rome, where he fights
and kills an elephant, scares the pasta out of the locals, and is finally shot
off the Coliseum. Clearly, it had been roused.
WHERE IS HE TODAY?
Living
in a retirement home for movie monsters. Though suffering from
osteoporosis, the Ymir is surprisingly
spry and upbeat. The only sore spot in his show biz background is his brief
but busy sex fling with co-star William Hopper’s mother, the rampageous
gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, who terrorized Hollywood with her muckraking
column, took bloodthirsty delight in naming suspected communists, and demanded
that America’s movie stars conduct themselves in a "decent,
respectable" fashion (read: no sex for anyone, unless it's matrimonial)
or she'd ruin their careers.
Background on the star-crossed
affair can be found on the Ymir’s blog, “Hedda Hopper – Total Bitch” (www.ihatehedda.com),
which is filled with his droll, often merciless, and always rambling screeds,
memories, and insights on the legendary rumour-monger.
“She was a way more
aggressive monster than I ever was,” the Ymir says while flicking his tail
and sipping on a glass of pink champagne. “And a total hypocrite. There were
rules for everyone but her. She was a pothead. Pill-happy, too, and she slept
with every movie monster in Hollywood and
Japan. She and I were pretty hot and heavy for a while, and then, blam!
She tossed me aside and wrote a column saying I was a flaming homo and
a commie. Bitch. Suffice it to say there was no Twenty Million Miles
to Earth sequel.”
MONSTER: Reptilicus
MOVIE:
Reptilicus (1961)
QUICK BACKGROUND: A
gigantic flying serpent who starred in a (cheap) Danish film (no lie, a cheap
Danish film).
Copenhagen
is the target city of destruction as Reptilicus scares the pastry out of the
locals.
WHERE IS IT TODAY?
After the movie’s release, Reptilicus wrote a
soft-core paperback novelization of the film that sold briskly. A sample: "She
stood still momentarily, letting him look at her perfect breasts...in a matter
of seconds his clothes were strewn all over the room..." From
there he moved into writing, directing, and starring in his own self-produced
pornographic films. “I never looked back,” he boasts proudly. “Unless,
of course, I had to in one of my movies. Ha,
ha!”
MONSTER:
Konga
MOVIE:
Konga (1961)
QUICK BACKGROUND: A
deranged scientist uses an evolutionary serum from a rare African plant to
transform a little monkey into a King Kong knockoff, which then proceeds to
terrorize
London
, scaring the bangers and mash right out of the locals. After dying in a hail
of bullets in front of Big Ben, Konga reverts back to chimp form.
WHERE IS HE TODAY? Still
in chimp form to this very day, Konga is currently a mild-mannered primate
living in a small flat in suburban
London
. Always wearing a bowler hat and carrying a snazzy black umbrella, the chimp
is polite but guarded about his movie past. When bribed with a bunch of
bananas, he tells the usual movie monster litany of woe: poor wages, draconian
working conditions, and abusive producers who took sadistic pleasure in making
him cry. He now just wants to be left alone, to carry on using his opposable
thumb, and to blend in as a regular Englishman. No easy feat, considering that
success at this demands that he shave himself 15 times a day.
MONSTER:
The Rhedosaurus
MOVIE:
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
QUICK BACKGROUND: The
Rhedosaurus is a prehistoric monster that is awakened by an atomic blast and
makes its way from the arctic wastelands to
Coney Island
, where it scares the Coney Island
Fries right out of the locals. The excitement concludes when the beast is shot
in the throat by Lee Van Cleef with a radioactive needle.
WHERE IS HE TODAY? Wizened,
raspy-voiced, cantankerous, smelly, rambling, possibly senile, and living with
his put-upon kids, the Rhedosaurus is but a pale shadow of his former glory.
“I
was the monster that started the Giant Beast Craze,” boasts Big Rhed
while pounding his now pigeon-shaped chest. “Mine was the first film to take
advantage of the country’s paranoia about bomb culture. Mine! But where did
I end up in the scheme of things? A footnote, at best! Lee Van Cleef got to be
a big star in
Italy
and all he had to do was show up and shoot me. While he was rolling in lira,
I couldn’t get a walk-on in a puppet show. And that ain’t right. And
movies today--! Trash! Rancid goddam trash! All those probing tongues, naked
bodies, and fancy fornicating. Sleazy liberal claptrap. We’re breeding a
nation of junkies, feminists, vegetarians, gay blades, abortionists, tit
tweakers, ass pinchers, pirates, lawyers, and whores. And not nearly enough
bomb culture! They’re all going down the tubes – and they’re taking us
with ‘em. And another thing…”
MONSTER: The Deadly Mantis
MOVIE: The Deadly Mantis (1957)
QUICK BACKGROUND:
A prehistoric
preying mantis of massive dimensions, it was thawed out of the arctic ice,
scares the blubber out of some perturbed Eskimos, and wends its way skyward
toward New York. There the army gasses the big bastard back to extinction. Or
did they?
WHERE IS IT TODAY?
Yup, they did: Deadly Mantis. Born 1957. Died 1957
.
MOVIE:
Tarantula (1956)
QUICK BACKGROUND:
A
mad
scientist creates a giant spider that roams the
New Mexico
desert and scares the beans and coffee out of the local ranch hands. It gets
torched by napalm lobbed by pre-stardom fighter pilot Clint Eastwood.
WHERE IS HE TODAY?
“Don’t
talk to me about that fucking Eastwood,” Tarantula says heatedly. “Oh, and
did I mention that I won’t be
talking about how I was barely in a movie that starred me? That was named
after me! And I' not going to comment on the 'theory' that big spiders have
plenty of image but not much actual personality. Other than to say it's bullshit! I was
driven, ambitious, a real contender. I didn’t just play tall – I got tall, I
made myself tall, I acted tall
till I was tall! It was all my doing – a combination of Stanislavski,
hypno-therapy, and super-vitamins. Jesus, I worked my thorax and abdomen off in
the theatre, and all it took was one lousy movie to destroy my entire acting
career! Look at me now. My only cultural significance is that I’m mentioned in
the opening song of that godawful Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
MONSTER:
Gwangi
MOVIE:
The
Valley
of
Gwangi
(1969)
QUICK BACKGROUND: A
hybrid dinosaur – part T-Rex, part allosaurus –
who reigns over a desert valley in 1915 Mexico, Gwangi is lassoed and
captured by a wild west show, led by adventurer James Franciscus, and is taken
to Mexico City to be put on display for the curious public. There he escapes,
fights and kills an elephant, and scares the pinto beans out of the locals.
Gwangi meets a fiery end inside a burning cathedral. (The only scene in film
history where a dinosaur goes to church.)
WHERE IS HE TODAY? “Being a
hybrid between a T-Rex and an allosaurus was probably the original reason for my
identity crisis,” says Gwangi with a sigh. “But making that movie really
brought out all my latent homosexuality. I mean, my God, so many cowboys –
James Franciscus had the curliest eyelashes – and all that rope!” An
advocate for gay movie monsters, Gwangi defends his frequent practice of outing
of other monsters. “Look, a lot of movie monsters are queer, okay, and unless
they admit it to themselves and the public, they’re not doing anyone any
favors, are they?”
Gwangi admits gay monsters
still have a long way to go in the cinema, but are making significant strides.
“I was thrilled when I learned that King Kong had signed to star in the
sequel to La Cage
aux Folles. He was considering the sequel to
Brokeback Mountain! But,
hello, that’s so done. Still, Kong’s the best. Did you see how well he faked
it with Naomi Watts in the Jackson flick? I adore him. It’s like we gay
monsters say: Once you’ve gone Kong, everything else just feels
wrong.”
MONSTER:
Gorgo
MOVIE:
Gorgo (1961)
QUICK BACKGROUND: A
50-foot Gorgosaurus is found in the
Irish sea
where he’s scaring the Guinness out of the locals. After he is captured by
some enterprising fishermen, he is brought to a
London
sideshow. Enter mother Gorgo, who is 500 feet tall and suffers no nonsense as
she searches for her infant. Mom destroys
London
, kills many a Brit, collects
junior, and goes back to the sea. Bloody
right!
WHERE ARE THEY TODAY?
Mom
died of alcohol poisoning, and Gorgo is homeless and living on the streets of
Toronto
, of all places. Despite his sad state he remains optimistic and cherishes his
deluded memories of his time in the business.
“Movie monsters today are
hopeless,” he says while begging for change. “Back in my day, we gave kids
plenty of bang for their buck. On my movie we really destroyed Big Ben,
Piccadilly Circus
, the underground tube, and miles and miles of houses and stuff, and we
actually killed the extras. It really added to the authenticity. At least I
think we destroyed all that junk and killed all those British wankers. I dunno,
I get confused when I’m off my meds. But I gotta tell ya, at the premiere of
the film, those kids in the audience cheered like crazy when me and Mom won
the fight with humanity and went back to the sea without a scratch. No lie,
they wailed for us! And we were hit with every kind of firepower the British
army had to offer! Which isn’t saying a lot, but, like, still…”
MONSTER:
The 50-Foot Woman
MOVIE:
Attack of the 50-Foot Woman (1958)
QUICK BACKGROUND: Before:
Nancy Archer (a hard-living, well-stacked heiress who is married to
fortune-hunting Harry Archer and nags the crap out of him about his illicit
doings with local tramp Honey Parker) is irradiated by a giant alien. After:
Nancy
grows big, goes on a rampage and tears up the town looking for Honey and
Harry. Honey is reduced to floozy mulch. Nancy and Harry are electrocuted in
the big finale.
WHERE IS SHE TODAY? Horror
headliner Allison Hayes (aka: the 50-Foot Woman) was, in fact, an accomplished
pianist and a dedicated culture vulture. Like all building-sized musicians,
she sidelined as a movie monster to pay the rent. Now in her geriatric years,
she has shrunk somewhat and clocks in at a mere 37 feet. She is also a recluse
who refuses to be interviewed and, despite her height, is surprising hard to
find! Never fond of the B-movie circuit, she reportedly disliked film work.
Legend has it that during the making of the cheapie Western Gunslinger
(1956) she asked schlock maestro Roger Corman: “Who do I have to fuck to get
off this picture?”
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