Today's Mini-Review: Day the World Ended

Rating: ***/*****, or 7/10

Starring: Richard Denning, Lori Nelson, Mike Connors

Directed by Roger Corman

USA: Golden State Productions, 1955

Truth is, few of the films from Roger Corman's early days of directing schlock movies for a dime are 'good' in the usual sense of the word. In fact, most (if not all) of them are cheap exploitation quickies shot for next to nothing so they could do nothing but make a profit in drive-in theaters screaming for content to cater to teenage love birds more interested in each other in the dark than in the goings-on present on the big screen in front of them. Flicks like The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955), Swamp Women (1956) and It Conquered the World (1956) nowadays are interesting only to geeks revelling in bad taste or film students exploring the fringes of acceptable study material. Still, the occasional sort-of decent film can be found among Corman's early work for those with enough patience and the stomach for digesting campy creature features from the Fifties. Day the World Ended I count among these very few.

Stories about man's inability to coexist in peace with his fellows, even when such cooperation would be to both parties' mutual advantage in the struggle for basic survival, have often resulted in fascinating pieces of audiovisual excitement studying the human condition and continue to do so to this day even when you thought little more could be added to the subject, except for different, usually interchangeable threats. You think people watch popular shows like The Walking Dead only for the excessive gore and neat-o zombie make-up? Think again: they watch it for the gripping human drama involved in living together under extreme circumstances. Corman applied the same formula to this post-apocalyptic tale of tragedy almost sixty years ago, as he tells the story of a small band of survivors who seek refuge in the same remote mountain location when the bombs finally fall, a typical fear of the Fifties where such an occurrence never seemed so unlikely. Among those that would live are a survivalist, his pretty daughter, a geologist, a loudmouth crook, his slutty girlfriend and a man with a terrible secret. Of course tension quickly mounts between these disparate people over the usual things, like who's in charge, who rations the food and who ends up dating the daughter. Most of the film consists of people arguing, but fortunately the movie only lasts 79 minutes and the man with a secret mutates into a horrifying monster (read: guy in a silly suit) to spice things up a bit. Corman proves quite adept in suspensefully paving the way for the creature's first appearance between all the petty bickering. And even though you know the actual monster isn't gonna succeed in living up to this buildup to his rampage, if you know and accept what type of movie you're watching before you start, you might be able to get a kick out of this film regardless of the total lack of production values, even if only for laughs (who ever said Corman made serious movies anyway?). Aficionados of Fifties' Sci-Fi films will also be grateful to see Richard Denning star as the handsome scientist and noble man of action, as the actor is almost a staple of the science fiction films of this era, starring in genre pieces like the classic Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) and less well remembered pictures like The Black Scorpion (1957) and Target Earth (1954).

The dystopian themes of Day the World Ended, effectively underscoring that man is his own worst enemy (hardly a novel notion in 1955 to begin with), have since been addressed in other films and television ad infinitum (compare various episodes of the different Twilight Zone series, as well as recent films like The Divide and The Mist for example) yet continue to fascinate and appeal to people, who cannot help but wonder if this was really what it came down to when the world went to hell. Corman crafts a fairly entertaining film out of the subject matter, which remains one of his best, though that is hardly saying something. Though I wouldn't exactly recommend this type of film to anyone, I can honestly say that if you ever fell the need to go sit and watch an obvious cashgrab B-movie from a master in creating such fare the likes of Corman, it might as well be this one. You could do far worse and really, really waste your time.

Creature from the Black Lagoon

Rating: ****/*****, or 8/10

Classic monster movie from the 'House of Horror', Universal Pictures: the last monster to be added to the staple of 'Universal's original monsters', as well as the only monster from the Fifties in the bunch, since the rest of them were all released in the early Thirties and Forties. As a dessert to the creature cake, it turns out a damn tasty course, even though in many respects it's a poor man's King Kong. It's also an interesting transitional movie between Universal's classic studio monster movies of old and the typical creature feature science fiction films of the Fifties, courtesy of Jack Arnold, one of the most prolific directors of the genre in this decade (his other works include It Came from Outer Space (1953), Tarantula (1955) and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)). A band of scientists stumbles on the remains of an 'amphibian missing link', a Gill Man (never mind actual science here). However, the animal was not the only one of its kind, since a live specimen starts stalking the group, in particular the beautiful girl (Julie Adams) among them, resulting in an (in)famous underwater swimming duet between the pair. Sadly, the romance is one-sided as the creature finds out when he tries to get a little closer to the object of his fascination but is instead met with fear, violence and eventually greed as the explorers mean to capture the beast and take it back to civilization. However, the monster has some thoughts of his own on that subject and doesn't surrender so easily, with deadly consequences. Beautiful – and for that time, spectacular – underwater photography, a solid cast (including fan favorite Richard Denning, who starred in a number of Fifties' Sci-Fi flicks, not all of them as good as this one) and an excellent balance between drama, action and romance. One of the first movies to be released in 3-D during the short lived 3-D craze in the Fifties with which Hollywood studios hoped to lure audiences away from the new medium of television (unsuccessfully it must be said).

Starring: Richard Carlson, Richard Denning, Julie Adams

Directed by Jack Arnold

USA: Universal Pictures, 1954

Black Scorpion, The

Rating: ***/*****, or 7/10

Hugely underrated and often ignored fifties' monster flick. In Mexico, giant scorpions are freed from their subterranean imprisonment by volcanic activity and ravage the countryside, after which an American geologist (Richard Denning, a favourite actor in the genre of fifties' creature features) must work with the Mexican armed forces to destroy them before they rampage through Mexico City. The plot of course is not the most important ingredient here, the fabulously animated stop motion creatures are, vividly brought to life by effects pioneer Willis O'Brien in one of his last features. Though he never relived the fame and success of King Kong (1933), this movie at least provides a similar amount of adventurous excitement and monster fun as that masterpiece did, while the animation is almost on par with its famous predecessor. The movie's most thrilling sequences include huge scorpions wrecking a train and an excursion into the underground realm of the beasts which is also populated by various other beasts (including some of King Kong's 'lost spider pit' leftovers!). Often maligned as just another silly forgetful B-movie of the drive-in days, this movie deserves more love and respect, at least from stop motion enthusiasts.

Starring: Richard Denning, Mara Corday, Carlos Rivas

Directed by Edward Ludwig

USA: Amex Productions, 1957