Saturday, May 5, 2012

Behemoth Stills

The original title of this film is "Behemoth The Sea Monster," but I never heard that title before tonight, so I'm just going to call it what we have always known it as, "The Giant Behemoth!" This movie was directed by the English Mr. BIG, and small time genius Eugène Lourié, whose other giant credits include "Gorgo" and "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms."

A number of 50's horror films started off with nuclear explosions causing some kind of unnatural catastrophe, so is it any wonder that 60's kids would later revolt against the system, become hippies and end up wanting peace, love, and understanding? They were raised with nuclear disaster and it's biggest and scariest consequences, and then sold George Jetson as the future! Tune in, turn on, drop out, doesn't take a lot of thought now, does it?

It got so bad, they didn't even have a problem with a kid getting killed by the beast! This devil has no soul!!

The music for "The Giant Behemoth" was composed by Edwin Astley, who also composed the music for such movies as "Devil Girl From Mars", "Womaneater", and the totally unrelated comedy from 1961, "A Matter Of WHO", which I think is especially ironic since he was the father-in-law of The WHO's Pete Townsend!!!!!

Personally, this theme is like many others, pompous and overbearingly orchestrated, but is saved by a couple of dramatic flair ups, and some over the top and deliberately kitsch narration at the start!! "And the Lord said, behold now the Behemoth!!" Here they might look at first like they are dancing but actually, a really extra bad case of bad breath is taking it's toll!

The superior skills of special effects masters Willis O'Brien and Jack Rabin get a lot of credit for the cool look of this monster!!

Just like on "Highway 61", "if you see me coming, you better run!"

It must have been Eugène Lourié's idea to have a nuclear weenie roast as a means of ridding the world of the monster!

X1 was in mothballs and X3 through X7 were headed for the arctic, and they never did find out what happened to X13, so they had to break out old X2 which had seen better days!!! Have no fear, despite the odds, the world was saved once again!!!

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