a link to an academic paper went around the slugtribe list recently. it was one of those spoilsport articles about how unrealistic 50s B-grade movies were, with all those giant monsters that could never possibly exist in real life. no freakin duh.
but the author, for all his pompous incredulity did seem to enjoy the movies he debased with his filthy realism, and he actually managed to say some interesting things about biology. for instance, the giant octopus from "it came from beneath the sea" tears down the golden gate bridge at one point, raising his tentacles from the sea all the way up to the traffic deck, a non-survivable suicide jump of roughly 300ft (an easy enough height to remember as it is equivalent to the guesstimate height raymond burr attributes to godzilla). apparently this action would have caused massive fluid pressure, causing a brain embolism and the subsequent retardation of an otherwise sensitive and intelligent animal (doesn’t cephalopod mean ‘head-foot’? surely that means something).
as i had not seen this movie, i went out and rented a copy to search for signs of octopus retardation.
i won’t comment on my conclusions, other than to say the octopus probably just wanted to hang in san francisco with all the other spineless water-bags.
but i will make several irrelevant observations:
1.) i agree that ray harryhausen is a great man, probably one of america’s greatest cultural heroes, right up there with larry flynt, h.p.lovecraft, and daniel pinkwater. but for all the time and energy put into the giant octopus effects, the live footage of an octopus in a fishtank outshone all the stop-motion. the creature moved like a cloud of suckers constantly turning itself inside-out. the actors poured some bait-fish into the tank, and when the octopus shrank from the proferred snack, they made up a lame excuse about radioactivity.
2.) the movie is an artifact of regressive gender politics trying as hard as it can to be feminist. for all the talk of how the female scientist doesn’t need the sub-captain making her choices for her, when the big mollusk attacks the golden gate bridge he shoves her at a cop with a terse "HOLD HER!" while he drives off to do the man’s work. i think the writers were trying, they just didn’t know what they were trying for.
3.) why don’t we see giant monster movies anymore? i mean other than the stupid japanese kaiju rubber-suit embarrassments. have the scientist sour-pusses spoiled our sense of wonder with all their nonsense about exponentially increasing exo-skeleton stresses? is it our overwhelming faith in the effectiveness of the US military? (i mean who seriously believes that a giant caterpillar would stand up against one bunker-buster?) or is it that the whole damn genre had only one plot, and it was a pretty stupid one at that?
(on an irrelevant side note, filed under reasons why i can’t leave the house without a camera, i was browsing through the toy section at target and i came across several velociraptor models which someone had posed in the act of devouring a cow. i tried posing some elephants devouring a kangaroo, but it didn’t have the same resonance.)
