Monster from Green Hell

Jim Davis plays a scientist who sends some animals, a few wasps in particular, into space to see how they fare under radiation. Alas, some wasps don't return and turn to gigantic proportions somewhere in Western Africa. Don't expect too much from this cheapie, but the film might be better than you expect prior to viewing. Despite the wasps and their infrequent screen time, the movie has the look and feel of a very cheaply-made film yet is able to tell a decent...okay, almost decent story. Made entirely in California with oodles of stock footage set in Africa, I found the film quasi-authentic. The acting was also somewhat acceptable. Davis was decent as were his co-stars. The film dives at the end with some quick resolution to an enormous problem. As far as bad movies go..you could find many much less entertaining and boring. Vladimir Sokoloff has a nice small role as a missionary in Africa.

Considering the producer was responsible for Robot Monster, this film is not the incredible mess R.M. was.

It's also no THEM either.

It's an average 50's giant bug film. Slightly more inventive in using wasps that mainly crawl around on the ground rather than fly. We usually only see one giant wasp who resembles more dung beetle than a wasp.

I think there is a shot or two in which obviously animated wasps fly and buzz too.

Well radiation in Africa mutated wasps and they are killing natives mostly.

Harmless fun if you've got time. If you remember it as a kid your tolerance for it is significantly higher than viewers not familiar with the film.

I was surprised at the amount of giant wasp animated action in the film at the start. There is even a giant full sized head prop too. But there seems to be quite a bit of Jim Davis voice over and as the movie goes on there starts to be more walking to get to the giant wasps than there is actual giant wasps. One major character dies off screen in a way that seems like they never got to shoot it. (Another character shows up and explains what happened) Then the ending is all stock footage and dissolves to footage we've already seen. And Jim Davis, as he did later in THE DAY TIME ENDED, explaining it all to us. Thank god otherwise you'd have only a vague idea of what you just saw, or didn't really get to see.

Too bad they ran out of what little money they had. A lively start progressively gets duller. Still that big wasp head was cool, another problem is the generally crappy quality of many copies of the film available which make the footage either dark or blown out. If you're going to watch it make sure you get a decent copy first.

The sending test animals into space aspect of the premise is a bit novel as is the idea of having the space ship crash way out in the middle of Africa and having to go find it. Certainly since the film was made, like with the remains of Space Lab, that type of thing has happened.

Before Jim Davis got his last and career part as Jock Ewing in Dallas, he had one tortured path to Hollywood success. He had a much publicized debut as Bette Davis's leading man in Winter Meeting which was one of her worst films. His portrayal of a war hero about to enter the priesthood met with a ton of critical guffaws. Still Davis persisted and took any kind of work. The Monster from Green Hell qualifies as any kind of work.

A wasp is sent up in space to see the effects. Unfortunately on re-entry the space capsule crashes in the region of West Africa and the wasp has grown to the size of a Panzer tank. To top it all off the geniuses sending up the rocket sent up a pregnant queen so we've got all kinds of those Panzer wasps running around Africa.

Jim Davis is sent to clean up the mess and runs into a medical missionary played by Vladimir Sokoloff. Albert Schweitzer was very much alive at the time and running his mission in West Africa. No one in 1958 mistook who Sokoloff was portraying. The wasps set up a colony in the shadow of a volcano. You can figure out the rest.

This is typical Fifties science fiction when all kinds of radiation was the explanation for these creatures. In this case it was the radiation from cosmic rays, presumably from the newly discovered Van Allen belt around the earth.

Tepid acting and chintzy special effects make The Monster from Green Hell great cult stuff. One thing though that is timely. An Arab character played by Eduardo Ciannelli joins forces with Davis and one of the natives Joel Fluellen to combat the danger the giant wasps present. Amazing how religious differences can suddenly melt away in time of crisis.

Growing up in Los Angeles in the late '50s & early '60s, we had "The Million Dollar Movie" on KHJ-channel 9. The MMM ran every night as well as twice on Saturdays and Sundays, giving the viewer nine opportunities over the course of the week to see whatever film was being shown.

When the MMM showed "The Monster From Green Hell," my cronies and I were seven or eight years old. We saw "The Monster From Green Hell" all nine times!!! Up to that point in our lives, it was perhaps the greatest thing ever put on celluloid.

Heck, giant wasps had over-run Africa and only Jim Davis, who starred as the hero ambulance driver in "Rescue 8" at the time could save mankind. Although I've read that the special effects were really cheap, I thought they might as well have come directly from George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic. Those huge, giant wasps sure looked real to us! I recall Viewing #8, Sunday afternoon, for you. A buddy and I were at my house, getting ready to watch it in our Living Room when my dad came in, plopped down into his favorite comfy chair and told us he was going to watch something else, something other than ... "The Monster From Green Hell." How could this be? Sacriledge was being committed right before our young eyes! Fortunately, I knew my dad's Sunday afternoon habits, and Habit #1 was sawing logs within five minutes of landing in his afore-mentioned comfy chair. As luck would have it, sure enough, he was off in Dreamland within only a couple minutes.

Discovering this, my buddy and I scooted up as close to the TV as humanly possible and turned the sound down so we could barely hear it.

It was in this manner that we caught virtually all of "The Monster From Green Hell" for the eighth straight showing on "Million Dollar Movie." Well, almost all of it.

Within a minute or two of its conclusion, the mighty beast stirred. Uh oh, my dad had awakened. With a surge of sudden awesome, lightning-quick fury, he arose, hovering over us like Shaq over Billy Barty, and erupted, "THAT'S IT, DAMMIT, NO MORE GODDAMNED 'GREEN HELL!" With that we scooted out from under his grasp, out of the Living Room, out of the house and down the street, congratulating ourselves as if we'd just won the World Series. For we had done it! We pulled off the impossible, a mighty feat indeed! Risking life itself, we were able to see what we truly believed was one of the greatest motion pictures of all time, "The Monster From Green Hell," eight straight times.

That night, at my buddy's house, we capped our perfect week by seeing it for the ninth and final time.

I have never seen it listed on TV again - and yes, I would kill to see it after all these years.