Behemoth the Sea Monster

This is one of the last films on which Willis O'Brien worked. If his name isn't familiar, he's the guy who brought King Kong to life through the miracle of stop-motion cinematography. His work led to the likes of Ray Harryhausen and it's quite enjoyable to watch his creatures come to life. However, I must point out that technically speaking, this is far from O'Brien's best work. In fact, I think the story is far better than the stop-motion special effects.

The story is about a giant marine dinosaur that seems to have been created through the typical menace in 50s films--nuclear radiation. At first, the monster appears in an isolated fishing village and its radioactivity kills or maims. Some (especially Evans) take this very seriously. Everyone does after it attacks London! Will the Brits be okay or are they all destined to be gobbled up like a stack of freshly baked scones?!

This film stars a rather unlikely actor--Gene Evans. Evans was hardly the handsome leading man type and is probably most famous for his gritty sergeant character from Sam Fuller's "Steel Helmet" as well as appearing in Fuller's "Shock Corridor". So, seeing him playing the intellectual scientist was a bit odd but it worked well enough. In fact, the acting all around was very good--no complaints. However, the special effects, at times, looked pretty bad--such as when the creatures is swimming underwater.

By the way, the ending was rather clever. Make sure not to miss it.

When it comes to this film, some people love it, while others despise it. There seems to be no middle ground. Actually, BEHEMOTH, THE SEA MONSTER (aka THE GIANT BEHEMOTH) is not a bad giant monster on the loose flick. I enjoyed it when was a kid and I have this film on video and I still enjoy viewing it today. The special effects are pretty good for a quickly made low budget picture, the cast including Gene Evans turn in solid performances and Eugene Lourie's direction is quite good. The radiation scarred victims of the behemoth's radioactive aura (?) shocked me as a kid.

However, the main problem with this film is that we have seen it all before. The film is almost a remake of Lourie's BEAST FROM TWENTY THOUSAND FATHOMS. The original script for this film was about an invisible radioactive monster that dwelled in the ocean. The backers of this film turned the script down, saying they didn't like the idea of an invisible monster. So Lourie went with a radioactive dinosaur and simply rewrote BEAST FROM TWENTY THOUSAND FATHOMS.

The special effects are pretty good. The stop motion effects by Willis O'Brien and Pete Peterson look pretty good for a low budget picture. The main problem is that O'Brien and Peterson had done much more impressive work elsewhere. The effects are not bad, but the effects here are not up to the work O'Brien and Peterson did in KING KONG or even THE BLACK SCORPION. The mechanical and pyro-technical effects by Jack Rabin and Irving Block are pretty ambitious for a picture of this nature.

BEHEMOTH, THE SEA MONSTER is a decent late fifties monster on the loose picture. It is just that we have seen this before and the people who made this film had done better work elsewhere.

Essentially a remake of THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS with the dinosaur emitting radiation instead of a deadly disease this is still a good film. Originally the monster was supposed to be invisible (hence the scene where it does not show up on radar) but the producers said that would never do and a monster must be seen by the audience! So Willis O'Brien and Pete Peterson were brought in late in the game to do some effective stop motion effects. The low budget shows. Notice how the monster steps on the same car 3 times and seems to take forever to walk up a single street. When the Behemoth attacks the ferry watch carefully and you will see the wooden base the rubber head is attached to come out of the water! Other scenes are very good though, like the beast "attacking" the high tension wires and when he strolls by the houses of Parliament you almost cannot tell the old British landmark is just a blown up photograph! B-Western stalwart Gene Evans is pretty good as the hero and Andre Morrell, a one time Dr. Watson opposite Peter Cushing's Sherlock Holmes, is good too. Not much time is wasted on a romantic subplot . . .thank goodness! Allegedly when director Eugene Lourie's young daughter saw this film she chided her father "Daddy, you're bad! You killed the beastie." her comment stayed with Lourie and a few years later when he directed GORGO he . . .well . . .that's another story for another review. See you then.

BEHEMOTH THE SEA MONSTER is a British version of the classic GODZILLA story, although it's more closely linked to THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS with whom it shares a director in the Russian-born Frenchman, Eugene Lourie. A youthful Douglas Hickox (THEATRE OF BLOOD) is also credited as co-director in British prints.

I always find British monster movies to be a lot of fun and this one is no exception; the cast is full of decent, stiff upper lipped types who instantly band together to tackle whatever great menace is coming their way. And BEHEMOTH THE SEA MONSTER tells a very typical storyline for its era, following a specific template that sees a slow and gradual build-up in the first half lead into some all-out monster action in the second.

The film features a likable imported American star in Gene Evans, backed up by some heavyweight British talent in the form of a tough Andre Morell and the likes of Jack MacGowran. Film fans will be delighted to see some brief snippets of stop motion effects contributed by the one and only Willis O'Brien at the tail-end of his career, although a cheesy model also bolsters the action. And I enjoyed the way the action plays out in a particularly grim fashion, with the monster readily offing men, women, and children thanks to that radioactive death ray.

This film was made before the days of cgi and therefore must seem painfully dated to younger viewers but to us who grew up in the atomic monster age it is both scary and charming. We do not look with judgment on the film but rather on the times in which it was produced. Fond memories of drive-in theaters and Saturday night scarfests with friends. Carefree times of youth and adolescence. That said "Behemoth" is ultimately more entertaining with it's challenging fx than many of our modern day films which completely lack any charm. Simply filling a film with eye catching Cgi does not a movie make. Willis O'Brian's painstaking stop-motion effects and Eugene Lourie's talent with a minuscule budget unite to make a scary premise very entertaining and certainly fondly remembered.