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Once again CineSavant becomes intrigued by a minor genre opus normally dismissed in a sentence or two; this Roger Corman production may fall short of his other early efforts because it tried to be too cerebral and then ran afoul of the Hollywood Guilds. David Kramarsky is listed as director but it’s hard to know how many of the credits are accurate — or simply bogus. Monstermaker extraordinaire Paul Blaisdell apparently came to the rescue with 11th-hour special effects to give the ambiguous, invisible alien menace more substance. Scorpion’s release has a new transfer and a commentary by Tim Lucas.

The Beast With a Million Eyes

Blu-ray

Scorpion Releasing

1955 / B&w / 1:37 full frame open aperture / 75 min. / Region A locked / Street Date November, 2019 /available through Ronin Flix (not Amazon) / 29.99

Starring: Paul Birch, Lorna Thayer, Dona Cole, Dick Sargent, Leonard Tarver, Bruce Whitmore, Chester Conklin.

Cinematography: Everett Baker + Floyd Crosby,...

'The Beast with a Million Eyes': Hardly truth in advertising as there's no million-eyed beast in Roger Corman's micro-budget sci-fi thriller. 'The Beast with a Million Eyes': Alien invasion movie predates Alfred Hitchcock classic Despite the confusing voice-over introduction, David Kramarsky's[1] The Beast with a Million Eyes a.k.a. The Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes is one of my favorite 1950s alien invasion films. Set in an ugly, desolate landscape – shot “for wide screen in terror-scope” in Indio and California's Coachella Valley – the screenplay by future novelist Tom Filer (who also played Jack Nicholson's sidekick in the 1966 Western Ride in the Whirlwind) focuses on a dysfunctional family whose members become the first victims of a strange force from another galaxy after a spaceship lands nearby emitting sound vibrations that turn domestic animals into aggressive killers. Killer cow First, the lady-of-the-house is pecked by a flock of chickens and,...