Le monstre vient de la mer

Ray Harryhausen wonderfully creates a giant octopus ravaging the Pacific Coast and then rooting itself in San Francisco Bay. The octopus is quite stunning and a marvel of stop-motion animation. Viewers are treated to it actually climbing on the Golden Gate Bridge(a model of course), squeezing a submarine, literally bringing a ship down to the depths, and throwing tentacles all over pedestrians in the San Francisco harbour. My only regret is that this is all too infrequent and most of it arriving at the end of the film. The rest of the story centers around Kenneth Tobey, Faith Domerge and Donald Curtis trying to discover what it is that held Tobey's submarine. There is also a weird love triangle among the three as well which enhances the story I believe. All in all this is a fine piece of classic science fiction entertainment.

A nuclear sub is taking its' shakedown cruise when the Captain puts on Swing music on the stereo. The monster disapproves of his music choice and pins down the sub. The sub eventually gets free, but there is unidentifiable matter stuck to it. Eventually scientist Faith Domergue figures out it belongs to a giant octopus.

Director Robert Gordon does a good job of not letting the film get bogged down in talk. Domergue and the Navy argue about whether sea monsters actually exist. The film is worth watching for the stop-motion animation Harryhausen did on a limited budget. The monster is marvelously realistic looking as it wreaks havoc upon the countryside.

This is not a creature you'll rub elbows with at Sea World, to say the least. Not after it's done a number on San Francisco and without a wrecking ball in sight. But then if Godzilla can take Tokyo, why not an octopus taking out an American city in big time stop-motion fashion. Okay, it's archaic special effects by today's digital standards, but cutting edge for its time and still a lot of movie fun.

Tobey's a fine underrated actor, perfect as a military type. And Domergue-- Howard Hughes' big squeeze— shows her dewy-eyed stuff as a "women are as good as men" feminist. Actually, it's Curtis, a man, who states that case for the "new woman", though Domergue's aggressive scientist makes a convincing case all by herself. Surprisingly for this type movie, the three share equal time on screen, and it's pretty clear director Gordon's instructions to them are to low-key it, which they do to good effect.

The first atomic submarine, the Nautilus, sailed in mid-1954 to a lot of public interest. No doubt, the producers here were well aware, and wove a crowd-pleasing story around the film version. Then too, mutant monsters had not yet taken over movie screens as they would a few years later. No doubt, the success of this film was parent to many of those creature offspring. Anyway, as these movies go, this is definitely one of the better ones in all departments, (though a couple of romantic scenes could have been easily economized).

In passing—I really like that last scene where our three musketeers get no recognition for their heroics. It's a nice ironic touch. And see if you agree—looks to me like they're about to "break character" at fade-out.

This was a pretty decent effort by the master of stop motion animation, Ray Harryhausen. The scenes with the giant octopus helped to add a lot of thrills to this film. The only negative aspect to are the scenes without the monster. There is basically no human chemistry between the human characters and it probably would have made the film a lot better. Also, Faith Domergue's character of Professor Joyce was hard to figure out. At first it seems as if her character wants to be taken seriously, but as the film goes on she seems to act as the typical pretty face that screams whenever danger approaches. However, the real star of the film is the monster, who was probably one of Harryhausen's finest creations.

Also, one of the more interesting things about this film was the fact that they mentioned that the monster first appeared off the coast of Japan. Of course, this film was released about a year after another monster appeared off the coast of Japan, Gojira (aka. Godzilla).

Despite all of its flaws, this was still a good effort by the master.

1950s sci-fi monster movie about a giant octopus attacking ships and submarines. The Navy doesn't like it one bit. Slow-going with the monster octopus not fully showing up until three-quarters into the picture. Far too much focus in the first half on the nauseating romantic drama involving Kenneth Tobey's sub commander and scientists Faith Domergue and Donald Curtis. There is some fun to be had with the clichéd characters and some of their corny lines ("When you're driving that atomic submarine of yours, do you have time for romance?"). All of the octopus scenes are fun and the last quarter of the movie is the most interesting, due to the stop-motion effects from the legendary Ray Harryhausen. I normally love movies like this and would rate it higher, but it's just so talky and the romance makes me want to puke.