It Came From Beneath the Sea

"For centuries the mind of man has learned comparative little of the mysteries of the heavens above - or the seas below"

"Since the coming of the atomic age, man's knowledge has so increased that an upheaval of nature would not be beyond his belief."

It is 1955 and the atom sub looks just like a ww2 diesel (at least it does not look like a cardboard mockup.) The latest sub is being chased by thing or things unknown; let's just say that "It Came from Beneath the Sea".

Standard sci-fi for the time we have the obligatory romance between the captain, Cmdr. Pete Mathews (Kenneth Tobey) from "The Thing From Another World" (1951), and Prof. Lesleyl Joyce (Faith Domergue) from "This Island Earth" (1955). What a ménage à trios and Prof. John Carter (Donald Curtis) from several "Science Fiction Theater" (1955-1957) TV episodes.

I just love sci-fi from this time because they inevitably depend of flame throwers to do the trick as in "The deadly Mantis" and "Them!"

Naturally no one believes them until they get eaten. Others think they have the situation in hand. Will we be able to handle "IT"? And will there be a next time?

Six tentacle monster by Ray Harryhausen; "Clash of the Titans" (1981).

Screen play by Hal Smith, and George Worthing Yates.

Faith Domergue, by God.

This was another movie where the budget was so small, Ray had to sacrifise the quality of the story for more cheaper production issues. The design of the creature was also limited, the budget being what it was, Ray only designed the octopus with six arms. and tried to maintain that the other two arms were underwater (Okay). They also never got permission to actually film in San Franciso, so they filmed all the out door scenes from the back of a bakery truck that drove all over the city and over the Golden Gate Bridge, the rest of the movie was shot either on other locations or on sound stages. As a result, this movie really was not much different then other B-movie monster pictures that were made at the time, and for Ray, to this day, he still maintains that the movie was not one of his better films.

I had never seen the film until this past week when I picked it up at a local Borders store for $15. To tell you the truth, I had some high hopes for the films, but like most monster films of the era, the monster's time was limited and short. So I wasn't expecting too much.
The film starts out pretty slow with Ken Tobey and his sub crew trying to figure out what they got themselves caught up in (the octopus).
The human parts of the film are like any other monster film where a man falls in love with a beautiful woman and they love each other in the end. The acting is pretty decent but seems to drag on for FAR too long! Plus the monster scenes were much shorter in this one compared to other Harryhausen films which was disappointing.
Overall, the film does deliver and is an enjoyment. But the overdone human drama and very few scenes of the octopus make this movie somewhat dull. A good film, but not one of Harryhausen's best as far as entertainment value.