It can sound as if it were easy for industry outsiders to make a movie in the 1950s, when the likes of Roger Corman, Bert Gordon and others slapped shows together for as little as thirty thousand dollars. Horror and sci-fi fare was a sure sell, and a number of aspirants wound up with real feature credits on cool movie posters and in movie history books. Monster from the Ocean Floor and The Cyclops play surprisingly well today, but with The Astounding She-Monster it’s best to stick with the poster.
The game attracted artist-gamblers convinced that their hotshot movie ideas would attract distributors. Few people had the spare cash: in the mid-‘fifties twenty thousand dollars could buy a reasonable-sized family house. At the low end of the business were scores of sad sack directors that can’t be called successes, even if some of their efforts became famous: Phil Tucker, Jerry Warren, and even Edward D. Wood Jr..
One group of filmmakers that came late to the game had considerable professional experience. Richard Cunha was the director on many TV commercials and industrial films, and shared with his associates a desire to have fun and go Hollywood. The four pictures they made ended up double-billed, following the business plan initiated by American-International. Giant from the Unknown was perfect drive-in fare: it passed for a real movie, and was not likely to distract teenage patrons from their more serious business in the back seat of dad’s station wagon.
‘Screencraft Enterprises’ filmed Giant from the Unknown largely on location in my own teenage back yard, at Big Bear up in the San Bernardino mountains. The direction and ‘technical aspects’ are competent, which is more than can be said for groaners like Phantom from 10,000 Leagues and Beast with a Million Eyes. The synch sound recording is professional. Real actors were hired to play the leading characters.
Nobody will have difficulty following the story. A murder in the small mountain community of Pine Ridge prompts Sheriff Parker (aging cowboy star Bob Steele) to unreasonably single out local ‘researcher’ Wayne Brooks (Ed Kemmer) as his main suspect. But Wayne joins the archeological jaunt of Dr. Frederick Cleveland (Morris Ankrum), who is eager to prove his theory that an expedition of Spanish Conquistadores raided the mountains 500 years earlier. Cleveland fixates on one fearsome historical conqueror known as ‘Vargas, The Diablo Giant.’ Wayne is especially interested in Cleveland’s friendly daughter Janet (Sally Fraser) — but little do they know that they’ll find a lot more than just archeological relics. Also involved are the nice Ann and Charlie Brown (Jolene Brand & Gary Crutcher), and a bitter & resentful Native American, Indian Joe (Billy Dix). All have reason to fear the frightening resuscitated ogre of the title: the scarred, kill-crazy Vargas (famed boxer Buddy Baer). Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Basically a light entertainment ‘posse western’ about a big, murderous bruiser who’s been sleeping in the woods since the 16th century, Giant from the Unknown can’t be described as brilliant or inspired. Dr. Cleveland finds a trove of Spanish relics just a mile or so from civilization, all perfectly preserved. In an idea that may have been lifted from the previous year’s The Black Scorpion, Wayne has found a prehistoric lizard preserved and alive within a rock. The million year-old lizard overturns every scientific law on the books — but our trio of curio hunters wave it off as if it’s no big deal.
On the plus side are the pleasantly silly performances. Ed Kemmer and Sally Fraser’s young couple make chirpy romantic small talk, ignoring the fact that a murderer is on the loose. Pro B-western veteran Bob Steele has his prejudiced sheriff down pat — Parker is eager to arrest Wayne for what seems no reason at all. The stereotyped ‘Injun Joe’ is an obvious red herring, and the rest of the cast are anonymous posse members. We just saw Oliver Blake in Room for One More; his yokel cafe owner launches the movie by rattling off a page or two of exposition.
We always like the fresh-faced young talent in ‘50s shows, but supporting characters in monster movies tend to be expendable. Ann and Charlie Brown (!) are present mainly to give Vargas the Giant extra practice with his battle axe (offscreen). Jolene Brand is just a doll, and Gary Crutcher is fine as the inexperienced young waiter patronized by both Wayne and Sheriff Parker — he comes off quite a bit like actor Lon McAllister from a few years before. Crutcher continued to act and eventually became a studio executive. Jolene Brand married George Schlatter, the creator of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.
Perky Sally Fraser is remembered mainly for her appearances in four ’50s horror shows — she kisses Ed Kemmer in this picture and returns married to him in the same year’s Earth vs. The Spider. Janet Cleveland makes the big archeological find, yet is also totally fine with being left behind to wash the camp dishes, or whatever. In most every reel she issues a loud “Eeeek!” or an ear-splitting scream, apparently because ‘that’s what girls do.’
This level of production could afford few if any ‘take twos,’ which explains why Cunha and Co. hired dependable pros that could be counted on not to flub their dialogue. The filmmakers were already friends with former silent cowboy star Bob Steele, a reliable old-school trouper. Morris Ankrum may have set a record in 1957-1958 — his IMDB count for those years is 51 film and TV appearances. He was one of those guys that never went up on a line. Dr. Cleveland recovers from at least two verbal stumbles while rattling off bogus talk about ‘unusual properties in the local soil’ — that keep the Conquistador in suspended animation for hundreds of years.
Richard Cunha’s direction is sound and his camerawork exceptionally good, especially when compared to the rushed, sloppy work seen in other under-budgeted independent productions. We do roll our eyes at some of the details newly visible in hi-def Blu-ray. Wires are all over a posse member seconds before Buddy Baer hoists him up for an old-fashioned heave-ho. Many shots in the woods cut to studio interiors dressed with fake rocks from ‘Wiggly Prop Rentals.’ And as is frequently pointed out, a studio backdrop of a mountain lake has us fixated on water ripples that don’t move. I think that background was meant to be given a soft focus.
People my age remember being terrified as kids by Buddy Baer’s dirt-encrusted, grimacing villain. All I recalled was a bad optical of the giant falling over a dam, into a cascade bigger than Victoria Falls. An earlier trick shot adding water action at the dam is 100% successful.
Albert Glasser’s attention-getting music score is a big plus — it adds the mystery, suspense and danger that’s sometimes lacking in the visuals. Glasser is now known for blaring, unsubtle scores for various monster and sci-fi shows, especially some by Bert I. Gordon. But his understatement is a good fit here. Giant from the Unknown is an odd duck of a movie — there’s not a lot to it but it never bores us. The darn thing plays like a real movie, not a clunky wannabe like the similar The Neanderthal Man.
