TARANTULA

US, 1955, 80 minutes, Black and white.
John Agar, Mara Corday, Leo G. Carroll, Nestor Paiva (and uncredited, Clint Eastwood).
Written and directed by Jack Arnold.

Tarantula was one of many B-budget science fiction horror films of the mid-1950s. It has the familiar story of the scientist working on a process to help the human race (here a nutrient to help feed a world with overpopulation). Despite the mistakes, he is good-hearted and has good intentions. However, some of his assistants inject the formula and go demented. A giant tarantula is also menacing, having been injected with the nutrient. A jet squadron (with Clint Eastwood as the leader) has to destroy the laboratory.

The film was written and directed by Jack Arnold who made a number of these films at Universal Studios in the mid-50s (some also with Clint Eastwood): It Came from Outer Space, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Revenge of the Creature.

This kind of film is very popular in retrospect – one of the many films at Universal Studios which were made plainly and without extra flair but tell a good story and create an atmosphere.

1. What is the audience appeal in science-fiction? The experimentation with our world? The possibility for mistake? The need for control? Imagination linked with scientific fact? How well did this film use the conventions of science-fiction?

2. Why do such films appeal to audiences? science-fiction and imaginative response? The response to horror and imaginatlon? The potential for destruction?

3. How well did this film use imagination and fantasy, in the work of the doctors, in linking it to the contemporary worlds the magnification of animals, the overtones of spiders, the destructive forces? Were they comuunicated well?

4. How do audiences respond to animals? The feeling and sentiment response? The horror for spiders? The response of horror to a giant spider, its poise, ugliness?

5. What comment did the film make on scientists and their experiments? The attractiveness of the enterprise of their work? The risk of it going beyond bound? How well was this communicated?

6. How do science-fiction films comment on scientists playing God? Have scientists the right to play God? Is it poetic justice that they suffer from the hands of their excesses?

7. The film was B-grade in budget? Was it B-grade in script, production, situations, acting? How much better than B-grade was it?

8. How interesting was the portrayal of the professors and their experimentation? The initial picture of the diseased Professor? The discussion of disease? The vengeance of the young scientist in injecting Professor Deemer? The horror of his death?

9. How important were the hero and the heroine? Were they well-drawn as characters or were they conventional for this film? The role of the Sheriff, the doctors, the reporters? how did they contribute to the film? The inevitable suspense as the spider menaces the heroine? The hero's rescue? Was this cliche or was it well done?

10. Comment on the special effects with the magnification of the animals. Professor Deemer's inspection scene? The magnification of the spider, its walking along the countryside, its menacing and destroying people, the fear induced?

11. How important was the crisis and the attempts to destroy the spider and the failure? Did these add suspense to the film? The enormity of the napalm needed for this destruction? Audience response to this?

12. How successful was this science-fiction film of the 50's compared with more recent attempts? Why?