MONSTER FROM GREEN HELL

US, 1958, 71 minutes, Black and white (end in colour).
Jim Davis, Robert Griffin, Joel Fluellen, Barbara Turner, Eduardo Ciannelli, Vladimir Sokoloff.
Directed by Kenneth G. Crane.

The B Feature was a popular aspect of the double bills, especially in English-speaking countries. They were churned out by the American industry as well as by the British from the 1930s to the 1960s. The coming of television did not immediately halt their production or popularity but, at the beinning of the 1960s, with the big-budget widescreen films that were becoming more and more popular, there was little place for these films.

When the Americans began making telemovies in the late 1960s, these became the alternative to the B films.

However, there were still a number of film-makers who made genre pictures during the 1970s, often Z budget in production and imagination. Later, the successors of these films were the straight-to-video and straight-to-DVD films of the 1990s and into the 21st century.

In the United States, especially with the popular serials that took on themes of science and even space exploration, the 1950s saw a proliferation of short science fiction films, some of them now considered excellent examples of their type, others were just schlock.

One of the features of these films was the atomic age and many of the films were warnings about radiation dangers and the possibilities of mutations and monsters. Godzilla emerged from this period. Space also fascinated film-makers and audiences at this time. The first Sputnik was launched in 1957 and soon after the first astronauts went into space. The moon landing was in 1969. Many of the films (even Kubrick’s 1968 2001: a Space Odyssey) tried to imagine what space travel would be like. There was a huge spate of space films.

Unfortunately, special effects were quite limited at the time and many audiences would find these quite risible. However, taken in their time, they had their impact.

This was the period of Ed Wood and his Planet 9 from Outer Space but also the beginning of the career of Roger Corman and his many protégés who became top-class directors.

There had been a Hollywood tradition of horror since the 1930s which led to many spoofs. However, all kinds of horror made a comeback in the 1950s, not only in the shockers from the US but also from Hammer Studios in England. These films also continued throughout the 1960s and 1970s and influenced some of the poorer directors like Ted. V. Mikels with films like The Corpse Grinders. These films, along with the popularity of the blaxploitation films now show their age with their characteristic costumes and hair styles, the touch sometimes of the psychedelic and the grainy film stock.

Monster from Green Hell is one of the many films of 1958, B-budget (or Z-budget) about science fiction, atomic mutations, monsters.

The film shows American experts preparing for space travel, experimenting with animals in space. However, wasps that have been sent into space crash-land in Africa and turn into enormous monsters terrorising the locals. A scientific expedition is sent from the United States – which makes a lot of the film one of the typical jungle adventures. However, there is a final confrontation with the wasps – and the film moves into colour as the expedition is able to utilise the lava from an active volcano to destroy the menace.

The film stars Jim Davis who had appeared with Bette Davis in Winter Meaning and was to spend a lot of time on Dallas. Vladimir Sokoloff portrays a missionary doctor – very similar to Albert Schweitzer who was still working in Africa at the time.

The special effects are negligible, the acting is sometimes perfunctory – but everything is geared towards a brief popular exercise in science fiction, 50s style.

1.The popularity of this kind of film at the time? How seen in retrospect?

2.The B-budget, the cast, the black and white photography, performance, basic special effects? Musical score?

3.The situation with space exploration in the United States – the film made just after the Sputnik? The experimentation of sending animals into space? Testing for atomic atmosphere, for radiation? The experiment going wrong, the crash-landing in Africa? The personalities of Doctor Brady and Dan Morgan? Their concern, taking the expedition?

4.The African scenes (footage from Stanley and Livingstone)? The conventional trek through the African countryside, the natives, animals, terrain? The experience of the wasps and their killing people? The volcano, the lava and the destruction of the wasps?

5.The characters, sterling leader, the Arab guide, Doctor Lorentz and the missionary? The parallel with Albert Schweitzer? Arobi, his African background?

6.The resolution of the problem – the film going into colour with the volcano and the lava?