GORGO (1961)
Initially written as an amorphous blob, distributor Allied Artists insisted that BEHEMOTH THE SEA MONSTER became another 1950s movie dinosaur. The Behemoth itself originates from Job 40:15-24, given to Earth on the fifth day of Creation, and generally regarded to have been Satan in the form of an elephant.
IN BEHEMOTH THE SEA MONSTER, scientists Steve Karnes (Gene Evans) and James Bickford (Andre Morell, channeling his role as Professor Quatermass) travel to Looe in Cornwall to investigate the death of a fisherman, whose dying word was "behemoth." Thousands of dead fish have washed ashore shortly after, and it is discovered that samples contain large amounts of radioactive contamination. Karnes suspects that the "behemoth" is a large marine mammal that has mutated as a result of nuclear testing. After an attack near the Essex coast, eccentric paleontologist Dr Sampson (Jack MacGowran) identifies the creature as a Paleosaurus, an aquatic dinosaur that emits an ionising pulse like an electric eel. Surfacing in the Thames and capsizing the Woolwich Ferry, the monster then rampages through London. While Karnes and Bickford advise the military to administer a dose of radium, they hope to accelerate the radiation sickness that is slowly killing the beast.
This joint Anglo-American production, released in the United States as THE GIANT BEHEMOTH, was co-directed by Eugène Lourié and Douglas Hickox, and is a facsimile of Lourié's own THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS. Evans and Morell are the most convincing aspects, and Lourié - an art director by trade - manages to bring out some atmospheric locales, but the threadbare budget and punishing schedule clearly hindered the special effects. Willis O'Brien and his assistant Pete Peterson were subcontracted by the film's initial team of Jack Rabin, Irving Block and Louis DeWitt, the latter providing the embarrassing "umbrella handle" version of the Paleosaurus during the ferry attack (the prop's wooden base even clears the Thames). Similarly, during the London stomping, the model's ankle joints are visibly falling apart. These climactic attacks were actually filmed without sound to save money, but a nice nod to O'Brien's glory days sees stock screaming from KING KONG dubbed in for the panic.
Two years later Lourié helmed GORGO, a co-production of the United Kingdom, the United States and Ireland. Captain Joe Ryan (Bill Travers) and his first officer Sam (William Sylvester) are salvaging for treasure off the Irish coast when a volcano erupts. Taking their ship to Nara Island for repairs, they consult an unhelpful harbour master cum archaeologist and encounter a sixty-five foot tall dinosaur awoken by the seismic explosion. Capturing the monster, Ryan shuns the University of Dublin for a better deal from Dorkin's Circus of London. Exhibited in Battersea Park, it transpires that the monster Gorgo - named after the fearful Gorgon of Greek myth - is in fact only an infant. The two hundred feet mother has been following its phosphorescent trail and comes ashore in the capital, to demolish as many landmarks as possible and rescue her offspring.
For GORGO, stop-motion gives way to a man in an unwieldy monster suit, swiping at and stamping on the miniatures in banal, overlong sequences. Refreshingly both monsters survive to return to the sea, innocents escaping human interference and violence. The completely male cast are more like caricatures - Sylvester looks consistently flippant and uninterested - with the military and scientists also severely lacking in any kind of intelligence. The dramatis personae also includes an annoying young Irish orphan boy played by Vincent Winter, who had won the Academy Juvenile Award for 1953's THE KIDNAPPERS.