T w e n t y S i d e d

The two 1933 King Kong movies introduced, or at least emphasized, a key concept for a new genre of movie: the GIANT monster. But despite his size, Kong very definitely fit into the type of monster movie that had been a staple of early FX movies practically from the beginning of the technology. Quite possibly the first thing filmmakers thought of when contemplating “what ELSE can we make movies of?” was dinosaurs. The idea that giant fossilized bones belonged to ancient giant reptiles had only been proposed around 1842, fifty years prior to the invention of “moving pictures.” But as thrilling as these early fantastical depictions of dinosaurs were, the humans that encountered them were awed more by the discovery than the threat to life and limb. Dinosaurs could be killed or driven off with guns and spears. Likewise, Kong was defeated by machine guns (I mean, you can argue it was technically the *fall* that killed him, but you get it.) So at least on the surface of the story, Kong was just another animal to be overcome. It wasn’t until the years following World War Two that an elevating influence was added to the giant monster formula, creating a new threat.

The Joint Army and Navy Task Force, with input and observers from many American universities tested two nuclear bombs at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands in July 1946. This began a series of nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific that lasted until 1958, most of them occurring at or near Bikini Atoll. Stories of the dangers of the “radiation” from these tests began spreading almost immediately. This, combined with the lasting effects of “radioactive fallout” on the survivors and rescuers at Hiroshima and Nagasaki increased awareness of not only the life-ending outcomes of nuclear radiation, but also of concepts of rapid mutation and speculation of near-immediate evolution. (Put a pin on the genesis of Silver Age comic book heroes on your Bingo Board.) Nuclear testing became a source of fear. Not only for the bomb that might land on you, but of the FALLOUT that might invisibly drift around you. Killing you quickly, OR killing you slowly, or turning you into a brain-dead, drooling victim of the Atomic Age (half-a pin on zombies.)

Like the press, Hollywood knows fear sells. Scripts, story treatments, and FX test shots started springing up in every movie studio. In 1951, Jack Dietz Productions began working on a movie called The Monster from Beneath the Sea, with special FX by stop-motion pioneer Ray Harryhausen. The film was to be about a “Rhedosaurus,” a giant dinosaur hibernating in the Arctic Circle and subsequently “awakened” by an Atomic bomb test. Harryhausen brought to Dietz’s attention a serialized story by the popular writer Ray Bradbury called The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. Bradbury’s story was similar to the movie’s plot, and wishing to take advantage of a known, published title by a known writer, Dietz bought the rights from Bradbury and worked in some elements of Bradbury’s story into the film. Notable actors include Cecil Kellaway as the required expert professor, although specializing in dinosaur bones instead of imaginary rabbits. Paul Christian takes the lead as an American nuclear physicist…notably with a German accent, another prerequisite in American science-influenced and sci-fi movies of the oncoming era. You could be forgiven for missing the late entrance by Lee Van Cleef as Army sharpshooter Corp. Jason Stone, the man who makes the one-in-a-million shot that kills the beast. His face only appears full-front for a few seconds, but the voice is unmistakable.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was purchased from Jack Dietz by Warner Brothers. They spent about $800,000 acquiring the film and extensively marketing it, and were well-rewarded. Beast not only made back over six times WB’s outlay, but was very well reviewed in general. Even critics who found the story itself lacking praised Ray Harryhausen’s FX work. As for myself, I have always been of a mind that appreciates the accomplishments of stop-motion FX creators such as Harryhausen and O’Brien, but relegate their successes to an era of “they didn’t know a better way.” This can be a bit querulous, as one can easily argue that some drawn animations and puppetry matched the best stop-motion; although all techniques had their boundaries and rules for best use. I would argue that the combination of miniatures and “suitmation” used in the following year’s Gojira easily outclassed the work done for Beast. Most significantly, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms shows its shortcomings when trying to portray scale and when incorporating stop-motion footage into a live-action scene. Despite successful use of traveling mattes going back to the 1930’s, Harryhausen dismissed the technology and simply superimposed one film source over another, blurring the areas where the stop-motion scene interacted with the base footage. In some scenes this works well enough; in some the delineation is distracting. For similar reasons, perspective shots fail in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. A shot of the Rhedosaurus model is filmed from a low angle, likely from no more than a few inches distance. A shot of the actors looking up and into the distance is superimposed, filmed from behind and from a distance of 15 to 20 feet. The different depths of shot are apparent…the dinosaur still looks like something close to the camera, despite being depicted as occupying space hundreds of feet away. The human mind is designed to pick up these differences, and the brain informs you that it doesn’t look right. They also did a poor job of matching lighting between FX and live footage. This is prevalent in the movie’s best scene: the night fight in the streets of Manhattan:

The Rhedosaurus is lit from the left and slightly behind, but clearly not from above. The soldiers are being lit from a light that MUST be located just to the creature’s right, about even with its jawline. One leaning pole seems to be lit by the same light that is illuminating the monster, while the other poles appear to be lit from a light deep to the rear of the set shining toward the audience point-of-view. And there is clearly a light located in the upper-right and a bit deeper shining on the the pick-up truck and lighting the interior of the sandbags, so that we see their outline. While most of these lighting choices are very likely made to make the scene look deeper than it actually is, the lack of interaction between the different elements highlights the artificial-ness of the performance. And yet I said this is probably the best scene in the film, and I think it is. Unclear in this shot are strands of high-voltage power lines between the barricade and the beast. The bright sparking that occurs when the Rhedosaurus contacts the lines blacks out the scene, presenting the view with momentary glimpses of the model barely picked out of the dark. The dark hides much that distracts from the believeability of the model, and the dramatic sparking and the sound of electrical arcing presents the most credible challenge to the monster’s attack. I would not be surprised if this one scene inspired the very similar scene in Gojira.

One final note from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. This is 100% an American film, and nowhere (excepting the German-ity of the nuclear physicist) is this more apparent than the “final solution” to end the threat. How do you beat a prehistoric hibernating dinosaur awakened by the hellfire heat of a nuclear explosion? YOU NUKE IT! Ok, *sort of* nuke it. Dr. German basically gives Lee Van Cleef a nuclear core (the part of a nuclear bomb that has all the rare nuclear material that just needs to compressed by another, regular explosion to make the BIG boom); and tells him to fire it into a wound in the monster’s neck. See, all that nuclear radiation coming off the core will burn the monster into nothing. They do actually make the point that REGULAR fire and explosions aren’t enough, you have to burn the beast so thoroughly NOTHING remains, and only nuclear science thingy can do that. Don’t worry, we’ll wear gloves.

So at this point we have a monster created by nuclear testing, but only partially. At no point do they say the nuclear radiation CHANGED it or made it WORSE, only that the nuclear bomb’s heat warmed it up enough to come out of hibernation. In fact, radiation and fallout is treated as “a thing they know they should be concerned about” in much the same way as your mom telling you to keep an eye on the weather…it may storm later. Don’t wanna get caught in the nuclear rain and catch a radiation cold. Almost bizarrely, by contrast, soldiers DO BEGIN to mysteriously fall ill after exposure to the Rhedosaurus…because it’s carrying some unknown prehistoric virus that’s giving the men dinosaur flu. Silly, but technically something that could happen. So frustrating considering the film’s treatment of nuclear radiation as something a bit more dangerous than milk that’s gone off but less deadly than a bad cold.

It has been reported that Ray Harryhausen was quite miffed when Gojira released the next year. The oft-repeated story is that Harryhausen thought Gojira‘s “suitmation” looked cheap and unrealistic compared to his own work. To add insult to injury, a broad comparison of Gojira and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms clearly shows similar ideas at the foundations of both movies. The truth is any dissatisfaction very likely was limited to this latter fact. Ishiro Honda has documented that the nuclear testing aspects of Gojira‘s story were in place years before the movie was made. Although clearly, early production notes from Gojira also make it plain that Honda’s employer, Toho, likely based their support of the production on the success of Beast. In fact, Harryhausen expressed no negative opinion of Godzilla until the 1960’s…following Toho’s THIRD Godzilla movie King Kong Vs. Godzilla. His complaint? He wasn’t a fan of using suit FX to depict something non-humanoid, but felt the first two Godzilla movies had hidden the problems well. When the Godzilla series continued in the 1960’s, Harryhausen thought the suit FX were being done poorly…something we will be talking about in the future. There was also a personal note specifically on the first of these new movies: King Kong Vs. Godzilla. KKvG had originally been conceived by his friend Willis O’Brien as King Kong Vs. Frankenstein. He couldn’t get the movie idea produced in the U.S.A., but Toho in Japan was interested in it. Frankenstein was BIG in Japan. Literally. They bought the idea, but not as a vehicle for O’Brien. In fact, he had no input on the project. TLDR, the movie was re-conceived as a suitmation FX Godzilla movie. O’Brien was aghast, hated the movie, and beyond that; didn’t even get a credit. He died a couple of years later. Harryhausen biographers have contended recently that this personal connection, as much as anything, instigated his distaste for Godzilla movies.

Guys, I AM SO SORRY I didn’t get to both of the movies I wanted to talk about this week. Heck, I didn’t even get to all the NUCLEAR stuff that was supposed to be in this post. Oh, well. Something to look forward to next week. And once again, a teaser image:

Paige Francis He/him