JLRVancouver
"The Giant Behemoth" covers much the same ground as 1953's "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" but with considerably less success. There are a few good moments of stop-action monster rampage, reflecting Willis O'Brien's participation but most of the movie is stock footage or shots of people yelling and pointing (but few good shots of what they are yelling about or pointing at). In addition to being some kind of pointy-toothed apatosaur, the titular beast seems to be able to radiate lethal radioactivity at will (perhaps a sign of contemporary atomic paranoia). At one point this pulsing death ray incinerates a group of soldiers in a clumsily done transition from live actors to what appears to be a charcoal drawing of corpses. The radiation also seems to be able to buffet a submarine, which makes even less sense. The movie plods along the usual trajectory from disbelief to realization to determining the obligatory Achilles heel (like "Reptilicus", the Behemoth is protected from simply being bombed to hell and back by a convenient plot device (the aforementioned 'radiation')). Watchable by the monster-movie fraternity but far from one of the better examples of the canon.
Leofwine_draca
BEHEMOTH THE SEA MONSTER is a British version of the classic GODZILLA story, although it's more closely linked to THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS with whom it shares a director in the Russian-born Frenchman, Eugene Lourie. A youthful Douglas Hickox (THEATRE OF BLOOD) is also credited as co-director in British prints.I always find British monster movies to be a lot of fun and this one is no exception; the cast is full of decent, stiff upper lipped types who instantly band together to tackle whatever great menace is coming their way. And BEHEMOTH THE SEA MONSTER tells a very typical storyline for its era, following a specific template that sees a slow and gradual build-up in the first half lead into some all-out monster action in the second.The film features a likable imported American star in Gene Evans, backed up by some heavyweight British talent in the form of a tough Andre Morell and the likes of Jack MacGowran. Film fans will be delighted to see some brief snippets of stop motion effects contributed by the one and only Willis O'Brien at the tail-end of his career, although a cheesy model also bolsters the action. And I enjoyed the way the action plays out in a particularly grim fashion, with the monster readily offing men, women, and children thanks to that radioactive death ray.
pyrocitor
While the 1950s giant monster movie genre remains almost exclusively dominated by American cinema, The Giant Behemoth marks a rare (and welcome) caper set in Britain. The unconventional setting is what largely helps the film stand out from the ranks of its competitors of the time, as, apart from allowing for some wry tongue-in-cheek quips at the Americanization of the genre (particularly a witty 'ending twist'), the film benefits from an infusion of more (relatively) serious and classy sensibilities, as if leaning more towards breaking ground as opposed to rehashing ground oft-tread. In actuality, the film emerges as a thinly veiled remake of director Eugene Lourie's prior genre staple, 1953's The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. However, the comparison is not a negative one. Like 20,000 Fathoms, Behemoth boasts comparatively superb production values for the genre, including gorgeous, highly photogenic location shooting, particularly in the film's Cornwall-set seaside opening, as well as impressively gruesome burn prosthetics administered to the titular Behemoth's victims. Additionally, like 20,000 Fathoms, Behemoth devotes particular care to the 'scientific research procedural' aspect of tracking and classifying the creature and determining means of stopping it. This 'science-babble', delivered fast and furious from under a succession of grimly furrowed brows, is largely convincing, even if the film's attempts to seemingly trump all genre competitors sometimes overstretch the limits of plausibility – the 'Behemoth', effectively a radiation-saturated dinosaur, proved surprisingly 'sellable', until the abrupt and never-explained revelation that it is electric as well ("like an eel!"). Conversely, the film's focus on radiation and its unanticipated environmental effects on all aspects of the ecosystem proves in many ways grimly insightful and prophetic for an entry in a genre normally dismissed as escapism. Indeed, the film, particularly in an opening didactic address, proves chock full of facts about radiation and its varying concerns, almost suggesting it as a strange kind of educational film on the possible outcomes of atomic warfare for a Cold War anxiety- riddled culture. With this in mind, it is interesting to note the thematic effect of the Behemoth itself, being somewhat of a fusion of 'old' and 'new' threats – a dinosaur mixed with the very modern threat of radiation – as if conflating the two to further stress the dire seriousness of atomic power as just as menacing as any primal fears. Nonetheless, the construction of the Behemoth itself is somewhat of a mixed bag. When brought to life through masterful work by stop-motion icon, King Kong's Willis O'Brien, the Behemoth, particularly in a climactic sequence rampaging through London, its impressively textured trunk-like dinosaur legs flattening cars, teeth bared and tongue sweeping back and forth like a murderous serpent, the Behemoth is a delightfully foreboding and captivating adversary. Nonetheless, the creature itself is more often than not betrayed by the film's evidently low budget, with instances of laughably poor continuity (the Behemoth fluctuates in size and shape, occasionally undulating, serpent-like, despite having the physicality of a stocky dinosaur, and in one laughable instance a ship with a deck one second filled with screaming passengers suddenly empty when the Behemoth sinks it in the following shot) and some overly obvious work with miniatures (when the Behemoth sinks into the sea, the water droplets that fly up are curiously nearly as large as its head) undercutting the usual veneer of sustained tension. Cast-wise, while the film does retain the seemingly inescapable (yet unintentionally entertaining) genre staple of wooden acting, it is, again, in general several cuts above many of its contemporaries, as the acting remains largely credible enough to maintain suspension of disbelief. Gene Evans and André Morell offer a satisfyingly sturdy one-two protagonist act as grim scientists from America and Britain respectively. In addition, particularly worth noting is the scene-stealing performance of Jack MacGowran as a loopy, bug-eyed paleontologist, whose (all too brief) presence greatly enhances the film's entertainment factor. All in all, while the film hardly revolutionizes the template for the giant monster genre (it falls particularly prey to the frequent complaint of substantial pre-climax lagging), The Giant Behemoth does prove an unconventionally fun and smart monster camper, and unquestionably a cut above most contemporaries. Indeed, for all monster enthusiasts, the film, whether for the sheer number of antagonistic tropes amalgamated into a single foe, its comparative class or its generally substantial stop motion work, is definitely worth a watch. -6/10
