It was another age. Another time.
The land was green but not good, as it was irradiated with radioactive sludge.
It was indeed the age of the atoms, the nucular spectacular of what new horrors science could do, and then eventually what kind of cinematic entertaiment companies could spun out of the Atom Age fad, monster movies being the more obvious one, as even the second Godzilla movie was more cheesy, and more in tone with other disaster flicks where the giant creature stomping and romping about was in some way born or mutated by radioactive fallout.
Before mutated anything, there was a man that already stunned the world of cinema with its special effect wizardry, Ray Harryhausen, having learned the ways of the magic known as stop-motion animation from his mentor, the legendary Willis O’Brien, whom worked on bringing the original King Kong to life, as well as the dinosaurs in the 1925 film adaptation of The Lost World.
Heck, he basically codified the giant monster movie formula in 1953 with Beast From 20000 Fathoms, which – as i’ve pointed out before – even predates the original Godzilla film, and two years later he would be back with today’s film, It Came From Beneath The Sea, and again it would set a recognizable mark, with the creature becoming giant due to radiation being a giant octopus, now a clichè, but at the time pretty nifty, especially for the FX wizardry it required to animate.
(FIY, i know there’s a colorized version, but i didn’t watch that, nor care too much, honestly)
As it was the mid-50s, you can just guess this was part of a double feature… and it was shown in theathers alongside Creature With The Atom Brain by Columbia Pictures’ unit handled by Sam Katzman, an influential but less discussed producer figure behind many famous B-movies of the era, like the already reviewed “classic” The Giant Claw, but also Earth VS The Flying Saucers.
Lots of history today (which i already discussed when talking about Harryhausen before) because honestly these film never had much of a plot to discuss, i mean, almost 70 years later, the plot itself it’s a pretty classic monster movie clichè in itself, and it really amounts to “an octopus has become giant due to repeated radioactive tests in the South Pacific sea and it’s forced to rampage on the west coast of North America as he can’t hunt and feed his prey anymore due to the radioactivity”.
You know the drill, the army doesn’t believe it despite scientific proof and suspicious incidents matching with the hypothetical scenario, then eventually has to because a giant octopus is tentacling across town and he’s suctioning his way up the Golden Gate Bridge, the scientists (marine biologists in this case) have to find a way to destroy it, using also a nuclear submarine, they do, FIN.
Directed by Robert Gordon, whom for this film opted to have some narration chime in, at least for the first half, going for almost a documentaristic take, or akin to a newsreel angle, in itself not too original for the genre but here works fairly fine to make the whole affair seem more believable and as a build up to the creature’s reveal
To be brutal, even by the 50s and in terms of historical rilevance, there is nothing in the movie that it hadn’t been already done (or would be) by Beast From 20000 Fathoms and following creature features, with the expected 50’s era sexism… or actually being surprisingly not as awful as usual, yeah, the characters aren’t great but aren’t complete stereotypes either, though what steals the scene is the giant octopus, the special effects are another testament to the incredible craft of Harryhausen.
Predictable, but quite fun, not overlylong, arguably a minor classic, and curiously, it did receive a sequel in 2007, though not a film sequel, the other kind of continuation these monster movies often got, as in with a comic book mini-series, It Came From Beneath The Sea… Again, by indie comic book publisher Tidalwave Productions.
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