As a self-defense mechanism, a lizard will randomly sever its tail as a distraction method to confuse its predators (talk about a way to curtale it on out of there.) It’s too bad our evolutionary process hasn’t allowed us the courtesy to sever our eyeballs when we watch monstrosities like this horror abomination camouflaging as a science fiction classic! For those familiar with Ray Kellog’s opus of Helodermatidae Destructionitus Sortofafilmrex known as The Giant Gila Monster you already know two solid facts: 1) the creature in the film is NOT a Gila Lizard, but a Mexican Beaded Lizard, and 2) filmmakers in this period thought they could sell the Texes Horned Lizard drive-in teenagers a large scale dinosaur on a budget of two dollars and fifty-six cents! Stomping in the footprints of such Calosasourous flops like Brute Force, The Land Unknown, and Woman of the Prehistoric Planet, this film continuous the long trend of supergluing some fins on our tiny cold-blooded four-legged reptiles and filming them against the backdrop of miniature sets. Did those pesky little teeny-boppers notice? Of course not! Nor did they care, as it’s hard to see the 100-foot screen with the windows fogged up, but this didn’t stop Kellog and his producing partner Ken Curtis (Festus of Gunsmoke) from filling in a tall order on such a small budget!
This egg of a film was laid by Gordon McLendon, nicknamed ‘The Maverick of Radio’ who would later go on to diversify his accounting by buying Drive-In movie theatres. Starving for second features to accompany the main movies he would rent for showings, McLendon thought if he produced films instead of renting them it would be cheaper since no one seemed to care what the second feature was (as long as time was used up for a little late night snacking on dino nuggets wink-wink, nudge-nudge) and turned to special effects director Curtis and Kellog (Beneath the 12-Mile Reef and The King and I) to satisfy the juvenile beast’s hunger. Lensing two films back to back with almost the same cast and crew, this dinosaur stomped together as well as the monster rodent classic The Killer Shrews (more like Disney’s The Shaggy Dog Gets Rabies). Filled with local friends, family, and colleagues (including a local disc jockey from McLendon’s radio station) the film takes the relevant (at least then) teenage dramas, hangs, and concerns seriously, which is rare for a sicker/flicker of the time. Produced on a colossal budget of $138,000 (which most assuredly was not spent on the special effects) the two films were so popular in their reception that McLendon buried his original fossil of an idea by releasing the two films together as a double feature across the nation to mega returns (what a tail to tell those who refused to invest)!
When he saw the bomb go off Oppenheimer (might) have thought “Now I am become a Gecko, the destroyer of funny insurance commercials,” (or did the cavemen say that?). Those darn nuclear bombs! If there is one thing these 1950s creature features have taught us whoever was responsible for combing the desert for random creatures should be court-martialed in front of a firing squad! This time it is an unhappy Gila Lizard (or was supposed to be) and its fury will scale new heights! Unfortunately for young Pat and Liz, strolling around to, um… find the Grand Canyon, they get a tongue lashing from the beast (I hope it didn’t have mono)! Their juvenile delinquent friends are upset and turn to the local sheriff (played painfully accurately by veteran character actor Fred Graham, whose hatred rests on his always grumpy face) to help search for them. However, the question must be asked in such a small community why can no one find a ravenous hundred-foot-tall lizard? This question is easily lost amongst the livestock being eaten and teenagers desperate to listen to their favorite songs at the local dance hall (because when your friends go missing, just like a lizard, we gots ta dance our tails off). Thank goodness the sheriff has a soft spot for local gas station clerk Chase, who knows how to rig his prized hot rod with nitroglycerin to be a hod-rod of death! Will Chase save the town from utter destruction as the massive (or minuscule) reptile claws its way to danger or will it feel the heat of the moment as the teenagers bask in the glory of its demise (as they twist again like they did last year)?
Stomping your way at revved up seventy-five minutes, after a few features Kellog went back to special effects until John Wayne asked him to co-direct with The Duke on the controversial Vietnam-era movie The Green Berets. Camoflaging itself into the Public Domain desert, you can re-heat this infamous classic on any streaming service or dollar-bin DVD collection, but for a crisp 4K version (with scaled-up special features) be sure to stick to the Film Masters two-disc edition (which comes along with The Killer Shrews as a bonus feature). Like most teenagers in the world, if you watch this film and like it (for some unknown reason), then you might get made fun of, but look your bullies straight in the (bloody) eyes and say “ I survived watching this classic which means I can survive anything, even you, lizard breath!”
