The Giant Gila Monster (1959) is one of my guilty pleasures. The movie which mixes rock n roll, hot rods, and a giant lizard may be cheap, but it's actually it's fairly entertaining and has the town sheriff actually being very respectful towards the town teenagers, especially superteen, Chase Winstead (Don Sullivan who would go on to invent hair conditioner) who works hard, supports his mother and sister, is polite, helpful, honest, can write and sing his own songs, keeps the town's cars running and the local kids out of trouble, and even defeats the giant lizard.
I watched this with my son today and we both noticed that the score was reminiscent, alternately of the spooky episodes of Jonny Quest and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. The no frills dvd I have is from one of those enormous Mill Creek sets and has worse picture quality than my old vhs copy which I recorded off tv, which allowed you to see Director, Ray Kellogg reflected in the windshield of a truck giving instructions to one of the victims. That bit is not visible on my dvd.
This has always been a sentimental favorite of mine, from repeated viewings back in the 60's and 70's as a kid via the afternoon movie, "The Big Show", that aired on Channel 5 Nashville in those years.
ReplyDeleteI've always found the theme music rather creepy, and hey- it's got hot rods, rock 'n roll after a fashion, nitroglycerin, and a giant monster! What more could you ask?