In the cautionary ecological horror film, The Giant Behemoth (1959) a radiation spawned dinosaur rises up from the sea to wreak havoc on real estate through brute physical means, and human beings, by cooking them with projected radiation. Killing the rampaging monster seems feasible, but the trick is to find a way that will kill it without scattering bits of its radioactive corpse across the countryside.
The middle film in director, Eugene Lourie's unofficial giant monster trilogy, The Giant Behemoth is not in the same league as either The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) or Gorgo (1961). The film is uneven overall. There is some nice cinematography in places and the stop motion animation by King Kong's Willis O'Brien and Pete Peterson, does have some really nice moments, but overall seems stiff and clunky, with obvious damage to the stop motion puppet Behemoth readily apparent on screen. The special effects are not done any favors by the inclusion of a puppet Behemoth shown diving beneath the waves in repetitive shots, which does not match the stop motion animated dinosaur.
The cast is all able, but don't really have much to do beyond ponder and demonstrate scientific procedures for long periods of the film.
It's more of a curiosity than a must see, but, if like me, you are a fan of stop-motion and dinosaurs (even made up ones), then you should view it at least once.
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