Wednesday, July 21, 2021

The Giant Behemoth (U.K. 1959)

The opening credits were over a lovely shot of the rough ocean. It starts in an English fishing village and ends with a radioactive brontosaurus rising from the sea and running amok on London. The British troops still dressed and armed as they had been in World War Two.  Special effects by guys who worked on King Kong and Mighty Joe Young.

Living in a 1950's English fishing village looked nice if you didn't have to catch fish for a living. 

The first Godzilla movie was full of references to the massive U.S. bombing of Japan less than ten years earlier. There were a couple of giant monster movies made in England but I never got the impression that they tapped into British memories of the war which may be why they were never as big as Godzilla was in Japan. It could be a stiff upper lip thing. The British didn't let themselves be as sensitive as the Japanese. The Japanese renounced war and imperialism while the British were still murdering people to maintain their empire.

Written by blacklisted American writer Daniel Lewis James. 

Available on Pub-D-Hub.

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