American Dean Jagger got top-billing just a year after Bad Day at Black Rock, with a young Leo McKern and Anthony Newley. Scientists and a small number of British troops fight mud brought to life by radiation. I watched a lousily colorized version.
The movie looked kind of nice, kind of Scottlandy, driving English cars through the Scottish countryside. We see people in an old church and a hermit living in a medieval tower.
But there's not much to tell. Leo McKern had a much higher-pitched voice in his 30s than he had later in life. No one sees the monster but scientist Dean Jagger comes up with a crazy theory. Includes the death of a child (Michael Brooke), something most movies have the good taste to avoid.
Available on Pub D Hub, free on Classic Movies and TV and Momentu.
Reportedly, blacklisted American director Joseph Losey was set to direct, but Dean Jagger got his panties in a bunch because he didn't want to work with a Communist. So Losey was replaced by Leslie Norman.
Reminded me of The Blob or "The Chicken Heart" in some respects. The living mud gets bigger and bigger looking for radiation to feed on. But we don't see it until we get toward the end. Until them, we just get close-ups of people staring into the camera looking terrified even though what they were looking at was probably surprising but not really scary. Maybe some of them would be frightened, but others would just be confused.
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