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First saw this when I was a small child no more than 7 years old. Ray Harryhausen delivered a memorable movie on a very small budget. He was given $1,000,000 to produce the special effects for three films. This was one of them. The other two were "It Came From Beneath the Sea" & "Earth VS the Flying Saucers. Ray Harryhausen was at his best when worked with making Dinosaurs spring to life. That's what makes this movie so entertaining. It is interesting to note that this was one of the first films to feature Lee Van Cleef. So the cast and the acting were top notch for a picture in this genre. Looking forward to adding this to my collection.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
I am sure many of you are just like me in the fact that growing up as a "Baby Boomer" we almost lived in front of the television set. Many a Saturday evening while my parents were at their club I sat home watching horror movies by the hour. Compare to today's special effects most of those great movies were a bit on the "cheesy side." The visual effects were mainly elaborite costumes or Stop-Action photography. Still being a child of the Nuclear age the thought of long frozen monsters and flying saucers seemed possible. As I grew older these special movies faded into the past. Now that I have the ways and means shop the internet I have found many of these old gems available. Quite a few are available on DVD if you know where to look. This movie was one of my golden age favorites. It also is a great place to see many movie stars before they were famous. Little did I know that the "Bad" from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" was once an U.S. Army sharpshooter. Look close and you can see "Angle Eyes" use a rifle-granade tipped with radioactive isotopes instead of a six-gun to drop the big ugly. I have found Ebay the perfect place to hunt down lost monsters from my youth. Do you remember the one about the giant grasshoppers? How about the spaceship they found in the London subway? They are there, just look for them. BruceRead full review
Considering that this film is from 1953, the special effects are outstanding. This was stop action (think about the effort required for just a short segment of film) and no one had access to the computer generated effects of today. Even the story line is good. The high bar of disbelief that Tom Nesbitt has to overcome for him to be believed by the powers that be, along with an occasional appearance by the monster, adds a level of suspense leading to it's inevitable appearance in downtown Manhattan. And even the love interest is believable. After Tom Nesbitt goes to Lee's apartment to try and identify the animal he believes he saw, one can sense the beginning of interest between the two. He laughs at her and says something to the effect of "How did a girl like you decide to classify old bones"? - to which she bristles. He finally decides to go to the Canadian North to try and track down the only survivor of a ship destroyed by The Beast. Lee states: "call me if anything exciting happens", Tom responds: "I will call you even if nothing happens." He even charges the call to his own phone - Lee gestures and Tom states: "it's my monster." Maybe I'm just a sucker for an old film that has a decent story line and special effects that were perhaps not bettered until the mid seventies. Can anyone remember "The Monster From Green Hell"? I bought the movie because I had taken it out from our local public library about 10 times; my wife finally said: "why don't you just buy a copy?" I did - I'm just sorry they had to kill The Beast. Oh, and this is the one sided copy - not having the problems people state they have with the double sided disc paired with "Them".Read full review
One of the best "monster" movies made, based on a short sci-fiction story by Ray Bradbury and enhanced by the film technology of Ray Harryhausen's "Rhedosaurus" dinosaur awakened from millions of years being frozen in the Artic by an atomic bomb test which frees it from the frozen ice. Unleashed, it leaves a trail of havok as it travels south to eventually terrorize New York with it's ferocious rage and terrible radiation poisoning being spread among the citizens from the exposure to the bomb's blast. Veteran actor Kenneth Tobey stars with Cecil Kelloway and a quick appearance of Lee Van Cleef as the monster meets its demise on Coney Island. Great dinosaur effects from Harryhausen who used similar techniques Willis O'brien used in 1933 to bring King Kong to life, and later followed with the Son of Kong.Read full review
A great movie form 1953! Great special effects and a great story. I've seen it so many times, and its still exciting and entertaining to watch. The extras include the original movie trailer that has three unknowns at the time, Merv Griffin, Vera Miles, and Paul Picerni. If you want to see a great monster movie, here you go!
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New