Now I have been looking back at films from the giant monster genre of the Japanese variety. In fact I’d wager if you ask the average person on the street to name a giant monster  you’d probably get the usual suspects. You know Godzilla, Gamera maybe somebody would name King Kong. But there are several giant monster films made world wide over the years.  And I fully intend to take a look at them. So I thought this time let’s hit one with a little American flavor. Now hop into the way back machine as we take a little trip to 1959, and the Giant Gila Monster.

Now, before we get too far I wanted to point out why I picked this one.  It’s not my favorite movie and I wanted to get it out of the way. Now let’s get me out of my misery and hit the jump.

The film starts out with a narrator stating much, at the time, of the american southwest had yet to be explored. With all the unknown territory Gila monsters roam, but no one knows how large they get. Then we see a young couple, parked in the car enjoying the scenery. And since this is a movie made in the fifties I’m sure this is all they’re doing, because you can’t show… how do I put this tactfully… them have the car a rockin’ and not cause a little hub bub with the audience. Suddenly a they look up and scream as a giant lizard foot comes down on top of them.

We switch to a malt shop in a small town were our hero Chase arrives in his hot rod to meet with his gang, but their good type of gang… who just happens to enjoy the occasional street race (which is never shown by the way and aren’t seen much outside of this scene), but the two they’re waiting for haven’t shown yet. Wanna take a guess on who those two are? Well they never show up, the boy’s father Mr. Wheeler, who apparently has a ton of pull in little town, demands the Sheriff finds his son. The Sheriff shoots back that he’s going to find both of them after Wheeler threatens his job. It’s here we find out that Wheeler doesn’t really like Chase seeing how he had more influence on his son than his own father. The sheriff on the other hand defends Chase saying his son couldn’t have a better man to look up to since he’s kept his gang in line and help look after his mother and little sister after his father had died on one of Wheeler’s oil rigs. Back story, gotta love it.

 The Sheriff meets up with Chase at his job at the local garage, and after some small talk and giving a maybe on Chase working on  the Sheriff’s patrol car, he asks about the missing couple. Even going so far in asking if they were in “trouble”, okay you can’t show it but they can allude to it, and the other possibility that they eloped. The Sheriff leaves and a while later Chase’s boss comes back, with some nitro that he took out of safety case. Meanwhile the Giant Gila Monster wreaks another car and here we learn Chase has a deal with the police and ambulance stations to listen in on call, on those old hand crank phones, the ones before the rotary dials (okay I realize this is set in the late fifties in the middle of nowhere but is this really all they had?) , to get a little extra business. The Sheriff arrives to the site after Chase and they both comment on the weird skid mark pattern of the tires. They also find an abandon suitcase on the side of the road minutes after the Gila Monster claims another victim. Unfortunately the crime scene photos the Sheriff too turned out rather poor and Chase promises to sign an statement on what he saw.

 Eventually we learn Chase’s girl friend Lisa, a French immigrant, works for Mr. Wheeler as a housekeeper and she tells Chase that he threatened to deport her if she keeps seeing him. I guess you need one of these guys in every movie. Later Chase comes across a drunk who claims a big black and pink thing knocked him off the road. Chase gets him back to the garage, oh and he can apparently sing, the drunk wakes up, gives him a card and tells him to look him up when if he ever gets to the city, as well as two twenties as payment when Chase asked for two dollars after getting tire free of the fender. The drunk turns out to be a famous DJ Steamroller Smith. Gee I wonder where this is going. With the Sheriff talking about how Wheeler his riding him to search a huge stretch of land to try and find his son Chase volunteers to get the gang together and help him look. They find the car but not any bodies. as well as a patch of land that looks like something huge dragged some thing off. All while the Gila Monster watches on and slowly comes toward them. Outside of Lisa hearing something none of them notice the giant lizard apparently coming their way.

 The Sheriff comes to the garage and gets Chase’s story about how and where they found the car. He also kind of bemoans the fact they took the car away from the scene before he could do a thorough investigation of the area. Finally we meet Chase’s Mother and little sister, Missy. Missy has some sort of ailment that makes it hard to walk, I’m thinking something like Polio but it’s never said. But Lisa used her money to buy her these braces that Chase was saving up for that can she used to walk . Chase sings Missy a song on a ukulele or something to cheer her up when she couldn’t walk across the room to Chase like she practice. When Missy goes to bed Chase get’s a phone call saying his Boss, driving the company fuel truck, had crashed. Unbeknownst to him another victim of the Gila Monster and the truck blew up real good. There he and the Sheriff find the truck but again no body, and comment that the truck was bent similar to the car they found earlier and the Sheriff confides that the occasional farm animal had been reported missing.

 While all this is going on everybody is planning a dance for Saturday night, something that’s mention earlier in the movie. Steamroller Smith announces over his show that he’s coming to that party. Two of Chase’s gang thinks that’s why he’s been gone all day, outside of getting a new paint job for his hot rod. Chase confirms it and makes them promise to keep it a secret. Meanwhile the Gila Monster wreaks a railroad bridge, which causes a train to derail and crash. The monster goes to eat but some survivors and a witness are able to get away. Chase drops off Missy at a friend’s house and a reptile book off at the Sheriff office. There he confides in Chase about what was seen causing the wreak, a giant Gila monster. This is also where they try and explain why the Gila might have gotten so big. I’ll admit it I’ll gave them points for trying. After figuring out that might have what killed his boss the Sheriff convinces him to try and forget it and enjoy the dance.

 While the dance is going on Wheeler confront the Sheriff about all the things done and the covering the Sheriff had done for Chase. He also believe that there was a giant monster and how easily that it could been hidden in the thick brush of the valley. And he blames the Sheriff for every death after his son for not doing a thorough investigation and letting Chase get away with things like taking tires off a the first car they found and putting them on his hot rod. And he tells the Sheriff that his last act on the job while be to arrest Chase and he’s going along to make sure that it’s done. Back at the dance Steamroller plays a record a what he thinks is going to be a hot new artist. It turns out to be Chase… big surprise I know. Chase is talked into singing a song for the crowd, Wheeler and the Sheriff arrive and soon after them the Gila Monster. The Sheriff is able to run it off with his shot gun. Wait a sec… a normal gun worked on a giant sized creature? Who would have thunk it? The Sheriff deputizes Wheeler to keep the kids in place, take a wild guess how at well that conversation went, as he heads off to the train crash to get some back up and Chase and Lisa go off to get the nitro from the garage.

 Tracking it, and repeatedly telling Lisa who refused to stay at the garage to make sure the nitro doesn’t bump together, he finds that it hit the house Missy was spending the night at. Fearing the worse he goes after the monster, then he finds Missy. Having Lisa cover her he heads straight for the Gila Monster, jumping out before the hot rod rams the monster causing the nitro to explode. The monster defeated Wheeler, apparently gaining a new respect for Chase, tells the Sheriff to tell Chase to see him in the morning since he’s technically unemployed with his boss dead. And is apparently willing to let the Sheriff to keep his job having a taste of it just now.

 What can I say, this is your typical B movie. Something seen in probably a double header at a drive-in theater. Where some of the guys tried to get that car a rockin’ with their date.

 The Giant Gila Monster is what it is, an actual Gila monster. Instead of making a suit a guy can wear they made a miniature set of the outside filming locations and put an actual Gila monster in it and let it roam around. The miniature work itself is alright, they didn’t make an exact copy of the outside locations, but in this case why would you. I mean it’s close enough that the audience shouldn’t question it any and you’re not going to spend that much time for something that you’re only going to use for one movie. They also use a model train for the crash scene, a little creative I’ll give them that as well.

 The human cast, well like I said it’s a B film. Some of the performances are alright, some are a little wooden. Chase is your stereotypical good kid, keeps his friends in line, helps supports his mother and sister and acts like a surrogate father for his little sister. Although it would have been nice to see that side of the character before the last half of the movie. Seriously we don’t see the mother or sister until over halfway. Wheeler is your typical angry man, well until he sees past his anger at the end. The Sheriff does his job, even going so far as smelling the town drunk’s breath while he driving his truck. I guess it’s an early version of the Breathalyzer test. But he also has a soft spot for Chase given his situation, like letting him take a headlight off a crashed car to replace the busted one on his to looking the other way as he was taking the tires off said wreak and putting them on his since his tires were pretty much thread bare. Then there also the town drunk, who I’m sure is supposed to be the comedy relief. And then there’s Lisa, who’s not really given much, outside of caring for Chase and helping him with Missy. And the whole subplot with Steamroller Smith, an actual DJ names Ken Knox, seems a tad out of place, along with Chase singing out of the blue. The rest of the characters are kind of just there. But if I have one complaint about the movie, it seems like Chase and some of the other male members he’s talking to can’t seem to have some sort of serious conversation unless they put they foot up on something. A low work bench, a ridge on the side of the road, a rock in the middle of freakin’ nowhere… seriously it could be a drinking game.

 There’s not much else to say outside of repeating that this is your typical 50’s B movie. It doesn’t have a big budget and it shows. The type of movie that would straight to DVD if it was released today. The script is average at best but they hired who they could afford. As of right now the movie is public domain and can be found in several movie sets of various quality, there’s even a colorized version out there. It might be a good movie if you can get a couple of friends together and MST3K it as you view it. Otherwise 1.5 stars out of 5.