GGS 11.04 1950s Creature Features
This week on Geek Girl, we’re talking 1950s Creature Features—plus one from the 1980s, for folks who don’t have Hulu Live: “Rodan” (1956), The Blob” (1958), The Fly” (1958), and “Thy Fly” (1986). They sure knew how to make monster movies in the 1950s. These aren’t scary, but they sure are fun. We wish we could have watched them at a drive-in theater. But, hey, you can go sit in your car while you listen in!
In “Rodan” (HBO Max), miners discover that they have accidentally unearthed some giant prehistoric flying insects. The creatures kill some miners and terrorize the town. It is interesting that in 1956 they discuss climate change in this movie, mentioning the melting of arctic ice. Nothing really to do with the rodans. But still cool that people knew about climate change then. Uncool that we failed to take action on it.
In “The Blob” (HBO Max)—Steve McQueen, baby!—a town is terrorized (yep, more terror) when an old man touches a blob of goo that spills out of a small meteorite. The goo consumes his hand, then his arm, then—oh my lord—his whole body… until it becomes large enough to consume a nurse and the doctor and a movie theater and…. This movie hints about climate change, too. When they send the frozen Blob to the arctic at the end (sorry, you know that the statute of limitations on spoilers is up on a 63-year-old film!), they make a comment about “as long as the ice stays frozen.” Then a big question mark appears on the screen when the helicopter deposits the Blob in the ice. Hmm….
Speaking of arctic ice, we get into a little discussion of who would win a fight between The Thing and The Blob. Clearly it’s not an original idea because Cort found a fan-fiction movie poster, and then we came upon this gem of a YouTube video. What we wanted—the actual fight—starts at about 6 min 30 sec. Enjoy!
“The Fly” (1956 on Hulu Live) is really tame compared to David Cronenberg’s 1986 version (on regular Hulu). No barfing on donuts. No inside-out baboons. No bones sticking out of arms during arm wrestling. No ears falling off or teeth falling out. Just good, clean fly appendage and fly head on a dude. The dude even eats a steak—with a fork and knife! Jeff Goldblum eats nothing but sugar for half of Cronenberg’s movie. The theme of both of these movies is that things are going to go terribly wrong when man plays God. I mean, come on, mistakes are going to happen in science. And maybe a few baboons (or pig-lizards) gotta turn inside out before Alexander Dane can beam us up. As Jason Nesmith asks in “Galaxy Quest,” “Did I just hear that the animal turned inside out, and then it exploded?!”
Next week, it’s “Money Heist”/“La Casa de Papel” s5 part 2 (Netflix)—arriving Dec 3rd. Hasta la próxima semana!
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Original music by Garrett Thompson
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