Monster From The Ocean Floor (1954)

 

Above: trailer for Monster From The Ocean Floor

Summer is drawing to a close as we tumble like wind-blown leaves into the first day of September, and my lack of activity on this website, along with my lack of actual leisure time this past summer, has me vicariously trying to make up for lost time regarding both via this 1954 creature feature. 

This low budget atomic-age science fiction quickie is Roger Corman's first production, and while heavy on exposition and clunky in parts, has enough 1950s low budget sci-fi charm to make it at least endearing if not enjoyable. 

The film really has three stars: the titular monster, of which we see very little; a one-man submarine, of which we get slightly more screen time than the monster; and star Anne Kimbell who plays Julie Blair– a marketing illustrator on vacation in a quaint South American village, only to find herself dealing with a sea monster spawned by the radioactive fallout from the Bikini Atoll testing in 1946, a conspiracy to sacrifice her to said monster, and the condescending affections of a marine biologist who is about as square and bland as a saltine cracker. 

Blair meets marine biologist Steve Dunning (Stuart Wade) while swimming off the cove of the little village she's staying in. Shortly after hearing a story relayed from a young boy about the death of his father at the hands of "the devil" who haunts the cove, our heroine finds herself pursued by a shape beneath the waves. It turns out to be a small, one-man submersible craft piloted by Dunning, which initially spooks and irritates Julie, but sets in motion the obvious romantic angle of the picture. Supposedly the entire premise of the film was built upon Corman reading an article about the miniature sub, and getting the company producing it to supply one for filming in exchange for the publicity of building a movie around it. 

Julie (Anne Kimbell) meets Stuart (Steve Dunning).

Learning that Steve is a marine biologist, Julie picks his brain about the likelihood of a monster living in the ocean in the area. An idea to which Steve is instantly dismissive. After an abalone diver's suit is recovered sans-diver, apparently somehow having been sucked right through the aperture of the diving helmet, and a local woman's dog vanishes, leaving leash and collar intact, Julie begins to believe that something is going on, and decides that it's up to her to find out what.

Analyzing the social themes broached in a movie like Monster From The Ocean Floor may seem like an extremely silly exercise, but there are some interesting threads woven into the picture. The hero of the story isn't the virile male scientist whose dialog seems lifted straight from a classroom educational short, but the persistent Julie, willing to fend off sharks with a knife to get to the bottom of the mystery. Secondly, we see the struggle of indigenous characters dealing with the modernization of their culture, old ideas and traditions being treated as the out-of-date superstitions of their forefathers, and the younger generations finding themselves struggling with the responsibility between maintaining their cultural heritage, while adapting to a modern sense of reason; this is primarily displayed by the character Pablo, portrayed by director Wyott Ordung doing double duty both behind and in front of the camera. Then, of course, the whole atomic-bombs-make-mutant-terrors theme, which, really, is the focal point of the picture's 64 minute running time.

One of many underwater fear reaction sequences by Julie.

Eventually we learn that the killer creature isn't a shark or an octopus, as red herrings might have us believe, initially, but a giant amoeba of some sort that absorbs flesh as a plant would sunlight. There is a showdown between mini sub and monster, and, finally, after its questionable demise, our couple get to snuggle in front of a sunset. 

Blurry but accounted for, the titular monster.

Despite all of the potential reasons for me to not like the film–the textbook filler dialog, the sparse use of the titular monster, the optical effects utilized to obscure the monster once we do get to see it–I still find it a charming b-picture. The stop motion animation battle between our walking eyeball and a scale model mini sub, the underwater photography, the determination of the heroine, all seem to lacquer over the rough spots for me. I understand that that won't be the case for everyone, but I do believe the picture is worth a viewing for those curious.

Pablo (director Ordung) and Julie (Anne Kimbell).

It could also be charm by association, since the director of the film Wyatt Ordung also wrote the story for one of my personal favorite 1950s sci-fi movies, 1957's First Man Into Space. Not a so-called Grade Z picture by any means, Monster From The Ocean Floor is a perfectly enjoyable popcorn picture that would serve well in a '50s creature double feature!