THE GIANT GILA MONSTER

Gila monster surveys the scene: anything to eat? 

THE GIANT GILA MONSTER (1959). Director: Ray Kellogg. NOTE: This is the colorized version.

Chase Winstead (Don Sullivan) is an aspiring singer in a small Texas town who works at a garage. When his friends and his boss go missing, he and the sheriff (Fred Graham) come to fear that something monstrous and hungry is on the loose in the deep woods surrounding their community,  especially in Williams' Wash. There sure is! A Gila monster the size of a bus is snacking on hitchhikers, over-turning trucks and even derails a passenger train at one point. Can Chase save his friends, girlfriend, and family before the creature strikes again?

Don Sullivan

The Giant Gila Monster is a very low-budget movie so it can't offer tremendous stop-motion effects a la Harryhausen or adept process shots blending monster with victims, but somehow it manages to get across some creepy suspense in spite of that. The film has a great deal of fifties charm. Part of that charm has to do with the lead actor Don Sullivan, who is competent, good-looking, and can sing -- although his song compositions are nothing special. Sullivan had a handful of credits in the late fifties and then became a chemist. Incredibly, Giant Gila Monster was remade in 2012 as Gila! and Sullivan had a small role in it. 

Don Sullivan, Don Flournoy, Fred Graham

The rest of the cast members are generally adept, although a couple are clearly amateurs. The best-known actor in this is Shug Fisher, who amusingly plays "Old Man Harris;" he amassed 86 credits in a long career which included playing "Shorty Kellems" on The Beverly Hillbillies. Lisa Simone, who plays Chase's girlfriend, had a small role in Missile to the Moon. Jay Simms' screenplay is more-than-serviceable, and Jack Marshall's musical score is cheap but effective. The creature, a real Gila Monster interacting with miniature sets, is cleverly spliced into scenes of people reacting to it, generally before its big paw comes down to smash or grab them. The colorization process for the picture is well done; it looks good.

Verdict: Hot rods and monsters -- how can you go wrong? ***.