THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS

The monster with a victim's head

THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS (1959). Director: Irwin Berwick. 

A lighthouse keeper named Sturgis (John Harmon) lives alone with his grown daughter, Lucille (Jeanne Carmen). Unbeknownst to her he has been surreptitiously feeding a creature in a cavern that he has come to think of as a kind of pet or companion. Unfortunately this creature is becoming increasingly hungry for more meat, and bodies begin turning up that are missing their heads and have been "completely transected" and drained of blood. Constable Matson (Forrest Lewis), Dr. Jorgenson (Les Tremayne) and Lucy's boyfriend, Fred (Don Sullivan), decide to track down the seven-foot-tall monster before it can claim more victims. 

Forrest Lewis, Jeanne Carmen, Don Sullivan

One thing The Monster has going for it is a lot of low-budget atmosphere and location filming. Although there were other fifties creature features that could get pretty gruesome and somewhat graphic -- The Crawling Eye/Trollenberg Terror comes to mind -- Monster is sometimes pretty raw for the time period, not only showing more than one ripped-off head but showing us a close-up of a little girl's head being fed upon by a crab; the pic was obviously going in for shock value! John Harmon was a busy actor with over 200 film and TV credits, but his performance in this is only acceptable.

Forrest Lewis and Les Tremayne

Les Tremayne is the best-known member of the cast and is as professional as ever. Forrest Lewis also had quite a few credits, although Jeanne Carmen was better-known for the company she kept -- mobsters and Frank Sinatra -- than for her few film roles. Don Sullivan is best-known for another low-budget monster flick, The Giant Gila Monster. The monster is built along the lines of The Creature from the Black Lagoon -- a kind of hulking, stalking reptilian creature -- but not nearly as well-designed. Much about how this mutant kills and feeds and why it beheads its victims is left unexplained. Long-time bit player Pete Dunn not only plays the monster but one of the victims, carrying a mock-up of his own head in the film's most exciting sequence. An unknown actor has an affecting moment as Will, the devastated father of the little girl. 

Verdict: Creepy, at times ghoulish, horror flick has some effective moments. **1/2. 

THE REBEL SET

Kathleen Crowley and Gregg Palmer

THE REBEL SET (1959). Director: Gene Fowler, Jr. 

Mr. Tucker (Edward Platt of Atlantis the Lost Continent) owns a coffee shop but he has a sideline: he plans heists for lots of money. He enlists the participation of three men whom he clearly thinks of as losers: struggling actor John (Gregg Palmer); failed novelist Ray (John Lupton); and George (Don Sullivan), the screw-up son of a famous movie star. Tucker actually plans his caper very well, and the heist of an armored car goes off without a hitch, until everyone makes their escape on a train and a murder or two occurs ... 

John Lupton and Don Sullivan

The Rebel Set was packaged as some kind of "beatnik" movie, but while there are appearances by stereotypical beatniks in the film, the main characters don't fit into that category and the film has little to do with them. The screenplay for this is not that bad, but the performances are a little too laid-back to give the pic the tension it requires. Don Sullivan essays a very different character from the one he plays in The Giant Gila Monster, but he's versatile enough to pull it off although he, too, underplays too much. Poor Ed Platt walks through the movie as if it were a rehearsal and he didn't know the cameras were filming -- his high water mark really was Get Smart.  Kathleen Crowley with her trademark whiskey voice gives the best performance as actor John's very worried wife, who thinks he's going to appear in a play instead of a robbery. Others in the cast include Robert Shayne, Byron Foulger, and Gene Roth [Earth vs the Spider]. The film was shot by Karl Struss. Probably influenced by films like The Killing and The Asphalt Jungle, it's not in their league.

Verdict: Just misses. **1/2. 

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? ***.