Horror Movies of the 50's

The 1950's was a great time in our history for the good old fashioned horror movie. Hollywood cranked them out by the dozens. They were easy and cheap to make and the fans loved them. Most of them were what we used to call "B" rated films. In other words they just weren't very good. But there were a few standouts that have become classics and have been adored by fans of the genre for decades.

In the atomic age of the 1950s, much was made of the modern effects of radioactivity exposure, toxic chemical spills, or other scientific accidents - such as the development of giant mutant monsters or carnivorous insects, including Godzilla. During that time, most of the monster horror films were cheaply made, drive-in, teenage-oriented, grade-Z films, such as I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957).

A few American-made monster/horror films of the time, however, effectively capitalized on terrorizing threats that included extraterrestrial powers or space invaders, such as the alien found in the Arctic in The Thing (From Another World) (1951), the unusual Gil-man monster in The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954), mutant ants in the New Mexico desert in Them! (1954), or the aberrant or alien threat in Don Siegel's classic tale of Cold War paranoia - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). The latter film, a tale cautioning against conformity, was a classic tale of zombie-like clones taking over the bodies of the residents of a small California town.

Director Jack Arnold's allegorical The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), from a screenplay by author Richard Matheson, showed the deadly mutations and after-effects of exposure to radioactivity - even a cat or a spider could become a frightening monster to a shrunken human. To counter the popularity of TV, film studios experimented with 3-D in films such as House of Wax (1953) (the hit film that launched the career of Vincent Price as "the King of Horror" in the role of sculptor Professor Henry Jarrod who vengefully turned the corpses of his enemies into wax figures), and The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954).

Two other late 50s films with sci-fi/horror features included: The Blob (1958) and the original The Fly (1958) (with Vincent Price as the brother of a scientist who accidentally was turned into a part house-fly).

Producer/director Roger Corman, known for his low-budget, 'exploitation' films, helped to keep the horror genre alive when the larger Hollywood studios turned away. He created the low-budget, horror lampoon-satire A Bucket of Blood (1959), a pre-Little Shop of Horrors. It starred regular Corman character actor Dick Miller as Walter Paisley - a talentless, mentally-unstable beatnik coffee house bus-boy who became a famous artist after he started murdering and encasing his victims in clay and passing them off as his sculptures (i.e., "Murdered Man"). In the next year, Corman's quickly-made cheapie cult film The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) about a meat-eating house-plant named Audrey.

The Thing From Another World (1951)

Later on, this picture would be completely restructured as (and bested by) John Carpenter's The Thing. But even though the "remake" is superior, doesn't mean that the original isn't a wonderful little scientists in the arctic unwittingly thaw out a blood thirsty alien that has been frozen in the ice. From there, you can imagine what kind of bedlam breaks loose.

If you've only seen Carpenter's version, you'll be surprised to find out that the Thing in this picture is a humanoid (James Arness, no less!) and that the strong sense of paranoia is all but nonexistent. Even still, the film is a tight little exercise in tension and fear of the unknown. I would really recommend that you get your hands on a copy of this Howard Hawks produced (and, perhaps partially directed) gem.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Alien Klaatu lands on Earth with his mighty robot, Gort, just after the end of World War II. They have an important message for Earth's inhabitants that Klaatu wishes to present to the representatives of all nations. Unfortunately, however, communication between the alien and humans becomes difficult. So, after learning more about the people of Earth, Klaatu decides on an alternative.

Box Office:
Budget = $1,200,000
Gross Revenue = $1,850,000

Fun Movie Facts:
The role of Gort was given to a doorman from Grauman's Chinese Theater - because he was extremely tall. However, he was not very strong and had to be aided by wires in scenes where Gort is shown carrying Helen and Klaatu. He also had issues with the heavy Gort suit and could only stand upright in it for about 1/2 hour at a time.

To give the appearance of seamlessness to the space ship, the crack around the door was filled with putty, then painted over. When the door opened the putty was torn apart, making the door seem to simply appear.
The spaceship from the movie was made of wood, wire and plaster of Paris.

There were two different Gort suits - one that laced up in the back for frontal camera shots and a second that laced up the front for back-side camera shots.

Harry Bates was paid only $500 by 20th Century-Fox for the rights to his short story "Farewell to the Master".

In the original story - Gort was the master and Klaatu was merely one of a series of doubles, or maybe clones, that died after a short time.

'House of Wax' (1953)

Actor Vincent Price stars as Professor Henry Jarrod in the 1953 horror classic 'House of Wax' about a sculptor severely burned and deformed in a fire started by his business partner. Driven mad by the inability to create his beloved wax figures, Jarrod begins using real bodies to fill his wax museum, beginning with his former business partner. The wax museum thrives, but Jarrod's obsession with replacing his Marie Antoinette may be his undoing.

House of Wax was a 1953 American horror film starring Vincent Price. It is a remake of Warners' Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) without the comic relief featured in the earlier film, and was directed by André de Toth. The 1953 House of Wax was an early example of the 3-D film craze of the early 1950s.

Box Office:
Budget = $658,000
Gross Revenue = $9,500,000

Fun Movie Facts:
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, while this film is far from being the first 3-D film, nor the first in sound or color, it IS the first 3-D film released with a stereophonic soundtrack.

The name of Vincent Price's character was changed from Ivan Igor to Henry Jarrod to avoid alienating Russian viewers.
This was the first 3-D color movie ever to be produced by a major American studio. Shooting took place January 19-February 21 1953, for release April 9.

Nedrick Young (who played the alcoholic assistant Leon) was uncredited because he had been blacklisted during the McCarthy "Red scare" era in Hollywood.

The War of the Worlds (1953)

Film adaptation of H.G. Wells's classic radio radio story of the invasion of Earth by Martians. The invaders unleash a direct assault on planet Earth, using hundreds of indestructible space ships. The war takes place all over the world and all major cities are destroyed one after another. Even the atomic bomb can't stop them.

Box Office:
Gross Revenue = $2,000,000

Fun Movie Facts:
It was originally planned to have the Martian war machines "walking" on visible electronic beams. This was attempted by having electrical sparks flying from the three holes at the bottom of the machines. However, this plan was quickly abandoned due to fire hazards. During filming, the actors were under the impression that they were in fact dealing with the walking tripod machines of the book. This explains the farmhouse scene when Gene Barry says, "There's a machine standing right next to us." Even though the shooting sparks effect was abandoned, the machines still have some visible semblance of walking when they are in flight.

Orson Welles, who rose to fame with his "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast on Halloween 1938, was pressured into making this his first feature film. He, however, did not want to participate.

Filming was stopped for two days when Paramount discovered their filming rights to the novel were only for a silent version. Fortunately, the issue was quickly resolved through the permission of H.G. Wells's estate and filming resumed.

The Martian machines are always seen marching from screen right to screen left, except for the sequence that contains the international efforts against the Martians.

The Martian war machines were models suspended from wires. For the final sequences where the machines die, they are shown crashing into telegraph poles. This allowed the filmmakers to hide the suspension wires within the telegraph wires.

The design of the Martian machines was based upon the shape and movements of manta rays.
The two Martian machines that crash into each other in Los Angeles are really the same machine from a different angle, with the film image reversed.

The "heat ray" was a burning welding wire with a blowtorch forcing sparks off of it.
None of the original Martian war machines are in existence today. They were made out of copper, and after production, they were reportedly donated to a Boy Scout copper drive.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)

After nuclear testing, a carnivorous dinosaur thaws from the ocean depths and makes its way down the east coast of North America. Professor Tom Nesbitt identifies the beast as a Diapsid Dinosaur - Rhedosaurus. Soon after emerging from the sea, Rhedosaurus wreaks havoc from city to city until he arrives at Manhattan Island, where Nesbitt comes up with a plan to try to stop the seemingly indestructible monster.

Box Office:
Budget = $210,000 (estimated)
Gross Revenue = $5,000,000 (USA)
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was the top grossing movie of 1953.

Fun Movie Facts:
The dinosaur skeleton in the museum sequence is not a real dinosaur skeleton. It was borrowed from storage at RKO where it had been created for another movie - Bringing Up Baby (1938).

The "Coney Island Amusement Park" in the film is actually The Long Beach Amusement Park in Long Beach, California. The production crew was able to film at this park from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m.

This was the first film to feature a giant creature awakened or mutated by a Nuclear Bomb.
Warner Brothers bought the film from producers Hal E. Chester and "Jack Deitz" for $450,000.

Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

A scientific expedition traveling the mighty Amazon River encounters a prehistoric humanoid / "Gill Man" in the mysterious Black Lagoon. Expedition members capture the amphibious fish creature, but it soon escapes - only to return to kidnap the lovely Kay - with whom the creature has apparent affection for.

Box Office:
Gross Revenue = $1,300,000

Fun Movie Facts:
The movie was originally titled simply "The Black Lagoon."

A professional diver was hired to hold his breath for up to 4 minutes at a time for the underwater role as the "Gill Man." The director's logic was that the air would have to travel through the monster's gills and thus not show air bubbles emitting from his mouth or nose. This detail was ignored in later remakes and air can be seen emanating from the top of the creature's head.

The eyes of the Creature were a fixed part of the rubber construction of the suit. The actors who played the part of the "Gill Man" could barely see when in costume.

The physical appearance of the Creature was modeled after a likeness of the Oscar, the annual award handed out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Godzilla (1954 film)

A 1954 Japanese Science fiction Kaiju film directed by Ishir Honda and produced by Tomoyuki Tanaka. The film stars Akira Takarada, Momoko Chi, Akihiko Hirata and Takashi Shimura. The film tells the story of Godzilla, a giant monster mutated by nuclear radiation, who ravages Japan, bringing back the horrors of nuclear war to a country that experienced it first hand.

In 1956, a heavily edited version was released in the U.S. as Godzilla, King of the Monsters!. The original Japanese-language version is now available in the United States and Britain under the title Gojira. It was the first of many kaiju films released in Japan and the first that paved the way and set the standards for future Kaiju films, many of which also feature Godzilla.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Usually read as an allegory about Mcarthyism (the writer was black-listed), Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a timeless tale about people not being exactly what we think they are...of course, in this case, "not what we think they are" means replacement "pod" people from outer space. No biggie. Anyway, the movie is a true classic piece of fifties science fiction terror and tension that ends in one of the most iconinc closings in cinema history. Having been remade many times (including a rarely seen effort from Abel Ferrara), the original is still the best and a great starting point for anybody interested in the world of terrificly terryfing vintage sci-fi/horror pictures.

Box Office:
Budget = $417,000
Gross Revenue = $2,500,000+ (USA) / $500,000 (Britain)
The film did over $1,000,000 in revenue its opening month.

Fun Movie Facts:
Only $15,000 of the total movie budget was spent on special effects.
The tunnel scene where the hero hides briefly from the townspeople was filmed at Bronson Cave in Griffith Park - known to locals as the Bat Cave.

The film originally ended with Dr. Binnell on the highway shouting "You're next, you're next!" to people driving by. However, the studio wanted a happier ending, so scenes were added to the opening to show him in a hospital telling his story to two other doctors and to the ending where the other doctors find out about teh pods and one of them contact the FBI for help.

The Blob (1958)

Starring a young Steve McQueen, The Blob is an oft under appreciated little gem about a gelatinous, all devouring creature from outer space run amok in small town America! The film plays out like a lot of films from the fifties, there's a group of teenagers that become privy to the alien's existence, but nobody believes them until things start to get pretty hairy.

Actually, I guess that's still the trope for a lot of modern horror flicks as well. If ain't broke I guess...anyway, even though the story sounds pretty stock, it's exceptionally well made (especially for a non-major studio film in the fifties!) and actually still holds up well today.

Box Office:
Budget = $240,000
Gross Revenue = $4,000,000+

Fun Movie Facts:
When the movie ends, it shows the blob being dropped into the Arctic. "THE
END" appears and then changes into a question mark.

The film was partially shot in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. The theater everyone is seen running from is the Colonial Theater.

The Blob was created with a modified weather balloon in the early shots. In later shots, it was created and filmed using colored silicone gel.
In some promo material, the character played by Aneta Corsaut is referred to as Judy. Her character in the film is named Jane.

Movie producers originally signed Steve McQueen to a three-film deal with The Blob being the first project. McQueen was so difficult to work with during filming that he was released from his contract for the other two films.

This film was originally titled as "The Glob." It was changed after it was discovered that cartoonist Walt Kelly had already used that title.
When Steve and Jane go to the police station to report the death of Dr. Hallen, the calendar on the wall shows that it is July 1957.

Steve McQueen was offered $2,500 - OR - 10% of the profits. He took the $2,500 because the film wasn't expected to do well by some. It ended up grossing over $4 million.

The Fly (1958)

A top scientist has a horrific accident when he tries to use his newly invented teleportation device. Unknowingly, a fly was in the device during his experiments and the scientist is transformed into a half human / half fly creature!

Box Office:
Budget = $700,000
Gross Revenue = $3,000,000

Fun Movie Facts:
"The Fly" was originally a story published in the June 1957 issue of Playboy magazine.
The lab set cost only $28,000 and included some surplus Army equipment.

The original movie script was faithful to George Langelaan's original story, but Fox executives demanded a happier ending.
This became the biggest box office hit for director Kurt Neumann, but he never knew it. Unfortunately, he died a month after the premiere, and only a week before it went into general release.

The Crawling Eye!
It Came from Outer Space!