Attack of the Crab Monsters
Gigantic, mutant crabs attack a party of scientists on a shrinking Pacific atoll in today’s Trillion Dollar Movie. Attack of the Crab Monsters is the handiwork of legendary B-movie filmmaker Roger Corman. It’s one of 10 pictures he completed in 1957 alone, shooting this thriller on several locations in the Los Angeles area, including the Bronson Caves, Marineland of the Pacific and Leo Carrillo State Park.
Long before he played “The Professor” on “Gilligan’s Island,” Russell Johnson appeared as Hank Chapman, a technician who emerges as the hero on a scientific expedition to stop the killer crabs. We’re told there are many crabs, but in actuality, we only see one at a time, flailing its pincers menacingly, not only dismembering its victims but also devouring their brains. In the process, the crab inherits the victims’ thought processes and speaking abilities.
The perfect date: Dinner at Red Lobster, followed by a nightcap watching this silly, but often quite hilarious example of that ultimate 1950s genre — the A-bomb test that goes horribly amok, spawning monstrosities in some remote locale. As Eccentric Cinema reviewer Brian Lindsey attested, “Ridiculous and cheesy, with a nonsensical plot completely shot through with holes, Crab Monsters is also surprisingly fun.” Enjoy and do return again next Friday for another Trillion $ Movie.
Today’s Trillion Dollar Movie, Dark Star, was the debut feature for two filmmakers who later became Hollywood heavyweights — director John (Halloween) Carpenter and screenwriter Dan (Alien) O’Bannon. This bizarre, low-budget sci-fi comedy from 1974 has amassed a well-deserved cult reputation over the years. Never has a beach ball appeared so ominous on the big screen!
Today’s Trillion Dollar Movie, Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, helped transform an upstart 24-year-old actor into the world’s most recognized martial arts star. The performer: Jackie Chan. While the film Drunken Master was Chan’s first huge breakout hit, Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow — shot immediately before Drunken Master in 1978 — gave Chan his first genuine opportunity to define his acting style and create the screen persona that his legions of fans would come to cherish.
The Tale of Zatoichi stars actor Shintaro Katsu in the title role. He has not been the only Zatoichi or “Ichi,” but he is closely identified with the character. Much like Sean Connery, Katsu set the standard against which all future Zatoichi performers would be measured.
Two officers of the French Foreign Legion marooned in the Sahara Desert stumble upon the lost civilization of Atlantis in today’s Trillion Dollar Movie. This version of the oft-told fantasy adventure, shot in 1949, casts sultry Maria Montez as the lustful Queen Antinea of Atlantis. Montez never looked as glowing, although in a true departure, her beauty isn’t showcased in radiant colors, as this was a low-budget, black-and-white production — a step down from her days as Universal’s most exotic starlet.
Today’s Trillion Dollar Movie is the 1933 horror thriller The Secret of the Blue Room. If you like stories about haunted houses full of secret passageways and plagued by longstanding curses, give this one a try. The picture is a staple of that genre, first released by Universal Pictures and remade at least twice by that same studio as The Missing Guest and The Murder in the Blue Room.
Today’s Trillion Dollar Movie is the 1962 sci-fi thriller The Day of the Triffids, based on John Wyndham’s novel of an eerie meteor shower that blinds most of the human race, leaving them helpless to fend for themselves against the triffids — a mutant strain of carnivorous Outer Space plants. The thing that’s creepy about these gigantic plants — they can move around and pounce on their hapless prey.
All this month, we’re saluting the Kaiju, the giant monster movies of Japan. In case you’re thinking we’re unpatriotic, today’s Trillion Dollar Movie is the all-American-made Tarantula. This 1955 release from Universal Pictures wasn’t the first big bug thriller to come out of Hollywood. That honor belongs to Them!, the 1954 Warner Brothers’ hit that turned loose an army of giant, atomic-mutated ants in the deserts of New Mexico.
Later today, we’ll be launching a new, month-long series — Know Your Monster — celebrating Japan’s fantastic movie monsters. Each day through March, we’ll present a clip introducing a new monster wreaking havoc and destruction, often upon Tokyo, but sometimes on a global scale. To kick off this series in style, today’s Trillion Dollar Movie revolves around the granddaddy of all Japanese movie monsters, Godzilla or Gojira. Our feature is Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, the 14th movie in the Godzilla franchise, released in Japan in 1974 and three years later in the United States. It’s one of the better Godzilla sequels, popular enough that it spun off its own sequel (The Terror of Mechagodzilla) and a couple of remakes.
Today’s Trillion Dollar Movie, Swamp Fire, pits two screen Tarzans — Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabbe — as Cajun rivals vying for the affections of the same girl (played by Carol Thurston) in the Louisiana Bayou. Crabbe plays the villainous heavy, while Weissmuller is the neurotic hero. He’s a veteran returned from service in WWII, damaged by having lost a ship he skippered.
