Time Machine Of Terror! 1957: Cut-Rate Creatures and Bargain-Basement Behemoths

Time Machine Of Terror! 1957: Cut-Rate Creatures and Bargain-Basement Behemoths

by Mark McLaughlin

Professor Artemis Theodore LaGungo stared forlornly at his salad plate, which was still half-full. I was having lunch with him last Saturday in the backroom of his curio shop, PROFESSOR LaGUNGO’S EXOTIC ARTIFACTS & ASSORTED MYSTIC COLLECTIBLES. I’d brought salads for both of us from a nearby deli, and some cookies, too. I finished my main course in only a few minutes, but the Professor wasn’t able to polish off the light meal I’d set before him.

“When I was your age,” he said, “I used to eat thee times my weight in food every day. Or so it seemed! Now, I don’t have enough appetite to choke down more than half a salad for lunch. What happened to that enormous appetite of mine? Where did it go?”

“Well, maybe that’s all the food you need at your age,” I said. “A person’s metabolism slows down with time, and after all, you’re well over sixty.”

“Ha!” The Professor’s bony shoulders bobbed with mirth. “I’m well-well-WELL over sixty! More than sixty times two! But still, you’d think I’d have more of an appetite than I do, considering how much I used to eat back in my prime.”

“Now Professor, you have the wisdom of the ages locked away in all your various relics and gizmos and thingamabobs,” I said. “Surely you must have some tonic or poultice or ancient fetish doll that can help to restore your appetite.”

LaGungo’s deeply furrowed brow furrowed even more as he considered my suggestion. “Well, I do have those dried purple berries of the Congo tikuuni vine…. They’d restore my appetite. But, I’d also grow breasts, and that’s just not a good look for a man my age.” He thought some more. “I also have a vial of wooly mammoth hormones. It’s a cure for both weight- and hair-loss. The problem is, it’s strong stuff, and I don’t want to triple my weight or quadruple my body-hair coverage. Again, not a good look.” He sighed wearily.

I reached into the lunch sack, pulled out a big chocolate-chip and macadamia-nut cookie and set it on the empty half of the Professor’s plate. “Try nibbling on that cookie. Maybe you just need a little sugar to get you going.”

“It looks great, just like the salad.” The Professor picked up the cookie and proceeded to nibble. “It’s very good. But I’m just not that hungry. Let’s face it. These days, my eyes are bigger than my appetite. I’m the exact opposite of 1957.”

I pulled my own dessert out of the sack. It was a big peanut-butter cookie slathered with chocolate frosting, and as I took a big bite out of it, I noticed that the Professor was staring at me.

I chewed, swallowed, and then said, “What’s wrong?” – knowing exactly what was wrong. Obviously, he’d hoped that I would question him about that 1957 statement.

“Well….” The Professor rolled his eyes. “I was kind of hoping you’d ask me what I meant by that observation about 1957.”

“The question was on the tip of my tongue,” I said, “but this peanut-butter cookie blocked it from coming out of my mouth. Professor, what exactly did you mean by saying that you were the opposite of 1957?"

“Funny you should ask!” he cried. “You see, I told you my eyes were bigger than my appetite. But in 1957, the collective appetite of the move-going public was bigger than their eyes! They wanted to see magnificent wonders, but–”

“But–?”

The Professor smiled. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to get into that magnificent Time Machine of Terror! that I sold you to find out the rest.” He took a good-sized bit of his cookie. “Concentrate on the movies for that year, don’t worry about TV – and while you’re visiting 1957, think about America’s biggest movie star in 1956….”

After lunch, I went home and did just as the Professor suggested. Before I tell you about what I observed in 1957, let’s take a look at various goings-on in the world that year:

On January 3, the first electric watch was released by the Hamilton Watch Company, and ten days later, on the 13^th, Wham-O Company made the first Frisbee.

On January 20, Dwight D. Eisenhower was inaugurated for his second term as President of the United States.

On February 16, Ingmar Bergman's film THE SEVENTH SEAL opened in Sweden, and on March 1, “The Cat in the Hat” by Dr. Seuss was published.

On March 6, the U.K. colonies Gold Coast and British Togoland became the nation of Ghana.

On March 17, Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay died in a plane crash.

On March 26, Elvis Presley, at age 22, bought Graceland for $100,000.

On March 31, the Rodgers and Hammerstein TV musical CINDERELLA, starring Julie Andrews, was broadcast live and in color by CBS.

On April 12, the poem “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg, printed in England, was seized by U.S. customs officials as obscene material.

On May 15, Britain tested its first hydrogen bomb in the Pacific.

On May 24, Anti-American riots broke out in Taiwan.

On June 27, 400 were killed when Hurricane Audrey ripped through Cameron, Louisiana.

On July 6, two British teenagers met for the first time. Their names were John Lennon and Paul McCartney and three years later, they would perform together as part of their new group, the Beatles.

On July 28, an earthquake rocked Mexico City and Acapulco.

On August 5, the dance show AMERICAN BANDSTAND, a local program produced in Philadelphia, joined the ABC Television Network.

September 4 was proclaimed “E Day” by the Ford Motor Company when they introduced the Edsel.

On September 5, Jack Kerouac's “On the Road” was released.

On October 4, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite to orbit the Earth. On November 3, Sputnik 2 carried the first animal into space – a dog named Laika.

On November 13, the laser was invented by Gordon Gould.

On December 6, America’s first attempt at launching a satellite blew up on the launchpad.

On December 20, the Boeing 707 flew for the first time.

During 1957, the following celebrities, among others, were born: TV personality Vanna White; actors LeVar Burton, and Daniel Day-Lewis; Princess Caroline of Monaco; actresses Kathy Najimy, Melanie Griffith, and Fran Drescher; director Spike Lee; singers Gloria Estefan, Siouxsie Sioux, and Donny Osmond; newscaster Matt Lauer; and Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan.

The following celebrities were among those who passed away in 1957: actors Humphrey Bogart and Oliver Hardy; conductor Arturo Toscanini; author Laura Ingalls Wilder; Senator Joseph McCarthy; director James Whale; musician Jimmy Dorsey; physicist Johannes Stark; designer Christian Dior; writer Lord Dunsany; and movie mogul Louis B. Mayer.

As you might remember from my previous entries in this blog, I regularly travel through the dimension of old TV shows and movies in the Time Machine of Terror! – or TMOT! – which I bought from Professor LaGungo. The TMOT! looks like a giant brass alarm clock with batwings – or rather, that’s what it would look like if it weren’t invisible from the outside. It came with a locating device, in case I should forget where I’ve parked it.

My first stop in 1957 was THE DEADLY MANTIS, since I’ve always liked praying mantises. What’s not to like? They look like comical, spindly aliens, with their sturdy, nimble arms and big-eyed, alert little faces.

The handsome male-lead scientist in this black-and-white potboiler is quick to tell us that praying mantises are nature’s most savage beings, despite their size. Really? More savage than, say, a rabid wolf or a hungry piranha…? Okee-dokee, Mr. Scientist! Praying mantises may be bloodthirsty, all-around predatory critters, but still, they look too much like grasshoppers to be frightening.

Of course, BEGINNING OF THE END would have us believe that a giant grasshopper is scary, and if ONE giant grasshopper is scary – well then, hundreds of them would be the ultimate in terror!

Peter Graves played the scientist whose experiments indirectly created the giant grasshoppers (though nobody faulted him for it … folks were more easygoing back in the Fifties). Strangely enough, as I watched Peter Graves fight off the hungry hordes of hopping horrors, I wasn’t the least bit frightened, or even slightly concerned about Pete’s welfare. I knew he’d be okay, though his nice clean suit might get some of that brown grasshopper-spit on it.

I then decided it was time to pay a visit to KRONOS, Ravager of Planets! I mean, what can be bigger or scarier than an alien menace huge enough and voracious enough to ravage an entire planet?

I watched as the metal giant from outer space, Kronos, stomped across the countryside on its metallic pillar-legs. Basically, Kronos looks like a giant, squarish, stainless-steel peppermill which moves forward by pumping its cylindrical legs up and down, crushing anything in its path. How does pumping one’s legs directly up and down move one forward? I’m not quite sure – but then, when it comes to aliens, anything is possible, I guess.

Kronos had been sent to Earth to drain the planet’s electrical energy … and perhaps to press a few suits (with their occupants still in them). After a while that weird pillar-pumping action started to get on my nerves. Finally, I could stand no more. I opened a hatch of the TMOT! and yelled out, “Sorry, Kronos, but you’re no Godzilla!”

That’s when Professor LaGungo’s comment hit me. America’s biggest movie star in 1956 … size-wise … was Godzilla! The movie GODZILLA had been released in Japan in 1954 and in America in 1956. GODZILLA was a huge hit, so of course, every movie-maker in Hollywood and various other entertainment-oriented communities wanted to churn out the next big monster epic for 1957.

Professor LaGungo also had said that in 1957, the collective appetite of the move-going public was bigger than their eyes. That was true! They all wanted their eyes to grow wide with wonder as they feasted their hungry peepers on huge monstrosities, bigger and better than Godzilla. America’s filmmakers certainly gave it the old college try, but alas, none of their efforts really measured up. I steered the TMOT! hither and yond – and then yond and hither, just to be thorough – and couldn’t find any U.S. creatures from that year more impressive than Japan’s Mr. G.

THE MONOLITH MONSTERS told the tale of alien crystals that grow huge in the rain, and then come tumbling down when they’ve grown too big, flattening anything in their general proximity. That’s a monster? More like an out-of-control science-fair experiment. I’m sorry, but I’m pretty old-school when it comes to the definition of “monster”: If it doesn’t have eyes, teeth, claws, and/or a brain … if it’s basically just a mass of solid mineral matter … it’s not a monster. It’s a rock.

In THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD, the title terror turned out to be an oversized, prehistoric slug. Not much competition for Godzilla. Which is scarier: a towering prehistoric dinosaur that shoots radioactive fire out of its jaws … or a really big caterpillar?

Apparently the makers of I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF decided than big wasn’t necessarily better. At least their monster was just as toothy as Godzilla. But, being an adolescent monster, the Teenage Werewolf simply didn’t project Godzilla’s confidence and worldliness.

I decided to check out a couple other countries. First I steered the TMOT! down Mexico way and witnessed the epic battle known as THE ROBOT VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY. Before long, I was personally involved in a huge fight. Namely, I had to fight off drowsiness long enough to fly the TMOT! in another direction. I did admire the director’s sense of inspired zaniness in pairing off such unlikely opponents, but after loads and loads of talky build-up, the actual fight between the Robot and the Aztec Mummy only lasted about two minutes.

Next I decided to see what England had cooking in 1957 and was pleasantly surprised. THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN launched a new fear-franchise for Hammer studios, with Peter Cushing playing the monster-making Baron with icy bravado in this inaugural release and several sequels. In this version of the classic tale, the doctor is actually more intriguing – and in some ways, more of a monster – than his creation. Christopher Lee played the Monster as a zombie-like brute, with none of the unexpected tenderness that Boris Karloff sometimes projected when he played the role for Universal Studios.

NIGHT OF THE DEMON, another British treat, concerns a fine English gentleman who is also a sorcerer, whose arsenal of arcane tricks includes a very handy way of ridding himself of enemies. The title demon is about as big as Godzilla, and even though he has less than a minute of screen-time, it’s so effective, any more than that would be anticlimactic. I enjoyed this elegant British soiree as much as GODZILLA, and perhaps a bit more – the dialogue is snappier and the monster doesn’t spend yards of film footage crushing real estate underfoot.

Now, you may be saying, “Hey Mark, thanks for telling me to avoid KRONOS, BEGINNING OF THE END, THE DEADLY MANTIS and some of those other movies. I’ll never, ever watch them!” If you are saying that – well, stop saying that, because that’s not what I mean! I am NOT telling you to avoid those movies. In fact, I encourage you to buy them (or at least rent them), watch them, and ultimately, love them.

Sure, they don’t measure up to GODZILLA.

Sure, they’re flawed and kooky.

But, that’s part of their charm. As a monster movie, KRONOS is no match for GODZILLA. Still, it’s the best movie ever made about a giant, energy-sucking, alien pseudo-peppermill trying to destroy the Earth. In fact, before I came back home, I flew over Kronos again and shouted an apology out of the hatch.

I don’t think it heard me, but then, I’m not even sure if it has ears, so it may not have heard me the first time.

– # –

Mark McLaughlin's latest book is RAISING DEMONS FOR FUN AND PROFIT from Sam's Dot Publishing, available  in the Anthologies section of http://www.genremall.com and also at http://www.Horror-Mall.com. You can find out more about Mark's rascally antics at http://www.myspace.com/monsterbook. 

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