The Deadly Mantis (1957)

This is another one of those movies that originally came to know through the Crestwood House books that I would find at my school library. Those books came in two types: they either told the story of one particular film or they did so as well as provide background information on the movies. This was the former. It told the entire story of the film from beginning to end and, naturally, as a little kid it enthralled me. (If you remember back in my review for It Came from Outer Space, as a little kid I thought that was a sub-title for The Deadly Mantis, since on the listing of the books on the back, that title came right after the it. As a little kid, I didn't put two and two together even when the book just said The Deadly Mantis and there was no mention of the mantis even being from outer space at all.) Years later, I saw an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 on the film and finally, when I was around thirteen, I saw the actual film. I enjoyed it then and I still enjoy it now. It may not be among the best giant monster films of the 50's but I think it's above average for this type of flick.

An outpost of the Distant Early Warning System (the DEW Line), a system of radar stations ranging from Canada to the North Pole, is found destroyed with odd skid-mark like tracks in the snow outside and no sign of the men who were operating it. Afterward, a mysterious flying object appears on the radar screens but disappears before a squadron of fighter jets can find it and not long after that, a cargo plane disappears and is later found crashed on the ground. This time, in addition to the same strange skid marks, an odd pointed object that appears to have been broken off of something is found aboard the wreck. The object is sent to Washington, where it is eventually examined by top paleontologist Dr. Nedrick Jackson, who theorizes that it must be from an enormous insect. Tests eventually prove that it is from an insect: a huge praying mantis to be exact. It's not long before the monster makes its presence known to the world, killing more people and eventually threatening the United States, with the military doing its best to stop it.

This movie's director is an interesting one: Nathan Juran. Juran was a Romanian-born Jew who immigrated to America with his family when he was just five years old and got his start in the film business as an art director, winning an Oscar in 1941 with How Green Was My Valley and was nominated again for The Razor's Edge in 1946. His first film as director was The Black Castle, a 1952 Gothic mystery featuring Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr. He directed quite a few films and television episodes from the 50's to the early 70's, including beloved sci-fi classics like 20 Million Miles to Earth, B-movie favorites like The Brain from Planet Arous and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, fantasy films like The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Jack the Giant Killer, and episodes of shows like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space. Visually, he was fairly skilled in most of his work but when it came to directing actors, he seemed to suffer. The performances in this and many of his other films aren't bad but they could have been better.

Craig Stevens plays Col. Joe Parkman, the hero of the film. He's a fairly charismatic lead, even if he comes across as a little too laid back for a colonel. I don't know if the military was different back in the 50's or what but this guy just doesn't strike me as the high-ranking officer that he's supposed to be. Still, he is courageous and does take the mantis on himself twice in the film, in a fighter jet and in the finale in the Manhattan tunnel. William Hopper plays Ned Jackson, the paleontologist who identifies the creature that's causing the crashes and disappearances near the DEW Line as a giant praying mantis and stays on hand to help the military deal with the monster. Hopper plays the role pretty straightforward: he identifies the hook found at the wreckage of the cargo plane as a spur from the mantis's forelimbs, he concludes that this creature could be one of the deadliest living things ever, and gives the military advice about the mantis when necessary. He's not one of those scientists in these types of movies who wants to keep the monster alive. He knows that the mantis is a threat to mankind and does everything he can to help the military destroy it. Not much to this character but he is likable. Alix Talton plays Marge Blaine, a reporter for the Museum of Natural History's monthly magazine who works with Ned. She comes across as the type of go-getter woman who knows a scoop when she smells one and hopes to get a fairly big story when it appears that Ned is being consulted by the Pentagon on something secretive. After that, she really doesn't do much other than become the obligatory love interest for Parkman. At one point, she does come up with a plan that could help find the mantis but, as with most of the characters in this film, she's just kind of... bland.

Donald Randolph plays General Ford, who doesn't do much for a general. Randolph isn't bad in the role but the only thing of importance that he does in the entire film is give all the military guns along eastern seaboard freedom to fire at any object not identified as friendly when the mantis is flying in the skies above them. One character that I do kind of like is Paul Smith as a corporal at Red Eagle One who's basically tripping over himself when Ned arrives with Marge. When he first tells Parkman that Ned has arrive with Marge, he says, "He's with a woman. A female woman. I thought they'd stopped making 'em." I liked not only him but how starved for women the rest of Parkman's men were and how they reacted when they saw Marge. After she introduces herself, someone off-camera wolf-whistles, causing Parkman to say, in a rather embarrassed tone, "Uh, that'll be all, men." And then there's the scene were Corporal tries to ask Marge to dance but he stumbles over his words and Marge accepts, probably in pity for him. It's not much of the movie but that aspect does make me smile.

Let's talk about the mantis itself. I've never been able to figure out exactly how they brought it to life. It's not stop-motion and, other than one brief moment, it's not a real mantis on a miniature set. It looks to me like it's a model of a mantis that's operated around miniature buildings and landscapes. However it was realized, I think the mantis looks pretty good. Granted, it doesn't move very fast and at times its movements do feel a bit clunky but I think it works for the most part. What really helps bring the mantis to life are the sound effects that accompany it. Its main sound is a loud roar that you've heard in many monster movies. While it's unlikely that no insect, no matter how big, would be able to make such a sound, that roar does make the mantis threatening. It also hisses a couple of times (it sounds like it's saying "piss off" when it makes this sound) and growls. I'm pretty sure I heard the growl of the Creature from the Black Lagoon at one point during the finale in the Manhattan Tunnel. And, like most of these giant monsters, when it's mortally wounded at the end, it makes a mournful wail that tries to make you feel sorry for it (although you can't really feel sorry for a giant bug that's killed a lot of innocent people). Besides its roar, the mantis' other signature noise is the loud droning its wings make whenever it's flying. It's actually two sounds: a high-pitched buzzing (that was reused the following year for the giant dragonfly in Monster on the Campus) laid on top of the really loud droning. It's quite an unpleasant and intimidating noise when you listen to it.

The first time you see the mantis is when it attacks an Eskimo village but you really get to see it strut its stuff when it attacks Red Eagle One, the command center of the DEW Line. It's an exciting sequence, as the mantis slowly creeps up on the base and smashes through the roof of the base, leading to a brief battle between the soldiers and the monster. I like the part where Ned, Joe, and Marge are discussing the mantis' origin, with no idea that it's right outside the base at that very moment, hovering over the building. I often wondered exactly what the mantis is doing as it lingers around the base before finally attacking. It's probably inspecting the base, wondering what it is. At one point, the mantis manages to fool the air force into thinking they've killed it but it slips underneath the radar with the aid of fog and begins prowling around Washington D.C., attacking a train and then a bus. I've always liked the shot where you can see the mantis standing in the fog, obviously waiting for something to come by and when a bus does so, it springs to attack. I think the final battle in the Manhattan Tunnel is well filmed. The tunnel is filled with smoke in order to keep Parkman and his men covered when they go inside to attack it and it gives the scene an eerie, film-noir quality. You can hear the mantis roaring at the back of the tunnel but you can't see it except for closeups when it's shown trashing a bunch of piled up cars. Finally, the mantis appears out of the smoke and attacks upon seeing the men. When I was a little kid, I always felt the mantis looked especially creepy in this last scene. It was something about the way its head looked or something amid the smoke and darkness.

When I read that Crestwood House book as a kid, the reason that I still thought the mantis was from outer space was because the book never explicitly stated its origin except in some guessing by the characters. However, the movie itself shows you the mantis' origin from the get-go. A volcanic eruption in the Arctic Circle triggers a violent seismic reaction at the North Pole that reveals the glacier where the mantis is frozen. The ice melts, solving the mystery of where the mantis came from. Later in the film, Ned states that the mantis is of an ancient species from the prehistoric ages where insects were much bigger than they are today. One thing he says that I find funny is when he says that in the mantis' ancient world, the smallest insects were the size of humans and, failing to find those insects now for its food, it's simply doing the best it can, referring to the missing people that were undoubtedly devoured by the monster. I thought that was a nice, subtle bit of black humor.

This movie has one of the most unusual beginnings for this type of flick. The first thing you see after the Universal-International logo is a map of the world, with a narrator saying, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." (Sources say that this narrator is veteran voice actor Paul Frees but it doesn't sound like him to me.) After the opening credits, the narrator returns, telling of the importance of radar in defending the United States against enemy attacks. He then proceeds to show us the various radar fences that stretched across Canada up into the North Pole, ending with the DEW Line. The narrator then shows and tells us how the DEW Line was built with stock footage from various other sources. A first time viewer would probably thinking, "Am I watching a monster movie or one of those old documentaries from the 50's?" This segment ends with the arrival of Col. Parkman to Red Eagle One and the movie actually begins. I guess it was necessary to talk about the radar fences since they play an important part in the story and the average Joe who has no knowledge of them would need to know about them but it's still an odd opening for a monster movie. I can't think of a way that the filmmakers could have incorporated this into the narrative but it's just bizarre. The narrator comes back briefly when we shift to the offices of CONAD in Colorado Springs to introduce General Ford in order to tell us about the significance of CONAD as well as its emergency hotlines. After that, the narrator doesn't return again. There's plenty of other stock footage throughout the film as well, chief among them the footage of the Eskimos fleeing from the mantis, ground observers searching for the mantis when it drops below the radar net during a jet pursuit, and footage of people at radar stations tracking the mantis (which you would see in other monster movies like Gorgo).

What really makes the movie exciting for me is the music by Irving Getz and William Lava. The main theme that plays over both the opening and ending credits is really awesome in its sound and the action cues I think really work in getting the adrenaline pumping. One part of the music that would be used quite a bit in a film from the same year called The Monolith Monsters is the piece that plays when the mantis climbs up the Washington Monument and also during the finale in the tunnel. I've always liked that music in particular because of its exciting and urgent sound. The score also has some nice atmospheric cues like when Parkman and his partner investigate the wrecked weather shack and airplane wreckage. What tends to happen with me when it comes to movie music is that sometimes the score is so good that it makes the movie itself seem much better than it really is and this may be one of those cases. Still, this movie has an awesome score nonetheless.

Okay, so The Deadly Mantis is no classic. True, the characters are a little shallow, there could be more action scenes, and the effects aren't the best for this time period but I still really enjoy this 50's monster flick. I think the effects used to bring the mantis to life are interesting and, while, as I said, a little iffy, help give it just enough personality to make it threatening, there are some great sequences in it, and the music really helps make the movie seem better than it is. For those who like 50's monster movies, I would recommend seeing it at least once. It's only 79 minutes so even if you don't care for it, you won't have wasted that much of your time.