The Monolith Monsters (1957)

The History of Sci-Fi and Horror, a little made for video documentary hosted by Butch Patrick from The Munsters that I received as a present for my fourteenth birthday, was how I first became aware of this flick (along with numerous other movies that I have yet to see to this day). A good portion of the films they talked about on that thing were represented via the films' trailers with no sound as Patrick talked about what ever importance or unimportance that they had and this was one of them. While it wasn't dwelt upon by the program, with just a little less than a minute of the thing devoted to it, the clips as well as the small description of the plot that was given made it seem interesting. That said, though, it wasn't something that made me go, "I must track this movie down." And, for many years, it rested in the back of my mind, along with the myriad of other movies featured in that documentary, without me thinking that much more about it. I finally saw it at the age of 21 when I bought The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection, a DVD set containing ten different sci-fi flicks from the 1950's when Universal was known as Universal-International (save for Dr. Cyclops, which is from 1940 and was originally a Paramount picture but that's neither here no there). When I got that set, I was more excited for some of the other films on it like Tarantula, The Deadly Mantis, and Monster on the Campus, all of which I hadn't seen in a long time, than I was for The Monolith Monsters. And yet, when I finally got to it, this film ended up becoming one of my favorites on that set. I was surprised at how well-made, interesting, and entertaining it was and, to this day, I think it's a shame that more people don't know about it and that it gets such a meager score of 6.4 on IMDB when I feel that it deserves to be a bit higher.

A meteorite crashes in the desert valley right outside of the small town of San Angelo, California, bringing with it a strange material that appears to be a type of shiny, black rock. The next day, a geologist from the Department of the Interior finds a bunch of fragments from the meteor littering an old road outside of town and, puzzled by the unusual rocks, takes one of them back to his laboratory in town. Before he can discover what the rock is made of, some sort of chemical reaction occurs when a strong blows a bottle of water onto the sample. The next day, Dave Miller, the head of the town's geology office, returns from a trip to find the laboratory destroyed, with an enormous amount of the black rocks, some of which are in huge chunks, covering the place, and his partner dead, his body completely petrified. An autopsy later reveals that both the man's outside and insides have been hardened into an almost stone-like shape. When it's discovered that a little girl out on a class trip into the desert found one of the rocks and took it home, Miller, the town's chief of police, and the girl's schoolteacher rush out to her house to find it completely destroyed, with the girl in a state of shock and her parents dead from the same strange paralysis. However, when the girl is brought to the doctor, it's eventually discovered that her body is slowly petrifying as well and that she will die soon unless the rocks are identified. Miller enlists the help of his old college professor and the two not only discover that the material is from a meteor, whose crater they eventually locate, but that water is what causes it to multiply and that the process drains silica from everything around the rocks, including humans. Their discovery is not a moment too soon because a rainstorm moves in and causes the meteor to grow into an ever-multiplying series of monoliths, each one crashing down and breaking into hundreds of fragment that then grow into hundreds of more monoliths and so on. Now, they must find a way to destroy this substance before the monoliths not only cover San Angelo but manage to break out of the mountain walls and wipe out the entire country.

This film was directed by a man whom I've mentioned before: John Sherwood, who mainly worked as a second unit or assistant director from the mid-30's on to the late 50's, when he unexpectedly died of pneumonia while doing second unit work in New York for a film called Pillow Talk in 1959. He was only 55 years old. He only actually directed three films in his lifetime, with The Monolith Monsters being the last one. The other two were a western called Raw Edge in 1956 and The Creature Walks Among Us, the second sequel to Creature from the Black Lagoon, the same year. Not being that big a fan of westerns, I've never seen Raw Edge but I actually prefer The Creature Walks Among Us to Revenge of the Creature, the first sequel to that classic monster movie. However, I'm going to say that I think The Monolith Monsters is Sherwood's best film. Granted, he may not have been an underrated master or anything like that but if you watch those movies, I think you'll agree that he was, at least, more than competent and knew how to make a fairly good sci-fi flick. Speaking of Creature from the Black Lagoon, the director of that film, Jack Arnold, was one of the two who came up with this film's story, which may explain why it's so above average for this type of movie made around that time.

One very possible influence by Jack Arnold could have been the casting of Grant Williams, who had played the title character in what is considered to be Arnold's greatest film, The Incredible Shrinking Man, as the lead (interestingly enough, the fictional facility from that film known as the California Medical Research Institute, is present here as well). To be frank, though, Williams has never been one of my favorite actors that tend to appear in these movies. He's okay but I feel that most of the time, he's rather flat. My opinion on his performance in The Incredible Shrinking Man is rather mixed and as for his performance here, I feel that he's really nothing more than the typical lead character you often get in these movies. As Dave Miller, he's serious, intelligent, and dedicated, doing everything he can to find a way to save San Angelo (and, by extention, the world) from this destructive force from space. Williams is suitable for this role and serves his purpose in it but, honestly, that's just it. Other than being young and a little bit impatient and hot-headed when compared to his cooler and much more knowledgable old college professor, there isn't much depth to his character and Williams is still quite flat for most of the film. In addition, it's his former teacher who makes the majority of the important  discoveries for him and he only discovers that water is what makes the rocks multiply purely by accident. But, to his credit, he's the one who first suggests that there might be a connection between the strange rocks and his partner's death, which eventually leads him to check on that little girl and her family. It's also his decision to test the saline solution on one of the rocks and that ultimately proves to be the one thing that can destroy the substance and he ultimately comes up with the plan that stops the monoliths. Ultimately, though, while I can't say that there's anything bad about the character of Dave Miller, again, he's such a typical lead character for this type of movie and Williams plays him in a way that can only be described as suitable that I can't say much about him.

I can say even less about Lola Albright as local schoolteacher Cathy Barrett, mainly because she's not even present for most of the action! After the little girl Ginny begins to slowly petrify and they rush her to the California Medical Research Institute for treatment, Cathy stays there for a good chunk of the movie. While she does come back after Ginny is cured, even then she really doesn't add much of anything to the film. The only thing I can really say about her character is that she's sweet and caring, particularly towards little Ginny, whom is a very special student to her (although that's never elaborated on). She also has something of a relationship with Dave Miller but it never goes anywhere else beyond them simply being two people who enjoy each other's company every now and then, even if she does admit to Ginny early on that there is a bit more to it than that and that they are a much more apparent couple by the end of the film. Really, those are the only things about the character that are worth noting. I can't even call her a typical female lead for these types of movies simply because she doesn't do what a typical female lead in these movies does: act as a strong love interest for the lead guy (while she is Dave's "girlfriend" in a way, she and he have so few scenes that you could even remotely call romantic that she isn't really much of one), help the lead in fighting whatever the menace is, or have to be saved from the monster by the lead (I guess one could call that a plus, though). And like I said, she's absent from the main setting for most of the movie and is just a bystander for the last quarter of it. In other words, Cathy is definitely one of the most least memorable leading ladies from 50's sci-fi and monster flicks.

Without a doubt my favorite character in the film is Martin Cochrane, the publisher of San Angelo's local newspaper, played by Les Tremayne. Going into this film the first time, I knew Tremayne mainly from his role of General Mann in The War of the Worlds so it was quite interesting for me to see him playing this type of character but he pulled it off very, very well. Poor Cochrane has the luck of being the head of a newspaper in a town where absolutely nothing happens. He feels extremely out of place and compares himself to the nearby salt mine. As he tells Ben Gilbert, the geologist who first discovers the rocks at the beginning of the film and comments that they don't seem to belong, "The desert's full of things that don't belong. Take the salt here. Used to be an ocean bed. Now that ocean knew that the middle of a desert was a pretty silly place for it to be, so it just dried up and went away." He later says, "I don't belong here either. San Angelo needs a newspaper like it needs another bucketful of sand." Gilbert tells Cochrane that maybe this strange rock that he's discovered will provide a story for him once he finds out what it is but Cochrane doubts it, saying that he doesn't feel that there's anything truly new anymore. Well, Cochrane is proved to be very wrong when Gilbert is found dead the next day with his lab destroyed. But, Cochrane still can't catch a break when the chief of police refuses to let him report on Gilbert's death, saying that it will cause a panic. Cochrane then tells them how Gilbert joked about giving him a worthwhile story but now that he does indeed have one, he'll be run out of town if he prints it. He then defeatedly says that nobody would probably believe it anyway and backs off from the subject.

In his first scene, Cochrane tells Gilbert that maybe he should think about giving up the newspaper business and become a geologist like him and Miller, saying that he's had to do so much stuff involving rocks that all he'd need was a refresher course. Obviously, he's saying this because he wants to have a job that's more suitable for living in San Angelo but, as he eventually realizes, he'd best stick to what he knows. When Miller looks at one of the rocks underneath the microscope, he tells Cochrane what he's seeing but poor Cochrane can't even begin to understand what the scientific jargon that he's saying means. However, Cochrane does eventually find his place in San Angelo and, lo and behold, it's through his perceived useless newspaper. When San Angelo's power is knocked out by the monoliths, it's up to Cochrane's newspaper, delivered via paperboys, to spread the word that the monoliths are quickly approaching the town and that everyone must evacuate. Cochrane also has a hand in the plan to stop the monoliths, telling the scientists the distance from the salt bed to the mouth of the canyon that the monoliths are spreading through, a statistic they need in order to know when to blow up the dam that will flood the salt bed and create a tidal wave of salt water that will destroy the monoliths. At the end of the film, after the crisis has passed, Miller tells Cochrane that he always referred to that salt bed as, "Mother Nature's worst mistake. Well, now it seems like she knew what she was doing." I think it's safe to say that the same could be said about Cochrane himself, that Mother Nature knew what she was doing by having him move to San Angelo, even though he doubted it for the longest time.

Another character that I like in this film is Prof. Arthur Flanders (Trevor Bardette), Dave Miller's old college professor whom he contacts to help him. I don't know why but I always enjoy these types of characters: the wise old scientist who knows more about what's going on that anyone else and is the one the characters turn to whenever they're stumped. The best example of this type of character undeniably is Edmund Gwenn as Dr. Medford in Them! and while Prof. Flanders may not be quite as memorable as him, I still can't help but enjoy this character. Even though he's a much older man than Miller (though not too old, think somewhere around late middle-age), he's much more energetic than he is about his field of expertise and is also more knowledgable, excitedly telling Miller that the reason no one has ever come across these rocks before is because they're from a meteorite as well as bringing it to everyone's attention that any soil around the rocks when they multiply is left discolored and lifeless, eventually leading him to conclude that the material absorbs silica from everything around it. That realization is what leads to the little girl Ginny being given a synthetic silicon solution, which ultimately stops the petrification process dead in its tracks and saves her life. Even though he is rather energetic, he does act as a much calmer answer to Grant Williams' slightly hot-headed Miller, gently talking him down and basically telling him to get a grip whenever he becomes frustrated with how things are progressing. That said, though, there is a moment when he and Miller can't figure out what activates the rock's growth where he smashes down on a piece of the rock with a mallet and, getting frustrated himself, hits it so hard that it flies into the sink. But, like Miller, the biggest asset of Prof. Flanders is his unwavering determination. He continuously works with Miller to try to figure out what makes these rocks tick so to speak and once they do, they both then work tirelessly to try to figure out how to destroy the monoliths. He even does some vital mathematics to ensure that their ultimate plan to stop the monoliths works and, sure enough, it proves invaluable in letting them know exactly when to blow up the dam. I know many will think that I'm ready too much into this character but, what can I say? I like these types of characters and I think Prof. Flanders is a very noteworthy example of why I do.

The rest of the characters in this film are pretty generic, unfortunately. Ben Gilbert (Phil Harvey), the unfortunate geologist who first discovers the rocks, gets killed so early on that he's not even worth spending time on. Dan Corey (William Flaherty), San Angelo's chief of police, also doesn't have much to his character save for being a bit blustery. However, on the flip side, he's not a complete and total asshole. He does listen to Miller and Flanders when they warn him about the oncoming danger of the monoliths and when one of the town's paperboys says that the other kids won't help him in delivering the papers unless they know how much they'll get paid, Corey tells him to tell those kids that this is a direct order from the chief of police! And at the end of the movie, he pulls a friendly joke on Miller when it comes to the governor's opinion on his blowing up the dam (Miller was supposed to wait for his permission to do so but did it anyway when they ran out of waiting time). The guys who play the two doctors in the film, Richard Cutting as Dr. Reynolds, the town's local physician, and Harry Jackson as Dr. Steve Hendricks, the specialist at the California Medical Research Institute, play their roles suitably as two doctors who are absolutely stumped when they're faced with this force that they don't understand and once they learn more about it, they work together to try to stop it, with Dr. Hendricks traveling to San Angelo to help with other townsfolk who've been affected by the monoliths. Linda Scheley is fairly cute and sweet as Ginny Simpson, the poor little girl who takes one of the rocks home with her as a souvenir and loses her parents, as well as almost her life, to it. It is apparent that she's very close to Cathy Barrett, her schoolteacher, and is quite perceptable when it comes to her enfatuation with Miller. But, that said, once she becomes affected by the rock, she's in shock for almost the remainder of the film and never says another word even when she's cured so there's not much else to say about her. One last character I have to mention is this weatherman (William Schallert) whom Miller calls in order to find out when the rain that's currently feeding the monoliths' growth will stop. He's memorable because, instead of giving Miller a straight answer, he starts telling him all this meteorology jargon that Miller can't even begin to understand(similar to what happened between Miller and Cochrane earlier). After making a perplexed face and letting Flanders hear what the guy is going on about, Miller finally says, "Friend, when is the rain going to stop?" The weatherman then proceeds to give him the straight answer that he needed to begin with. It's a little scene that I always remember and while it's not laugh out-loud funny, it should garner at least a smirk.

Like many of the sci-fi/monster flicks that were prevalent in the 1950's, this one begins with a narration and it's one of those that begins the movie like an educational film. While he's uncredited, the narrator is the great Paul Frees, who also briefly narrated the opening of The War of the Worlds (as well as having a small role in that film). While his monologue about meteors is more than a little melodramatic, he had such an awesome voice that it actually does work and, unlike the narration for something like The Giant Claw, this whole opening does a good job in emphasizing the serious threat that arrives on Earth. After we see the meteor carrying the substance crash into the desert, Frees, who has just finished telling us that every once in a while, a meteor manages to get through the atmosphere without burning up and crash into the Earth's crust, says, "Another strange calling card from the limitless regions of space - its substance unknown, its secrets unexplored. The meteor lies dormant in the night... waiting." That last sentence is quite ominous and, combined with the opening credits and the music score, really punctuates the menace that does indeed lie waiting in the crater (and, of course, we eventually learn what it's waiting for).

One thing I've noticed about Jack Arnold's work, be it in his directing or, in the case of this film, writing, is that he often likes to set his stories in deserts. It Came from Outer Space and Tarantula are the other two examples of this and, when you think about it, the desert is a good setting for these types of films. Besides its obvious physical conditions, the desert can be a very creepy place. For one, it's very isolating. The towns that these films take place in are literally in the middle of nowhere, with no civilization in any major sense for miles. There's usually a very slim chance that they can go for help and they either have to deal with whatever the menace is themselves, as in this film, or, in the case of something like Tarantula, just barely manage to get a call through for some heavy duty firepower before the town is destroyed. In this film, while they are able to take little Ginny to the California Medical Research Institute to get her the help that she needs when her body begins to petrify, it's still miles away from San Angelo and, obviously, the fact that they have to make such a long trip means that she could die before they get there. Also, in a way of turning the idea around at the end of the film, Dr. Hendricks has to travel to San Angelo to help other townsfolk who are being affected by the monoliths, meaning that they could also die before he arrives. Now, while everything does work out in the end in this case, that sense of isolation is still in the air. It's punctuated even more so when the town's powerlines are destroyed, as happens here as well as in Tarantula. When they need to call in order to tell somebody something important or when someone else attempts to warn them about something and are unable to do so, it reiterates the idea that, unless they find some way to bypass the typical method of communication (which they eventually manage to do but just barely most of the time), they are very much on their own out there. An even more dreadful example happens here when the monoliths cut the town's power completely and now, they're unable to hear on the television and the radio how close the threat is to the town and when they should evacuate. This is what forces them to use the newspapers to warn everybody but until they come up with that idea, they do realize how much trouble they're in with them being unable to warn the townspeople even in a local sense.

Finally, there's a strange, eerie atmosphere that the desert creates. While it's not quite as prevalent in The Monolith Monsters as it is in some of the other films that I've mentioned, you still get a taste of it at the beginning when Ben Gilbert stops his truck in the middle of the desert in order to pour some water in his radiator and notices the rocks, something that he's never seen before in his life. Another example of it is when little Ginny brings home one of those rocks that she finds out in the desert as a souvenir and it ends up destroying her home and killing her parents. What I'm getting at is the feeling that the desert, in addition to its atmosphere, can also produce something that you've not only never encountered before but wouldn't want to either. In this case, it actually spews forth something that threatens not only the town of San Angelo but humanity as a whole. Now before someone reminds me that the rocks came from outer space, I'm aware of that but the middle of the desert is where the characters first find them, which is what leads to my view that these movies make you think that you never knew what you're going to find when you go out there.

The most interesting idea in the entire film is that the so-called "Monolith Monsters" aren't monsters at all. This movie could have easily just been called The Monoliths but I guess back then, they had to add "monsters" to the title in order to draw some more attention. In any case, not only are they not monsters but they're not even living things. I think that's a cool concept, that the threat in the film is basically just a mineral, albeit one from space. Most of the time, it's as harmless as any ordinary rock on Earth but when it comes into contact with water, it becomes destructive and deadly, sapping silica from everything around it, including humans, as it grows and multiplies. Moreover, the meteorite starts out at a fairly reasonable size but when that rainstorm comes through, it grows into towering columns that fall over and shatter, with each growing into another column and so on. It doesn't even have to be raining for the monoliths to spread, as they absorb the rainwater from the sand long after the storm has stopped and continue moving down the valley the meteor crashed into. You soon come to realize just how big the threat is. As Dave Miller himself says, "With enough rain, there's no boundary they can't pass." At one point, it becomes likely that they would pile up in one section of the valley and then fall over to the side and into the water behind the nearby dam, increasing their multiplication ten-fold. And as Prof. Flanders says, once they get out of the valley, there would be no way to stop them and they'd spread all over the entire country (I'd say the whole world but since salt water destroys them, that wouldn't be the case). I always find that idea to be really frightening, when something starts out small and then grows and grows until it becomes an enormous threat to everybody and everything around it. That's why I found The Blob to be such a terrifying film when I first saw it when I was eight years old. In fact, The Monolith Monsters is a lot like The Blob (although this came first). Both films are about a meteorite bringing something that starts out small and harmless-looking but quickly grows into something huge and dangerous that threatens not only the small nearby town but also all of humanity. In addition, the origin of the menace in each film is left unexplained other than it came from outer space and each is also a faceless threat with no persona. The only difference between the two is that the Blob is clearly a living creature of some sort whereas the monoliths are nothing but the deadly results of a chemical reaction that happens to the mineral. That difference aside, though, there are still many similarities between the two films.

The special effects in this movie, created by veteran Clifford Stine, are very well done and convincing. The effects of the monoliths sizzling and growing upwards, even when it's just one of the little pieces of rock doing so in the scene where Miller and Flanders accidentally discover what makes them grow, are very convincing and so are the matte paintings showing the monoliths in the same shot with other objects like cars and houses. You also get a real sense of mass with these things, that they're absolutely enormous, and that the force of them toppling over is very powerful. Watch the scene where Miller watches in horror as the ever-spreading monoliths topple over and destroy this farm. You can't tell me that that doesn't look as convincing as it possibly could. There's a really great shot near the end of the film when some guy says that he can see the monoliths approaching the town from where he's standing. That shot really does make it look as if those things are heading right for San Angelo and that they're almost on top of the town. Finally, the miniature work at the end with the rushing water from the destroyed dam flooding the salt bed and then washing over and destroying the monoliths is so good that you'd swear it wasn't fake but was really as big as it seemed. To sum up, the effects in this film are amazingly good and realistic for 1957. There are also some recycled special effects from It Came from Outer Space at the beginning with the meteorite crash, which Clifford Stine also worked on, but, even if you've seen that movie and recognize those effects (which I did), they're blended in very well and seamlessly. That's also really the only instance of stock footage in the entire film, save for some of the images at the very beginning when Paul Frees is narrating as well as possibly the images that the opening credits appear over but even then, it's hardly an issue.

It's always hard to talk about the music in these old sci-fi flicks, especially those from Universal-International, because not only was there a lot of stock music being used at the time but also music that was composed for one movie would end up in another and another and another, making it hard to figure out if any of the music featured in a given film was actually made specifically for it. That's certainly case with The Monolith Monsters, with the only music credit listed being Joseph Gershenson as Music Supervisor. In any case, when I first watched this movie, I recognized a lot of the music as having been in The Deadly Mantis, particularly the piece that's definitely meant to be the monoliths' theme. It suits them well as it's a theme that noticeably escalates as it plays onward, just like how the monoliths grow, and it's also quite menacing as well. There's also some atmospheric music that plays during scene at the beginning when Ben Gilbert stops his truck in the middle of the desert road and first notices the rocks, a version of the escalating theme that ends with a loud, nasty blast of music that plays when Gilbert notices the chemical reaction that's ocurring when water spills onto one of the rocks, and a driving theme that plays at the end when the dam is destroyed and the water rushes over the salt bed, becoming salt water that destroys the monoliths. Those pieces of music were in The Deadly Mantis as well. The rest of the music is pretty typical but serves its purpose well enough, being happy, melancholy, or mysterious whenever the film calls for it. As for those who actually composed the music, according to IMDB, it was Irving Gertz, Henry Mancini, and Herman Stein. Whether or not it was originally written for this film (it probably wasn't), it's still great music and fits well with this film.

The Monolith Monsters is definitely an above-average sci-fi movie from this era of the 1950's. While the cast, save for a couple of notable exceptions, is pretty typical for this type of film, the concept of the monoliths and the element that spawns them is handled very well and is actually kind of a creepy idea, the film moves at a very good pace of just 77 minutes and manages to keep you interested and enthralled the entire time, and the special effects are very well done and believable. As I said at the beginning, it's a shame that this film isn't talked about that much because I think it's one of the better sci-fi flicks that Universal-International churned out around this time. If you've never seen it either because it's not that well known or you heard the concept and thought it was dumb, I'd say give it a watch. You might be surprised at just how good a movie it is.