Tarantula (B+)
STARS...
John Agar, Mara Corday, Leo G. Carroll, Nestor
Paiva, and Russ Elliott.
PLOT SUMMARY...
A scientist's work with a growth enzyme results in a giant spider
being unleashed on a sleepy desert community.
QUICK SCAN...
This film brings to mind, "Them". The FX, involving the
giant tarantula, are rather weak by today's standards. Look for a young
Clint Eastwood in a brief role as an Air Force pilot. The Air Force attack
on the giant spider provides the film with one of its highlights.
DIRECTOR: Jack Arnold
YEAR & RATING: 1955 (NR)
BEST BETS:
A deformed man, in his pajamas, collapses and dies in the desert. A woman arrives to start a job in the nearby town of Desert Rock, unaware that her employer lies dead in the desert. A spider the size of a dog escapes from a desert lab.
The woman goes to work for her dead employer's associate. Animal and people start turning up dead, their bones stripped of flesh. The spider, now huge, roams the desert. The woman and the town's handsome doctor have a quasi-romance.
The townsfolk try to blow up the ever larger spider. It doesn't work. The Air Force is called in, and they drop napalm on the giant spider, finally killing it.
Review:
Director Jack Arnold's, TARANTULA, is a rather silly, but nonetheless
entertaining, Sci-Fi giant bug movie.
50's Sci-Fi regular John Agar (Brain From the Planet Arous) plays the
town doctor in the little town of Desert Rock. His "city slicker"
suits, and sophisticated patter seem rather out of place in this sleepy
desert berg.
Mara Corday (Man Without a Star) plays the typical Sci-Fi movie heroine:
brunette, a tad exotic, and the intellectual equal of the film's hero.
It's a hoot to here her deliver some of the film's dated, 50's dialogue.
At one point she tells Agar, "Science is science but a girl must
get her hair done."
Leo G. Carroll has a small role early in the movie. He went on to great
TV fame as Mr. Waverly on the 60's TV hit, "The Man From U.N.C.L.E."!
The film's Special Photography, featuring the ever larger spider attacking
animals and people, was good for its time but today fails to impress.
Clifford Stine gets the credit/blame.
The film's script is more clever than most 1950's giant insect movies.
The Screenplay is credited to Robert M. Fresco and Martin Berkeley, with
Story by Jack Arnold and Robert M. Fresco.
The film's Music is sometimes soaring and lyrical, at other times creepy
and spooky. The unsubtle Score uses trumpets and kettle drums for emphasis.
The Music Supervision is credited to Joseph Gershenson.
The film's Photography is mostly adequate. The "day for night"
photography, however, is unconvincing. Director of Photography, George
Robinson, is the responsible party.
Alert viewers will notice a young Clint Eastwood, late in the movie, as
an Air Force pilot directing a napalm attack on the giant spider. This
was Eastwood's second film appearance, and though he has several lines
of dialogue he received no screen credit for his performance.
TARANTULA should be fairly watchable for viewers who dig 50's giant bug
movies. Those afflicted with arachnaphobia, (fear of spiders), should
steer clear of this flick.
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