The Giant Behemoth (1959) is the third giant monster flick by filmmaker Eugene Lourie. Lourie is much more well known for The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) which inspired the original Godzilla (1954) and Gorgo (1961), a film which we previously discussed in a prior edition of Toku Tuesday. The Giant Behemoth is smack dab in the middle of the two renowned films and as such, it is a weird mix of the two. This is the only film of his monster quadrilogy (the other film not mentioned yet is 1958’s The Colossus of New York) in which Lourie had a co-director, Douglas Hickox.
While Beast had effects by Ray Harryhausen, Behemoth featured the effects work of Willis O’Brien. O’Brien did the effects for the original King Kong (1933), however by this time in his life he had fallen upon hard times. After the filming of King Kong, O’Brien lost his entire family as his then Ex-wife shot and killed his two children before attempting to kill herself. O’Brien helped to train his protege, Ray Harryhausen, who worked on Mighty Joe Young with him in 1949. Ten years later Harryhausen had broken out on his own and become a hot commodity in Hollywood. By 1959, the year of Behemoth‘s release, Harryhausen had made It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955), Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (1956), 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958). In comparison, O’Brien had only done The Black Scorpion (1957) in those intervening ten years. The downturn in O’Brien’s career would eventually lead to the Toho film King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), which has a long history that, needless to say, resulted in O’Brien getting completely cut out of that film’s production and so he made no money on the final film. As such The Giant Behemoth is the last hurrah of sorts for O’Brien and it has a lot in common with Toho’s original Godzilla film.
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was an influence on the original Godzilla; however, The Giant Behemoth has much more in common with the original Godzilla than Beast. Unlike Fathoms, this film deals with nuclear power very explicitly. The monster kills people in this movie extremely graphically, as many humans are burnt to a horrifying crisp. The humans lucky enough to escape the nuclear roasting end up with nuclear burns. However, despite the graphic and brutal treatment of nuclear power, this film strips out all of the human drama that makes Godzilla so powerful. This film has virtually no likable characters, all of the mains are incredibly boring, super serious scientists. Where Godzilla introduces a complex love story and a well fleshed out and troubled scientist, this film opts for a super serious, super bland scientist plot. Stuffy researchers go through the painstaking efforts of showing every step in the scientific method. This will be likely to cause one heavy eyelid….until Behemoth begins their final rampage. Behemoth, whose name is taken from the bible, gives a truly horrific rampage. Stomping on buildings, burning people alive, and leaving no survivors in his wake. The dichotomy between a truly magnificent monster attack, with a bland human cast, leaves us with a bizarre pace.
The film has one saving human element, Paleontologist Dr. Sampson. Sampson, played by character actor Jac MacGowran, immediately injects life into the picture. He is a more upbeat version of Takashi Shimura and is remorseful about the fact they will need to kill the ancient creature. Then ten minutes later he dies horribly when Behemoth blows up his helicopter. This is easily the films worst decision as both of the remaining scientist characters have identical personalities. Sampson would have livened up the human elements, his opinions and views during the final monster rampage would have given the film more thematic weight.
This is a film that is undoubtedly an English version of Godzilla and feels very stereotypically British in its human elements. From that aspect, it is worth seeing. The other selling point of this film is Willis O’Brien. Unfortunately he was not credited in the final version of the film, which is a damn shame as he delivers a truly exceptional monster rampage. The cost of nuclear weaponry is on clear display, if only the humans had an ounce of the power that Behemoth himself displays. Out of all of Lourie’s descents into the land of the giant monster genre, this is his weakest entry.
