Wyott Ordung | Through the Shattered Lens

Are you ready to go in the water?

That’s the question asked by the 1954 film, Monster From The Ocean Floor. Taking place in a Mexican fishing village and artist’s colony, Monster From The Ocean Floor features a lot of underwater action. It also features a monster who lives on the ocean floor and who has been terrorizing fisherman, swimmers, and divers. Unfortunately, despite being featured in the title, there’s not really much of the Monster in this film. It takes a while for the Monster to even be acknowledged and, when the Monster finally does show up, it’s over all too quickly. I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised by any of that, seeing as how this is a 1950s Roger Corman production that was apparently made on a budget of $20,000. Producer Corman and director Wyott Ordung had to choose between devoting screen time to a potentially expensive monster or to a one-man submarine that they could use for free as long as they listed the submarine’s manufacturer in the opening and end credits. They went with the submarine.

In fact, the submarine was apparently the main reason that Corman decided to make this film, his first as a producer. He read an article about it in the Los Angeles Times and decided that it sounded like the perfect thing to feature in a movie. In what would become typical Corman fashion, Corman got the submarine first and then built a movie around it.

As for the movie, it features Stuart Wade as Steve Dunning, the hunky Marine biologist who loves the ocean and frequently pilots the submarine. When Steve and his submarine first emerge from the ocean, they briefly frighten Julie Blair (Anne Kimbell), an artist who is at the village in search for inspiration. Later, when Julie actually does briefly see the monster rising from the ocean, Steve and Dr. Baldwin (Dick Pinner) theorize that the Monster From The Ocean Floor is actually a prehistoric creature that was in a Cthulhu-like slumber until it was reawakened by atomic bomb testing on the nearby Bikini Islands.

The people at the village don’t really care where the Monster came from or what the Monster might mean for the cause of science. They just want the Monster go away so that they continue their lives in peace. Pablo (played by the film’s director, Wyott Ordung) and Tula (Inez Palange) think that the solution might be a human sacrifice and they make plans to summon a shark to eat the diving Julie. Agck!

As I mentioned earlier, this film was Roger Corman’s debut as a producer. Corman was only 25 at the time and he didn’t direct the film but still, everything about Monster From The Ocean Floor — from the low budget to the casting of Jonathan Haze (and Corman himself!) in a small role — easily identifies this as being a Corman film. It has its fun moments and, for a 1954 film, Anne Kimbell’s Julie Blair is a refreshingly independent and liberated character. Unfortunately, the overall film is a bit slow and it does seem to take forever for the monster to actually show up.

Ultimately, Monster From The Ocean Floor‘s main importance is as a piece of B-movie history. With this movie, the glorious filmmaking career of Roger Corman began.

The 1956 film noir, Walk The Dark Street, opens with a platoon of soldiers fighting in the Korean War.

Dan Lawton (Don Ross) has been promoted to lieutenant and Sgt. Tommy Garrick (Eddie Kafafian) isn’t happy about it. Despite the fact that he and Dan were once good friends, Tommy now is openly insubordinate. Dan claims that Tommy is just jealous that Dan got promoted while Tommy didn’t. Tommy, however, claims that Dan is too incompetent to lead the men. He writes a letter to his older brother, Frank (Chuck Conners). In the letter, Tommy says that, if he dies, Dan is to blame. Shortly after sending the letter, Tommy is killed in battle.

After the war, Dan returns to the United States. When he enlisted in the army, he left behind a small hardware store and now he’s returned to discover that the store’s insurance has lapsed and that he’ll need several thousand dollars to renew it.

While Dan tries to come up with a way to save his store, he also decides to pay a visit to Tommy’s brother. Why does Dan drop by Frank’s apartment? It’s difficult to say. When Dan first shows up in Frank’s doorway, you assume that he’s going to praise Tommy or maybe seek some sort of forgiveness for Tommy’s death. Instead, Dan just tells Frank that Tommy wouldn’t have gotten killed if he had followed orders (!) and then mentions that he and Tommy didn’t always get along (!!). Like, seriously, what’s the point of telling Frank any of this? What does Dan think that he’s accomplishing?

Frank doesn’t seem to be too upset over Tommy’s death. In fact, Frank is actually a lot more interested in talking about his love of hunting. Frank even shows Dan some film that he shot during his last safari, which means that those of us in the audience get to spend four minutes watching nature documentary stock footage that has little to do with the rest of the movie. Frank explains that he has a heart condition so he can’t go abroad to hunt anymore. Poor Frank! But, hey, Dan’s going to be in Los Angeles for the next two days and Frank does still own a gun so maybe Frank could just hunt him!

At first, Dan’s not too enthusiastic about the idea of being hunted by Frank. Frank, however, assures him that they won’t be using real bullets. Instead, they’ll hunt each other with “camera guns.” Apparently, you pull the trigger and, instead of firing a bullet, the gun fires a cartridge that takes a picture. Dan’s still reluctant but then Frank offers to pay him $10,000. You can renew a lot of insurance for $10,000!

Quicker than you can say “Most Dangerous Game!,” Frank is stalking Dan through Los Angeles. What Dan doesn’t realize is that Frank was lying about using a camera gun. He wants revenge for his brother’s death so he’s hunting Dan with live ammunition!

This is one of those films that probably sounds more interesting than it actually is. After setting up an intriguing premise, Walk The Dark Street doesn’t really do much with it. It turns out that neither Dan nor Frank is particularly clever so nearly the entire movie is just footage of them walking down various streets in Los Angeles. If you’re a history nerd like me, you might get a kick out of seeing what the streets of Los Angeles looked like in the mid-50s but otherwise, there’s not much excitement to be found in this movie.

The film stretched its credibility to the breaking point when Dan, while trying to hide from Frank, just happens to randomly run into Tommy’s ex-girlfriend, Helen (Regina Gleason). Whereas Frank is stoic to a fault and Dan is just an incredible dumbass, Helen at least gets to tell everyone off. She’s not impressed with either Frank or Dan, which makes her the default audience surrogate. Helen figures out what Frank is planning but Dan refuses to believe her because, again, Dan’s not very smart. While it may not have been the film’s intention, it’s hard not to feel that Tommy had a point about Dan being incredibly incompetent.

Aside from offering a chance to see what Los Angeles looked like back in the 50s, Walk The Dark Street is largely forgettable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBkdbXm07ow