Monster from Green Hell

Kenneth Crane followed his classic 'Half Human' with this little masterpiece whose 1956 copyright date indicates they weren't in a great hurry to release it.

In order to reassure the viewer that this is a twentieth-century sci-fi movie we get the usual footage under the opening credits of a wartime V-2 taking off masquerading as Dr. Quant Bradley's "experimental rocket". This time the film being cannibalised is 'Stanley and Livingstone', so they all don 19th Century pith helmets and WALK 400 miles across Africa to the Hollywood Hills to confront the giant mutant wasps following the "typical wasp markings" they leave behind them (although they look more like giant termites than wasps and in distress sound more like elephants than insects) that cosmic rays have created and are now wreaking havoc with the usual stock footage of antelopes and giraffes.

At the time of his death in 1981 Jim Davis was a household name on TV as Jock Ewing in 'Dallas' and he is here supported by veterans Eduardo Ciannelli and Vladimir Sokoloff; the latter's daughter played by the soulful-eyed Barbara Turner (herself later the mother of Jennifer Jason Leigh).

Ah, the 1950's. If you wanted to make a monster movie all you had to do was insert the word "radiation" into the script and that explained where the monster came from, no further explanation was necessary. Hey, I like this film and I make no apologies for liking it. The stop motion animation for the monsters is pretty good, especially that scene where a giant wasp battles a python. Sadly there is an awful lot of jungle and not enough monster.

Jim Davis is a scientist firing rocket after rocket full of test animals into space to see what happens when they are exposed to radiation (our tax dollars at work!), this will show what future astronauts have to expect. I guess Jim never saw the movie FIRST MAN INTO SPACE or he would already know. Anyway a rocket full of wasps gets lost up there and eventually crashes in a remote African jungle. Let's not even ask why they launched a bunch of insects into space when they want to see what effect radiation has on mammals; just keep repeating "It's only a movie, only a movie, only a movie . . .". Concluding "There'a a lot of difference between 40 seconds of exposure and 40 hours." Jim packs up and heads for Africa.

Meanwhile the wasps have mutated into giants (what? you're surprised?) and are terrorising an area aptly named "green hell". The local doctor (Vladimir Sokoloff) believes the stories of monsters are nothing but superstition but his native pal Arobi (Joel Fluellen) reminds him "Does an elephant run from superstition? Will a bird not light in a tree because of superstition?" Score one for you, Arobi!

Jim and company have to walk 400 miles through the jungle to reach green hell and have to deal with no rain, poison waterholes and hostile natives before they arrive. When they finally do get there it's just them against the monsters and they'd better do something before the big wasps multiply!

This is really a fun movie and I wish the budget had allowed for more of the monsters. The colour tinting at the end was an especially nice surprise.

Now for all you detractors out there, we don't watch a movie called MONSTER FROM GREEN HELL expecting art; we watch it to have fun. That's what "B" movies are for and this one is lots of fun!

My biggest question about this movie is simply: How did the folks at MST-3000 ever miss this one? It simply cries out for the insights of Crow and Tom Servo.

Jim Davis ( "Dallas", "Guns Don't Argue" ) stars as the head of a group of scientists who attempt to launch some creatures into space. The rocket misfires and lands somewhere in darkest Africa where a bunch of wasps escape and grow into Sikorskys, thanks - natch - to atomic radiation. Davis then leads his own team of WASPS on an Orkin expedition to take care of the problem. Along the way, they are joined by Eduardo Ciannelli, looking a bit like Sabu's grandfather.

Nothing much goes right until the final scene, supposedly filmed in "Lava Vision", during which a giant volcanic eruption takes care of everything. This consists of the surviving crew standing around bathed in a red glow as the volcano - obviously taken from stock footage, as is much of the movie - does it's thing. All harmless fun really, it's only a shame that the MSTYs never got a hold of this one.

Before Jim Davis got his last and career part as Jock Ewing in Dallas, he had one tortured path to Hollywood success. He had a much publicized debut as Bette Davis's leading man in Winter Meeting which was one of her worst films. His portrayal of a war hero about to enter the priesthood met with a ton of critical guffaws. Still Davis persisted and took any kind of work. The Monster from Green Hell qualifies as any kind of work.

A wasp is sent up in space to see the effects. Unfortunately on re-entry the space capsule crashes in the region of West Africa and the wasp has grown to the size of a Panzer tank. To top it all off the geniuses sending up the rocket sent up a pregnant queen so we've got all kinds of those Panzer wasps running around Africa.

Jim Davis is sent to clean up the mess and runs into a medical missionary played by Vladimir Sokoloff. Albert Schweitzer was very much alive at the time and running his mission in West Africa. No one in 1958 mistook who Sokoloff was portraying. The wasps set up a colony in the shadow of a volcano. You can figure out the rest.

This is typical Fifties science fiction when all kinds of radiation was the explanation for these creatures. In this case it was the radiation from cosmic rays, presumably from the newly discovered Van Allen belt around the earth.

Tepid acting and chintzy special effects make The Monster from Green Hell great cult stuff. One thing though that is timely. An Arab character played by Eduardo Ciannelli joins forces with Davis and one of the natives Joel Fluellen to combat the danger the giant wasps present. Amazing how religious differences can suddenly melt away in time of crisis.

Considering the producer was responsible for Robot Monster, this film is not the incredible mess R.M. was.

It's also no THEM either.

It's an average 50's giant bug film. Slightly more inventive in using wasps that mainly crawl around on the ground rather than fly. We usually only see one giant wasp who resembles more dung beetle than a wasp.

I think there is a shot or two in which obviously animated wasps fly and buzz too.

Well radiation in Africa mutated wasps and they are killing natives mostly.

Harmless fun if you've got time. If you remember it as a kid your tolerance for it is significantly higher than viewers not familiar with the film.