Bill Warren, the expert on 1950s SF films, says GORGO (1961) came about because director Eugene Lourie saw how his daughter cried when The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms died at the end of its film. Kids sided with the monsters; why not make a film that does that too.
The film has two salvage captains capture the title kaijin by accident and put it on exhibit in London (“Gorgo — named for the gorgon, a creature so terrifying everyone who beheld it was petrified!”). Turns out the 30-foot high reptilian is only a baby of its kind — and Mommy is coming to recover her little boy.
This is a fun film that has extra punch for me because a monster demolishing London landmarks hooks me better than demolishing Tokyo or New York. The monsters are actors in rubber suits, but as Warren says, this film shows how that can work. “I expect the fantastic from scientists these days.”
Our last date movie was my BluRay of NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1960) in which ad man Cary Grant goes from a callow ladies man who needis his secretary to remind him which gift he sent his girlfriend to putting his life on the line to lead Eva Marie Saint across Mt. Rushmore before James Mason kills her — and that after being framed for murder, attacked by a crop-duster and getting fatally shot in a South Dakota restaurant. A favorite of mine that TYG liked too. With Jessie Royce Landis as Grant’s mom and Martin Landau as Mason’s right arm. “You’re not really going to kill my son, are you?”
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