The Giant Behemoth (1959)

The Giant Behemoth (Behemoth the Sea Monster), released in 1959, sounds like a typical 1950s Hollywood monster movie but this one was an Anglo-American co-production filmed in Britain with a mostly British cast.

It’s another case of a giant monster created by radiation. It starts in a fairly low-key way. A fisherman in Cornwall is found dead on the beach with symptoms that could suggest radiation burns. Plus there are thousands of dead fish. American marine biologist Steve Karnes (Gene Evans) certainly suspects that radiation could be the cause. Professor James Bickford (André Morell) is more cautious but he certainly intends to investigate. The body of the dead fisherman has already been buried but there’s another fisherman with burns on his hands which really do look very much like radiation burns.

Tests on the dead fish reveal lots of radioactivity and some strange cells.

Karnes has come up with a wild theory that they’re dealing with a gigantic sea monster, like the behemoth of biblical prophecy. Professor Bickford is sceptical at first but reluctantly comes around to the idea that Karnes may be right.

The wreck of a freighter seems to conform the sea monster theory. It’s hard to explain the damage to the ship in any other way.

A consultation with an eccentric palaeontologist provides more bad news. He’s convinced it’s a dinosaur and this type of dinosaur always returns to fresh water to die. And this beast is so radioactive it has to be dying. Which means it will try to return to the Thames to die. The palaeontologist also informs them that not only is this monster radioactive, it’s electric as well. Like an electric eel. So it can project radioactivity at anything in its path.

Pretty soon the monster is loose in the Thames. Some way has to be found to stop it but they can’t blow it up - they would spread radiation everywhere.

If you’re tired of seeing Tokyo get stomped by giant monsters this is your chance to see London get stomped instead.

The miniatures work is not too bad. As for the stop-motion effects, special effects legend Willis O’Brien was in charge. Some of the effects are excellent, some not so good. The location shooting in Cornwall for the early scenes is one of the highlights.

This movie has many similarities to the Eugène Lourié-directed 1953 monster flick The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms which is hardly surprising given that Lourié was involved in The Giant Behemoth as well.

André Morell was a fine actor and he gives the movie some gravitas and some class. Gene Evans is quite good as well.

The Giant Behemoth is played very straight. The subject matter might have suggested a high camp approach but the actual approach taken is the exact opposite with some real effort being put in to maintain tension and build atmosphere. The scientific stuff, while wildly far-fetched, is fun with some great 1950s high technology used to establish the nature of the threat.

For aviation geeks there’s some rare footage of an Armstrong-Whitworth Sea Hawk jet fighter.

The Warner Archive DVD release offers a very fine anamorphic transfer. Very unusually, there’s an audio commentary as well.

The Giant Behemoth is surprisingly effective. Despite the outlandish concept it’s never played for laughs. The impression it gives is that the people involved were trying to make a monster movie that was a cut above the usual run of such movies. To a certain extent they succeeded. It’s still a cheap monster movie but it’s a good cheap monster movie. Recommended.