"The Monolith Monsters" follows the usual scenario of Universal's 1950s monster movies. An ill-understood menace threatens the town (or the country or mankind). Men wearing uniforms try to deal with it, but it's the scientists who come to the rescue. (Sounds like the Cold War.) In this case -- in this inexpensive and late case -- the imagination of the writers had just about reached rock bottom.
The "monsters" are rock pylons generated by a meteorite. They grow at a phenomenal rate when they are in contact with water, sucking all the silicon out of whatever material they touch, including human flesh. The victims are turned to stone.
The meteorite has landed on a mountain top in the desert, but unfortunately a rain storm activates it. These huge black towers grow visibly, then crash and splinter into hundreds of smaller pieces, which grow in turn. The rock itself looks something like obsidian, flinty, shiny, and smoothly fractured.
The local geologist and the sheriff are at a loss and they call in "the professor," whom everyone calls "the professor." Together with the local newspaper editor (the reliable Les Tremayne) and with the help of the supernumerary Lola Albright, they experiment on rock samples and try to find something that will check their growth. Nothing seems to work. The colossal towers are crashing inexorably towards San Angelo and, beyond that, "the citrus region," after which there will be no stopping them. At the last moment, the antidote is discovered. The rocks stop growing when they are exposed to salt water. And fortunately there is a salt mine just outside town, and next to it a dam which must be blown up, so that the released water can rush over the salt mine and out into the salt flats and tell those rocks where to get off.
The formula was getting kind of old by 1957, I guess. Much of the story is easily anticipated. Some of it is shamelessly ripped off. A young girl at the site of an early and mysterious catastrophe that has killed her parents, is found wandering about in shock. She doesn't blink when a hand is waved in front of her eyes. (Cf., "Them".) Sherwood's direction is strictly functional. If a group of six people is standing together, as in the last shot of the film, they don't huddle together. They stand in line and congratulate each other sideways, so that we can see them and all their faces at once in medium shot. And though the monsters make a lot of noise, crashing about through the canyons, they're not really as scary as, say, a giant tarantula would be, because they move so slowly. On top of that, they're insensible. They aren't alive, so they can't see anything or chase anything or eat anybody. The dialog seems to have been written in a hurry.
Lola Albright: Dr. Higgins says that the girl has only eight hours. Maybe.
Les Tremayne: And maybe -- not?
Albright: Maybe not.
Yet, there is something unspeakably creepy about the sinuous colonies of black towers. The texture of the colony is revolting. It's like looking at a photo of a skin disease with pustule crowding against pustule. Yukk. And the fact that the rocks are mindless puts them in the category of things that can't be outwitted, like disease or death itself.
It's a short, minor film, but I kind of enjoyed it. Despite the urgency, the tone of the movie is relaxed, as if nobody was really putting too much effort into it. And it's always fun to see the 1950s monster formula invoked for still another go.
The "monsters" are rock pylons generated by a meteorite. They grow at a phenomenal rate when they are in contact with water, sucking all the silicon out of whatever material they touch, including human flesh. The victims are turned to stone.
The meteorite has landed on a mountain top in the desert, but unfortunately a rain storm activates it. These huge black towers grow visibly, then crash and splinter into hundreds of smaller pieces, which grow in turn. The rock itself looks something like obsidian, flinty, shiny, and smoothly fractured.
The local geologist and the sheriff are at a loss and they call in "the professor," whom everyone calls "the professor." Together with the local newspaper editor (the reliable Les Tremayne) and with the help of the supernumerary Lola Albright, they experiment on rock samples and try to find something that will check their growth. Nothing seems to work. The colossal towers are crashing inexorably towards San Angelo and, beyond that, "the citrus region," after which there will be no stopping them. At the last moment, the antidote is discovered. The rocks stop growing when they are exposed to salt water. And fortunately there is a salt mine just outside town, and next to it a dam which must be blown up, so that the released water can rush over the salt mine and out into the salt flats and tell those rocks where to get off.
The formula was getting kind of old by 1957, I guess. Much of the story is easily anticipated. Some of it is shamelessly ripped off. A young girl at the site of an early and mysterious catastrophe that has killed her parents, is found wandering about in shock. She doesn't blink when a hand is waved in front of her eyes. (Cf., "Them".) Sherwood's direction is strictly functional. If a group of six people is standing together, as in the last shot of the film, they don't huddle together. They stand in line and congratulate each other sideways, so that we can see them and all their faces at once in medium shot. And though the monsters make a lot of noise, crashing about through the canyons, they're not really as scary as, say, a giant tarantula would be, because they move so slowly. On top of that, they're insensible. They aren't alive, so they can't see anything or chase anything or eat anybody. The dialog seems to have been written in a hurry.
Lola Albright: Dr. Higgins says that the girl has only eight hours. Maybe.
Les Tremayne: And maybe -- not?
Albright: Maybe not.
Yet, there is something unspeakably creepy about the sinuous colonies of black towers. The texture of the colony is revolting. It's like looking at a photo of a skin disease with pustule crowding against pustule. Yukk. And the fact that the rocks are mindless puts them in the category of things that can't be outwitted, like disease or death itself.
It's a short, minor film, but I kind of enjoyed it. Despite the urgency, the tone of the movie is relaxed, as if nobody was really putting too much effort into it. And it's always fun to see the 1950s monster formula invoked for still another go.