The Giant Gila Monster
About The Giant Gila Monster
A Texas town is attacked by a hungry gila monster said to be fifty feet long. It leaves the desert and starts eating motorists and people on a train, then comes into town. Mechanic Chase Winstead is the one who works out how to stop it.
Cast & crew
More about The Giant Gila Monster
Ray Kellogg directed. Ken Curtis produced. Aaron Stell edited. The monster is a live Mexican beaded lizard filmed on a scaled-down landscape, not a gila monster. McLendon Radio Pictures released it on 15 July 1959 on a double bill with The Killer Shrews.
Themes
Background
A 1959 McLendon double-feature monster picture, paired with The Killer Shrews.
Making
Kellogg and Curtis shot the lizard on miniature roads and buildings so it would read as a giant.
Look
The lizard was photographed on a model landscape so a real animal would fill the frame as a giant.
Music
Jack Marshall wrote the score.
Preservation
The feature survives. Copies are on the Internet Archive and Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Don Sullivan plays Chase Winstead. Lisa Simone, the French contestant in the 1957 Miss Universe pageant, co-stars.
- Shug Fisher and KLIF disc jockey Ken Knox are in the cast. Fred Graham and Bob Thompson are also billed.
- Wikidata also lists 25 June 1959 as a publication date.
- Jack Marshall wrote the music.
Scenes
- The lizard takes motorists off the road.
- It reaches the town, and Winstead moves against it.
Also available
- Internet Archive (giant_gila_monster)
- Wikimedia Commons (THE GIANT GILA MONSTER.webm)