The Giant Gila Monster

The Giant Gila Monster (1959)

Only Hell could breed such an enormous beast... Only God could destroy it!

A small town in Texas finds itself under attack from a hungry, fifty-foot-long gila monster. No longer content to forage in the desert, the giant lizard begins chomping on motorists and train passengers before descending upon the town itself. Only Chase Winstead, a quick-thinking mechanic, can save the town from being wiped out.

Date of release
1959-06-25
TMDB
4.2 / 10 (61)
Runtime
1h 14m
Genres
Horror, Science Fiction
Director
Ray Kellogg

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: $138K

The Giant Gila Monster is a 1959 American monster film directed by Ray Kellogg and produced by Ken Curtis. A famous B-movie of the era, the film stars Don Sullivan, a veteran of several low budget monster and zombie films, and Lisa Simone, the French contestant for the 1957 Miss Universe, as well as comedic actor Shug Fisher and KLIF disc jockey Ken Knox. The effects included a live Mexican beaded lizard, instead of a Gila monster, that was filmed on a scaled-down model landscape. The film was released by McLendon Radio Pictures on July 15, 1959. It played on a double feature with The Killer Shrews (1959).

Production and release

Filmed near Dallas, Texas, the film was budgeted at $175,000 and was produced by Dallas drive-in theater chain owner Gordon McLendon who wanted co-features for his main attractions. McLendon shot the film back-to-back with The Killer Shrews. Both films were feted as the first feature films shot in and produced in Dallas, and the first movies to premiere as double features.

In exchange for doing the special effects, Kellogg was allowed to direct the film. Curtis allowed Sullivan to pick the songs with the teenage market in mind. Knox, who played Horatio Alger "Steamroller" Smith, was an actual disc jockey working at radio stations in Texas owned by McLendon. The "Gila monster" in the movie is actually a Mexican beaded lizard (which are similar in appearance but tend to be larger than Gilas).

The film's world premiere took place in Dallas on June 25, 1959.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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