The Deadly Mantis

The Deadly Mantis (1957)

This Was the Day That Engulfed the World in Terror!

When a melting iceberg releases a prehistoric giant praying mantis, a palaeontologist works alongside the military to kill it after it attacks scientific outposts on its way to Washington and New York.

Date of release
1957-05-01
TMDB
5.0 / 10 (83)
Runtime
1h 19m
Genres
Horror, Science Fiction
Director
Nathan Juran

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: $350K

The Deadly Mantis is a 1957 American science fiction monster film produced by William Alland for Universal-International. The film was directed by Nathan Juran from a screenplay by Martin Berkeley based on a story by producer William Alland. The Deadly Mantis stars Craig Stevens, William Hopper, Alix Talton and Pat Conway. The film was released in May 1957 as a double feature with the spy film The Girl in the Kremlin.

Production

The Deadly Mantis was the first science fiction film made by director Nathan Juran, who has said that he came up with the idea for the opening sequence.

A massive papier mâché model of a mantis was built for the movie, fitted with a hydraulic system. It measured 200 feet (61 m) long and 40 feet (12 m) high, and had a wingspan of 150 feet (46 m). Two smaller models were also created, one 6 feet (1.8 m) long and another 1 foot (0.30 m) long; these were used for the scenes where the mantis walked or flew.

The Deadly Mantis utilized stock Air Force footage taken from short films such as "Guardians All", "One Plane – One Bomb", and "SFP308." The footage of the Inuit village was taken from Universal's 1933 film S.O.S. Iceberg.

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

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