The Astounding She-Monster (

1957

)

I always pay careful attention to the opening voice-over narration that accompanies so many mid-century sci-fi movies. Some, like The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), take the opportunity to recount the biblical creation of the universe and the scientific evolution of life. Others, such The Deadly Mantis (1957) spend their entire monologue spreading naive patriotic propaganda, that is only tangentially related to the plot. While still other movies, terrified that their audience may experience a moment of confusion, just use this opportunity to spoil their entire story, as was the case in The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955). The opening monologue is a chance to explain the plot, ground the movie in some esoteric concept, or simply drag out the movie for a couple more minutes to get it up to something approaching feature-length.

The monologue for today's movie is something else altogether. It starts by stating that the ancient philosophers and scholars used to look to the heavens to predict the future and solve the mysteries of the earth and predict the future. True enough, astrology was a popular means of divination throughout the ancient world (and into the modern, as evidenced by the persistent popularity of daily horoscope columns). What isn't true is that these same ancient scholars believed there was a massive stellar explosion that set the universe into motion... No, what the film is describing there is called the Big Bang theory which is a very modern idea (like the 1920s at the earliest). From there the film goes on to ask the question: “Could this have been an explosion touched off by a nuclear bomb?” Obviously, the answer to this question is: “no, you idiot.” By 1957 both the Americans and Soviets had detonated dozens of atomic bombs, and while those blasts were certainly impressive the universe seems to have kept on spinning just fine. I'll give the movie the benefit of the doubt and assume that, since the universe is still in one piece after Trinity and Castle-Bravo, the narrator is talking about a much bigger bomb that mankind has yet to devise but maybe on the cusp of. Maybe it's the solarmanite from Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). In any event, mankind is on the brink of possessing the power to destroy the universe, and that is enough to make other intelligent species in the galaxy concerned about our pale blue dot. Though whether this alien is going to glass the planet from orbit or come down to negotiate like Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) remains to be seen.

The voice-over narrator sure wants you to think that she's going to be hostile though. He introduces her as “Evil upon evil.” He also adds after mentioning that mankind could potentially possess cosmic-level nukes, that “If the earth is not destroyed first, it will destroy the universe.” Certainly, we're being led to assume that the She-Monster is hostile, which is a little cheap when it turns out at the end that she was a diplomatic envoy and her death probably means that the aliens are gonna come back in force. Granted, this twist is a fun one that plays with our expectations about an alien visitor and leaves the audience on a disconcerting note that is highly unusual for the period. Still, this twist would have been all the stronger if the opening monologue hadn't tried so hard to force the viewer into a particular mindset.

It would have also been nice if the She-Monster actually acted like an envoy from the stars in some fashion. In the entire film, she does not attempt to communicate with the people she encounters, even though the aliens have an understanding of English gleaned from studying our broadcasts “for decades.” A quick 'Be not afraid' or 'I come in peace' would do wonders in this situation. Moreover, she spends her entire visit to earth roaming around the backwoods of California. If she couldn't choose to touch down just outside of Washington DC, Moscow, or New York, she could at least make some effort to get to one of these power centers instead of strolling around in the wilderness. Worse still, while the She-Creature never initiates conflict with the people she encounters once she has committed herself to violence, she doesn't let up. She spends tremendous time hunting down and killing everyone, even after it's become obvious that the earthlings have no weapons that can penetrate her protective armor. All this serves to undermine what is a pretty damn compelling idea for a sci-fi story. Fortunately, the same idea was better handled, albeit in a much more lighthearted fashion, in Warning from Space (1956).

The Astounding She-Monster is not a film with the budget needed to make a genuinely alien-looking envoy from beyond the stars. So, they did the next best thing they could do, gave a hot chick some weird eyebrows, dressed her up in a skin-tight silver jumpsuit, and filmed her with a blurry camera effect that is usually employed to indicate a flashback is about to start. The result is less than impressive, even for an era of sci-fi where an ill-fitting rubber suit with goofy monster teeth was considered cutting-edge. The lackluster appearance isn't helped by the fact that the girl in the alien jumpsuit looks more bored with her role than anything else. The film's poster promises a striking, sexy creature peering at the audience from behind her raised hands but the actual she-monster in the film just robotically strolls from point A to point B. I suspect that costume restrained her performance somewhat, as early on in filming the actress bent over and the unitard split down the back (the hasty patch job is visible in at least one shot). It's hard to appear sultry when you have to keep the same posture as a Prussian cavalry officer. Still, her complete lack of personality constitutes one of the film's most obvious missed opportunities.

Of course, the titular monster won't be turning up right away. The first section of the film introduces our human cast, with a young heiress/socialite, Margaret Chaffee, being abducted by a trio of kidnappers. The two mooks, Esther Malone and Brad Conley are a high society lush turned skid row alcoholic and a jailbird thug respectively, and don't have much to say beyond how much they want to get drunk and commit crimes. However, the gang's leader Nat Burdell is a little bit more interesting. He gleefully admits that he is a crook, but denies that there is anything fundamentally or morally wrong with that. The millionaires and politicians are just crooks like him, albeit a bit luckier. Indeed, he casually mentions Hitler was just a gangster like him, surrounded by a couple of million other gangsters, suggesting that he has a vision for himself that goes beyond simply abducting a couple of society tarts. He is by far the most interesting character in the film and is portrayed by the film's best actor. However, there just isn't much for him to do, as his aspirations for politicalized crime just aren't very relevant to an alien invasion movie with only six characters.

After abducting Margaret, the criminals take her off into the countryside to find a place to hole up and wait for the ransom payments. Unfortunately, they have a close encounter with the alien visitor, and Brad, who is driving at the time, is so surprised that he loses sight of the road and careens into a ditch. Nobody is hurt, but the car is totaled, so they head off into the woods to look for alternative transportation. They quickly stumble upon the mountain cabin of a geologist named Dick Cutler and try to Shanghai his jeep. The only problem is the lights are busted on the jeep, and going down the winding mountain roads in the dark is suicide. None of the crooks realize that the film is just shooting day for night, so they opt to hunker down for the night and head out in the morning with their hostage in tow. Unfortunately, they run afoul of the alien visitor and the crooks take a couple of pot-shots at her, forcing the She-Monster to systematically annihilate all of them with her radium-infused touch.

About 80% of what can be charitably described as “action,” takes place in a single cabin set, and it's not even an especially detailed or memorable set. Come on, if you're gonna have a film take place in a room the least you can do is give the room some personality al la 12 Angry Men (1957) or Rope (1948). Here, I'm not even completely sure that the set was originally constructed for this movie, as it is so plain and generic that it could easily just be something left over from another production that was jerry-rigged after the fact to serve as the primary location for this film.

The remainder of the footage is just some dark exterior shots filmed in nearby woods. Of course, recording dialog outside was beyond the budget of this film, so the only place that characters can actually have exchanges of dialogue is inside of the cabin. This leads to an absurd sequence towards the end of the film where the surviving characters try to flee into the woods, regroup in the cabin, try to flee again, only to once again return to the cabin. It's almost so stupid that it's funny.

This is dull even by my standards, and I'm the sort of weirdo that would describe Gog (1954) and The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955) as riveting entertainment. There are so many long shots and tedious sequences that serve no other purpose than drawing out the film's runtime. At times I fought the urge to skip ahead through another interminable establish shot of some woods. There is, perhaps, an episode of the Twilight Zone worth of material in the movie, and even a movie as short as this one (barely longer than 1 hour) feels stretched well beyond the breaking point. Even I have my limits when it comes to tedium and The Astounding She-Monster is more than boring enough to exhaust even the most sympathetic audience. The only good thing I can say about this movie is that it has a couple of good ideas that it implements poorly.