The Deadly Mantis * (1957, Craig Stevens, Alix Talton, William Hopper) – Classic Movie Review 3918

Yes, it’s a hilariously feeble monster insect woken up by an earthquake at the North Pole.

Director Nathan Juran’s amusingly feeble 1957 Universal-International sci-fi horror film monster movie The Deadly Mantis stars Craig Stevens as Colonel Joe Parkman, Alix Talton as Marge Blaine, and William Hopper as Dr Nedrick ‘Ned’ Jackson. It is Juran’s first sci-fi film.

Yes, it’s a monster insect woken up by an earthquake at the North Pole. In time-honoured fashion, the Deadly Giant Incredible Praying Mantis flies south (never east etc) down America’s eastern seaboard till the final showdown in New York’s Hudson River tunnel. Scientist Dr Ned Jackson (Hopper), military man Colonel Joe Parkman (Stevens) and reporter Marge Blaine (Talton) are almost too busy in a love triangle to worry about the monster.

Juran’s black and white monster movie is pretty deadly sci-fi stuff, feebly made and weakly acted, with creaky special effects and an even creakier screenplay by Martin Berkeley (based on a story by producer William Alland).

Also in the cast are Donald Randolph as Gen. Mark Ford, Pat Conway as Sgt. Pete Allen, Florenz Ames as Prof. Anton Gunther, Paul Smith as Corporal, Parkman’s Clerk, Phil Harvey as Lou, Radar Man, Floyd Simmons as Army Sergeant, Paul Campbell as Lt. Fred Pizar, Helen Jay as Mrs. Farley, Jack Mather, Floyd Simmons, William Anders, Jess Kirkpatrick, James Lampher, George Lynn, David McMahon, Edward McNally, Madelon Mitchell, Ernesto Morelli, Dick Paxton, Harry Tyler and Sigurd Nilssen.

Gossip queen Hedda Hopper opined: ‘These fellows have been mighty successful with this type film. The kids love ’em.’ That means, she didn’t like this type film but they made money.

By the way, as insects are cold blooded, they could not move or fly in the cold polar regions as they do in the movie. Also the film’s praying mantis makes roaring noises but praying mantises have no means of communicating by sound.

It was released in a weird double bill with the spy film The Girl in the Kremlin.

They built a 200-ft by 40-ft papier maché model of a mantis, with a wingspan of 150 ft and fitted with a hydraulic system, and two smaller models, 6-ft and 1-ft long, used when the mantis walked or flew. A real praying mantis was used used the deadly mantis climbs the Washington Monument.

They also used Air Force stock footage and a clip of the Inuit village from Universal’s 1933 film S.O.S. Iceberg.