Tarantula *** (1955, John Agar, Mara Corday, Leo G Carroll) – Classic Movie Review 1,514

Jack Arnold’s fondly regarded 1955 monster movie Tarantula is one of the key Fifties chillers, celebrated in Richard O’Brien’s musical The Rocky Horror Show: ‘I knew Leo G Carroll was over a barrel when Tarantula took to the hills!’

‘You make it sound so creepy.’ ‘The unknown always is.‘

Tarantula is one of the key Fifties chillers, properly celebrated in Richard O’Brien’s spoof musical The Rocky Horror Show: ‘I knew Leo G Carroll was over a barrel when Tarantula took to the hills!’

Director Jack Arnold’s fondly regarded 1955 fantasy monster movie Tarantula is a highly amusing, shivery minor Fifties sci-fi classic, with (for its day of course) good makeup and effects, an eerie desert location, and taut direction. In terms of effects, the tarantula was an actual live spider and air jets were used to make it move in the desired way over a miniature landscape.

Leo G Carroll plays Professor Gerald Deemer and, though his intentions are good, there is never any doubt that his experiments in the Arizona desert with accelerated tissue growth hormones as an attempt to increase the world’s food supply will end up doing lots of monster harm.

And, sure enough, the Professor’s partner is found dead in the desert, suffering from a disease that normally takes years to advance but has afflicted him in only a few days. And then the Professor accidentally re-arranges the scientists’ faces (acromegaly is a side effect) and produces a monster spider that escapes when unleashed by a crazed, experiment-damaged lab helper. It is crawling terror, 100ft high!

John Agar plays the hero Dr Matt Hastings, the rather slow local doctor who is not unnaturally puzzled by the strange goings-on, and Mara Corday stars as the heroine, Deemer’s recently arrived, attractive assistant Stephanie ‘Steve’ Clayton.  The duo set about to try to figure out what the heck is going on and, when cattle remains are found in the nearby countryside, all of the evidence unfortunately points to a giant tarantula being the culprit.

Naturally, Tarantula is not exactly totally scary, frightening or thrilling by today’s standards. Indeed probably only those with arachnophobia will find the spider sufficiently horrific. But its dated retro style, look, attitudes, ideas and appeal are all part of the film’s very considerable continuing charm and allure.

A 25-year-old Clint Eastwood appears at the end of the movie as the first squadron-leader jet pilot, leading the attack on the tarantula at the film’s climax. In Coogan’s Bluff (1968), the New York nightclub Eastwood’s cop Coogan is searching is screening a scene from Tarantula.

The jets taking off to attack the tarantula are F-84 Thunderjets but the actual attacking jets are F-80 Shooting Stars.

Professor Deemer predicts that by the year 2000 the human population will be 3.6 billion but in fact it turned out to be almost double that.

John Agar died on April 7 2002, aged 81. He was married to Shirley Temple 1945-50.

Mara Corday (born Marilyn Joan Watts; January 3, 1930).

Mara Corday turned 90 on 3 January 2020. She is a lifelong friend of Clint Eastwood, whom she met while working for Universal Pictures. She played in Eastwood’s films The Gauntlet, Sudden Impact, Pink Cadillac and The Rookie in 1990, which is her last film so far. Corday married actor Richard Long in 1957 but was widowed in 1974.

She is also known for The Giant Claw, The Man from Bitter Ridge, and Undersea Girl (1957)

Leo G Carroll died on October 16 1972, aged 85. He appeared in six Hitchcock films including Spellbound, Strangers on a Train and North by Northwest.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1,514

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Leo G Carroll plays Professor Gerald Deemer.

Agar was married to Shirley Temple 1945-50.