The Beast of Hollow Mountain ** (1956, Guy Madison, Patricia Medina, Carlos Rivas) – Classic Movie Review 8347

Directors Edward Nassour and Ismael Rodriguez’s 1956 Mexican Sci-Fi horror Western movie The Beast of Hollow Mountain stars Guy Madison as Jimmy Ryan, an American cowboy rancher living in Mexico who suspects a Plasticine monster of killing his cattle in a swamp at Hollow Mountain.

Thereafter it is the giant prehistoric dinosaur monster against the cowboys in this ludicrous but likeable adventure from the Nassour Brothers, producers William Nassour and Edward Nassour. Madison is woodenly square-jawed as the brave cowboy who fights the Plasticine terror with a lasso and six-gun, while Patricia Medina screams in an appropriately cowgirl way as Sarita.

[Spoiler alert] Finally, an effective if gimmicky climax saves the day.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, The Beast of Hollow Mountain is the first film to show both dinosaurs and cowboys in the same movie. It is ambitiously shot by cinematographer Jorge Stahl Jr in colour and CinemaScope, and is notable as one of the few American-Mexican co-productions of the Fifties. It was released worldwide by United Artists.

Also in the cast are Carlos Rivas as Felipe Sanchez, Eduardo Noriega as Enrique Rios, Julio Villarreal as Don Pedro, Mario Navarro as Panchito, Pascual García Peña as Pancho and Lupe Carriles as Margarita.

It is written by Robert Hill (screenplay) and Jack DeWitt (additional dialogue), based on a story idea by special effects innovator Willis O’Brien, who originally conceived it as a follow-up to King Kong (1933), O’Brien began pre-production in 1941 at the RKO-Pathé Studios but the film The Valley of the Mists was cancelled when studio management was changed.

Later, O’Brien was to have done the special effects for The Beast of Hollow Mountain, but Jack Rabin, Henry Sharp and Louis DeWitt ended up doing the effects, evidently based on O’Brien’s storyboards.

It was was shot back to back in English and Spanish versions at the Churubusco Studios in Mexico City and released in Mexico as La Bestia de la Montaña.

The Beast of Hollow Mountain was remade in 1969 by O’Brien’s protégé Ray Harryhausen as The Valley of Gwangi.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8347

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The theatrical release poster of The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956).