The Giant Gila Monster│Film Masters
Courtesy of Film Masters
by CHAD KENNERK
Launched in June by industry veteran and film historian Phil Hopkins, Film Masters is a new U.S. based vintage film restoration and distribution consortium focused on film preservation. The premiere blu-ray release from Film Masters presents a Special Edition two-disc collection of cult classics The Giant Gila Monster and The Killer Shrews. Over the years the public domain titles have been frequent suspects of the home video bargain bin, but unlike the grainy VHS rips that often appeared on low budget releases, Film Masters debut presentation makes schlock look sleek. Once the victim of colorization, The Giant Gila Monster is back in glorious black and white, looking better than ever before with a new 4K scan from original 35mm film elements.
Originally built and released as a drive-in double feature in 1959, the films were the brainchild of the ‘Maverick of Radio’ turned movie producer Gordon McLendon and directed by special effects legend Ray Kellogg. While Kellogg had previously served as an uncredited second unit director for Michael Curtiz on The Egyptian and on the screen adaptation of South Pacific, The Giant Gila Monster marked his feature directorial debut. Kellogg would subsequently return to second unit directing for big budget films such as Cleopatra, while directing two additional features, including the co-direction of The Green Berets with John Wayne. His long history in special effects at 20th Century Fox included films such as the 1951 sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still and 1953’s Titanic, as well as Marilyn Monroe musicals and epics such as The Robe—the first film in CinemaScope.
In the enormity of the west, there are still vast and virtually unexplored regions! Bleak and desolate! Where no human ever goes! And no life is ever seen!
In a league with films like The Blob (which was released the year prior in 1958), The Giant Gila Monster checks all the boxes of typical 50s drive-in fare, including a teenage lead, hot rods, Rock n’ Roll, and a formidable foe. As a movie theatre and drive-in owner himself, producer McLendon no doubt knew what elements would work best commercially and decided to toss them all into one picture. The film’s star, Don Sullivan, even gets his own Elvis-style song. The script was written by Jay Simms in just a few weeks and was filmed outside of Dallas, Texas. And like The Blob, the film opens with teens canoodling at the local makeout point. Working with a budget less than one tenth of the industry standard, McLendon and Kellogg managed to put together a team of talented industry veterans to bring The Giant Gila Monster to life, such as Wilfrid M. Cline and Fred Graham.
The career of cinematographer Wilfrid M. Cline stretches back to silent films of the late 1920s. As a Technicolor associate and camera operator during the 1930s, Cline worked on such classics as Gone with the Wind and The Adventures of Robin Hood. Cline went on to shoot another schlock classic—The Tingler, starring Vincent Price, which marked cinema’s first acid trip. Actor Fred Graham, who plays Gila Monster’s Sheriff Jeff, also had an incredibly prolific career. His work as a stuntman dated back to 1934 when he (a semi-pro baseball player at the time) was hired to catch baseballs for Robert Young. One of his early gigs was doubling for Clark Gable in Mutiny on the Bounty. As a stunt performer, he amassed hundreds of bit parts (often uncredited) from a hood in The Roaring Twenties to the policeman who falls to his death in the famous opening scene of Hitchcock’s Vertigo. He also coordinated stunts for John Wayne, making over 25 films with the Duke.
The wealth of bonus materials in the Special Edition set includes a newly restored high-definition version of The Killer Shrews. Unlike the gila monster, which never appears in the same frame as the human actors, the shrews are brought to life by dogs donning masks and tails. Both films are offered in 16x9 and 4x3 aspect ratios, on region-free discs with DTS-HD sound. Accompanying the films is the documentary Ray Kellogg: An Unsung Master, a Ballyhoo Motion Pictures documentary written by C. Courtney Joyner and narrated by Larry Blamire. There’s also an hour and a half of raw interview audio conducted by author Bryan Senn in 2009 with Giant Gila Monster lead Don Sullivan, who passed away in 2018. Each film also boasts insightful commentary—Larry Strothe, James Gonis, Shawn Sheridan and Matt Weinhold of The Monster Party podcast cover The Giant Gila Monster, while professor and film scholar Jason A. Ney provides the insights for The Killer Shrews. A full-colour booklet also accompanies the special edition set with essays by Don Stradley and the aforementioned Ney. This definitive version of the double feature is a must for monster fans.
The Giant Gila Monster releases on Blu-ray 26 September from Film Masters.
Pre-order now at: www.filmmasters.com/giant-gila-monster-killer-shrews
FILM MASTERS is a consortium of historians and enthusiasts who seek to celebrate the preservation and restoration of films. As archivists, Film Masters is committed to storing film elements for future generations and reviving films that have been sitting dormant for decades. By scanning in 2K and 4K, they give these lesser-known films the red-carpet treatment they deserve. Leveraging modern means of distribution to release forgotten films back into the world, Film Masters also produces original bonus materials—including feature-length documentaries, audio commentaries and historic articles—to contextualise and celebrate these works of art as they were meant to be.
