I was surprised at the amount of giant wasp animated action in the film at the start. There is even a giant full sized head prop too. But there seems to be quite a bit of Jim Davis voice over and as the movie goes on there starts to be more walking to get to the giant wasps than there is actual giant wasps. One major character dies off screen in a way that seems like they never got to shoot it. (Another character shows up and explains what happened) Then the ending is all stock footage and dissolves to footage we've already seen. And Jim Davis, as he did later in THE DAY TIME ENDED, explaining it all to us. Thank god otherwise you'd have only a vague idea of what you just saw, or didn't really get to see.
Too bad they ran out of what little money they had. A lively start progressively gets duller. Still that big wasp head was cool, another problem is the generally crappy quality of many copies of the film available which make the footage either dark or blown out. If you're going to watch it make sure you get a decent copy first.
The sending test animals into space aspect of the premise is a bit novel as is the idea of having the space ship crash way out in the middle of Africa and having to go find it. Certainly since the film was made, like with the remains of Space Lab, that type of thing has happened.
Monster from Green Hell
1957
Horror / Sci-Fi
Monster from Green Hell
1957
Horror / Sci-Fi
Plot summary
In preparation for sending a manned rocket into space, American scientists Dr. Quent Brady and Dan Morgan are put in charge of a program that sends various animals and insects into space to test their survival rates. After one of their rockets carrying wasps malfunctions and goes off course, a computer calculates that the rocket is likely to land somewhere off the coast of Africa. Some time later, in a remote part of Africa, Dr. Lorentz and his daughter Lorna perform an autopsy on a native and determine that he died of paralysis of the nerve centers caused by an injection of a massive amount of venom. Arobi, Lorentz' African assistant, then informs him that a monster is believed to be terrorizing people and animals in an area known as Green Hell. Several months later, Brady reads a newspaper account of turmoil in Central Africa caused by gigantic monsters and surmises that the wasps in the missing rocket were exposed to huge amounts of cosmic radiation because an earlier, very minimal overexposure had resulted in the birth of a spider crab twice the size of its mother. Brady and Morgan request a leave of absence from Washington and head for Africa to investigate. In Libreville, equatorial Africa, the territorial agent makes plans for them to travel to meet Dr. Lorentz. Once the safari is ready, Mahri, an Arab, leads Brady and Morgan on the four-hundred mile trek to Lorentz' hospital. The safari battles brush fires, fever, drought and storms, eventually reaching the Lorentz compound where Lorna informs them that her father has not returned from a journey to Green Hell. Later, Arobi arrives with the news that Lorentz has been killed by a monster living in the cauldron of a volcano and gives Brady a giant stinger he removed from the doctor's shoulder. After Brady analyzes the stinger, he confirms that it belongs to a giant, deadly wasp. Although Brady advises Lorna to stay at the hospital, she insists on accompanying him, Morgan, Mahri and Arobi to Green Hell. When the native bearers learn of the destination, they desert, and although Lorna is able to shame several local villagers into helping, they, too, run off when the group comes upon a deserted native village littered with dead bodies. After Brady expresses his concern that the insects may be multiplying rapidly and could eventually overrun all of Africa, he states that they must destroy the queen and her immediate colony. Brady then explains to Mahri that he has brought small, grenade-like bombs, filled with a special explosive, to use against the monsters. As they move closer to the base of the volcano, which shows signs of an imminent eruption, they hear a very loud, buzzing sound. When Brady looks down from a ridge above the volcano, he finds the queen and several gigantic wasps. The four men toss grenades into the bowl, but the explosions only serve to anger the wasps. Lorna and the men are pursued by one of the wasps, the size of a large building, but hide in a cave that it cannot enter. The group escapes through another entrance, and, just as they emerge, the volcano erupts, spewing massive lava flows that destroy all the wasps in the conflagration. Morgan then notes that nature has a way of destroying its mistakes.
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Big Wasps are fun but walking across Africa isn't
Radiation gets the blame again
Ah, the 1950's. If you wanted to make a monster movie all you had to do was insert the word "radiation" into the script and that explained where the monster came from, no further explanation was necessary. Hey, I like this film and I make no apologies for liking it. The stop motion animation for the monsters is pretty good, especially that scene where a giant wasp battles a python. Sadly there is an awful lot of jungle and not enough monster.
Jim Davis is a scientist firing rocket after rocket full of test animals into space to see what happens when they are exposed to radiation (our tax dollars at work!),this will show what future astronauts have to expect. I guess Jim never saw the movie FIRST MAN INTO SPACE or he would already know. Anyway a rocket full of wasps gets lost up there and eventually crashes in a remote African jungle. Let's not even ask why they launched a bunch of insects into space when they want to see what effect radiation has on mammals; just keep repeating "It's only a movie, only a movie, only a movie . . .". Concluding "There'a a lot of difference between 40 seconds of exposure and 40 hours." Jim packs up and heads for Africa.
Meanwhile the wasps have mutated into giants (what? you're surprised?) and are terrorising an area aptly named "green hell". The local doctor (Vladimir Sokoloff) believes the stories of monsters are nothing but superstition but his native pal Arobi (Joel Fluellen) reminds him "Does an elephant run from superstition? Will a bird not light in a tree because of superstition?" Score one for you, Arobi!
Jim and company have to walk 400 miles through the jungle to reach green hell and have to deal with no rain, poison waterholes and hostile natives before they arrive. When they finally do get there it's just them against the monsters and they'd better do something before the big wasps multiply!
This is really a fun movie and I wish the budget had allowed for more of the monsters. The colour tinting at the end was an especially nice surprise.
Now for all you detractors out there, we don't watch a movie called MONSTER FROM GREEN HELL expecting art; we watch it to have fun. That's what "B" movies are for and this one is lots of fun!
Jock Ewing meets Albert Schweitzer and some big old Wasps
Before Jim Davis got his last and career part as Jock Ewing in Dallas, he had one tortured path to Hollywood success. He had a much publicized debut as Bette Davis's leading man in Winter Meeting which was one of her worst films. His portrayal of a war hero about to enter the priesthood met with a ton of critical guffaws. Still Davis persisted and took any kind of work. The Monster from Green Hell qualifies as any kind of work.
A wasp is sent up in space to see the effects. Unfortunately on re-entry the space capsule crashes in the region of West Africa and the wasp has grown to the size of a Panzer tank. To top it all off the geniuses sending up the rocket sent up a pregnant queen so we've got all kinds of those Panzer wasps running around Africa.
Jim Davis is sent to clean up the mess and runs into a medical missionary played by Vladimir Sokoloff. Albert Schweitzer was very much alive at the time and running his mission in West Africa. No one in 1958 mistook who Sokoloff was portraying. The wasps set up a colony in the shadow of a volcano. You can figure out the rest.
This is typical Fifties science fiction when all kinds of radiation was the explanation for these creatures. In this case it was the radiation from cosmic rays, presumably from the newly discovered Van Allen belt around the earth.
Tepid acting and chintzy special effects make The Monster from Green Hell great cult stuff. One thing though that is timely. An Arab character played by Eduardo Ciannelli joins forces with Davis and one of the natives Joel Fluellen to combat the danger the giant wasps present. Amazing how religious differences can suddenly melt away in time of crisis.