The Giant Gila Monster

The Giant Gila Monster is a 1959 hot rod/monster/science fiction film, directed by Ray Kellogg and produced by Ken Curtis. This low-budget B-movie starred Don Sullivan, a veteran of several low budget monster and zombie films, and Lisa Simone, the French contestant for Miss Universe of 1957, as well as comic relief Shug Fisher and KLIF disc jockey Ken Knox. The effects included a live Mexican beaded lizard (not an actual Gila monster) filmed on a scaled-down model landscape. The film is considered a cult classic.
Plot.
The movie opens with a young couple, Pat Wheeler (Grady Vaughn) and Liz Humphries (Yolanda Salas), parked in a bleak, rural locale overlooking a ravine. A giant Gila monster attacks the car, sending it into the ravine and killing the couple. Later, some friends of the couple decide to assist the local sheriff (Fred Graham) in his search for the missing teens. Chase Winstead (Sullivan), a young mechanic and hot rod racer, locates the crashed car in the ravine and finds evidence of the giant lizard. However, it is only when the hungry reptile attacks a train (a model train set substituted as a low-budget effect) that the authorities realize they are dealing with a (roughly) 70-foot long venomous lizard. By this time, emboldened by its attacks and hungry for prey, the creature attacks the town. It heads for the local dance hall, where the town's teenagers are gathered for a sock hop. However, Chase packs his prized hot rod with nitroglycerin and rigs it to speed straight into the Gila monster, terminating the lizard in a fiery explosion and heroically saving the town.
Production.
Filmed near Dallas, Texas, the film was budgeted at $175,000 and was produced by Dallas drive-in theater chain owner Gordon McLendon who wanted co-features for his main attractions. McLendon shot the film back to back with "The Killer Shrews". Both films were feted as the first feature films shot in and produced in Dallas, and the first movies to premiere as double features. Unlike most double features released in the South, these films received national and even foreign distribution.
In exchange for doing the special effects, Kellogg was allowed to direct the film. Curtis allowed Sullivan to pick the songs with the teenage market in mind. Knox, who played Horatio Alger "Steamroller" Smith, was an actual disc jockey working at radio stations in Texas owned by McLendon. The "Gila monster" in the movie is actually a Mexican beaded lizard.
Reception.
On his website "Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings" Dave Sindelar gave the film a positive review, writing, "Whatever flaws there are with the story, I find myself drawn to the regional feel of the movie, and especially to the likable characters that inhabit this environment...It's rare for a movie to have this many likable characters, and I think the reason I watch the movie again and again is because I just like to spend time with them".
"TV Guide" gave the film 2 out of 5 stars, calling it "a rear-projected monster just doesn't put audiences in a deep state of fear, especially when it's a lizard. It does, however, induce occasional uncontrolled laughter". Alan Jones from "Radio Times" awarded the film 1 out of 5 stars, calling it "unintentionally amusing rather than scary".
References in popular culture.
The film was featured on a season 5 episode of "Cinema Insomnia" and season 4 of "Mystery Science Theater 3000".
A giant Gila monster resembling the one in the film made an appearance in the "" episode "Freak Show".
Remake.
A made-for-TV remake, "Gila!", directed by Jim Wynorski, was released in 2012.