.
And after a thoroughly ridiculous amount of pondering, my nomination for the first true killer animal film is—
In which plantation owner, practising domestic tyrant and all-around self-declared superior male Charlton Heston gets a little more than he bargained for with the arrival of mail-order bride Eleanor Parker. Their inevitable conflict is, however, somewhat rudely interrupted by the arrival of what is at one point described as, “Forty square miles of agonising death”.
It turns out to be an understatement.
Fun fact: this is one of the films to which I attribute my hang-up about eye-violence…
#1 by jose on October 2, 2011 - 8:44 pm
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Great review (as always) of one of my favorite movies, both Heston and Parker were fantastic in this movie. In my country the movie was only called “Marabunta”, it seems scary enough. Did you see “Elephant walk”, also from 1954? It’s basically the same story, with the action taking place in Ceylan, with Elizabeth Taylor and Peter Finch, but with Elephants. And Abraham Sofaer (Incacha in The Naked Jungle), who plays almost the same role… (and THAT episode of MacGyver…)
#2 by lyzard on October 2, 2011 - 9:11 pm
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Ah! – Elephant Walk! Didn’t even think of Elephant Walk… I haven’t seen it for ages. My memories are hazy, but I think it falls more on the “exciting climax” side of the line…but yes, I certainly should check it out – thank you!
And if it does qualify, then of course I could have done it for the Liz Roundtable, sigh.
#3 by jose on October 3, 2011 - 5:29 am
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Yes, Elephant Walk not qualify as killer animal film, but makes for a pretty “exciting climax”… Big Elephants destroying beautiful sets, and a terrified Liz Taylor running and screaming… and Dana Andrews Too!
#4 by RogerBW on October 3, 2011 - 3:27 am
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I hadn’t met this one before, but will definitely be keeping an eye out for it. Unusual by the standards of later killer-animals in that these are basically “normal” animals (rather than being enraged by radiation, pesticides or capitalism), albeit in a place where something deadly can be normal; later films seem to have tried harder to bring the threat home, having a town full of victims who have to be saved rather than a plantation that can in the ultimate extreme be sacrificed, but in that case you need an explanation of why the killers have suddenly started up…
#5 by Jen S on October 3, 2011 - 1:43 pm
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Wowsers!
Off the top of my head, the only two films involving a grown man with intact virginity that aren’t 80s teen sex comedies are Kinsey and The Piano (heh.) The idea of having such a overblown maculine ideal as Heston be totally “ignorant of women”, and having a reasonable chain of events behind it…? In 1954…?
Wowsers.
Oh, and ants, of course.
#6 by Gentle Benj on October 3, 2011 - 2:33 pm
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Off the top of my head, the only two films involving a grown man with intact virginity that aren’t 80s teen sex comedies are Kinsey and The Piano
Now there’s a theme! “The Unburied Bone: Adult Male Virgins in Serious Cinema.” There’s THE WICKER MAN. And, um…
#7 by Jen S on October 3, 2011 - 2:43 pm
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Ah, the next roundtable approacheth–I hope!
And, yeah, The Wicker Man, and…
#8 by lyzard on October 3, 2011 - 3:27 pm
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Elephant Walk is at the top of my DVD queue now, so I can remind myself.
It’s kind of interesting that The Naked Jungle was released the same year as Them!. Is this the only spontaneous ant attack? Even in Phase IV there’s an outside influence, besides all the usual chemical explanations.
Speaking of which…
I think it was really gutsy of Charlton Heston to take this part, particularly when you hear so many stories of stars having tantrums or refusing to do this and that on screen because it will hurt their image – like Gable refusing to cry in Gone With the Wind. And when you consider he was still establishing himself (he’s second-billed to Eleanor Parker here).
#9 by The Rev. on October 4, 2011 - 8:00 am
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I guess those ants haven’t reached this part of Texas, as I’ve never heard of them before today.
This movie never seems to get played on TV, or at any rate, I miss when it does. I guess I should just get ahold of the DVD.
#10 by Jen S on October 4, 2011 - 12:00 pm
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They actually got there but were wiped out by the hairy crazy ants.
(Can I say how much I love the moniker Hairy Crazy Ants? I hereby claim it as my imaginary band name.)
#11 by B. Wood on October 4, 2011 - 5:58 pm
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Soldier Ants scare me. Well 40 square miles of black death should scare anyone. Even Charles Heston.
#12 by kbegg on October 4, 2011 - 8:25 pm
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The story Leiningen Versus the Ants was adapted in 1948 (and revamped several times later) as one of the more famous radio episodes, along with another such story, the rat attack story Three Skeleton Key starring Vincent Price. Each story first appeared on the suspense program Escape, and can be heard on YouTube by searching under the story title. They’re well worth your time.
Leiningen was played by William Conrad, a famous radio and TV actor who starred as Marshal Dillon on Gunsmoke’s original radio version. And yes, he’s the same guy who played the Commissioner in Naked Jungle. I can only assume he was cast as a gag or homage to the radio play.
Ant attack stock footage from Naked Jungle was used for a loose adaptation of the story on an early episode of MacGuyver (!).*
[*Oops, sorry Jose! I see you already referenced this.]
Aside from the ants, I always remember the piano line. Man, they don’t write ’em like that anymore. Funny how much more adult sex seemed when they couldn’t just lazily shove your face in it.
#13 by Blake on October 5, 2011 - 5:20 am
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Good review, Lyz. I remember coming across this movie in a book that was made up of random lists of movies (i.e. a page dedicated to Errol Flynn/Olivia de Havilland films, a page dedicated to Godzilla movies, etc.) and then seeing the VHS at Suncoast. Now you have me hoping that it gets shown on TCM.
#14 by El Santo on October 5, 2011 - 10:08 am
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Ken: Prior familiarity with the radio version of “Leiningen vs. the Ants” is a big part of the reason why I find The Naked Jungle so infuriating. The story is just infinitely better when it isn’t being treated as the deformed Siamese twin growing out of the back of a Cassie Edwards novel.
#15 by Blake on October 7, 2011 - 5:08 am
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Random question: How does Ants (or whatever the name of the 70s TV movie is) fare on the killer animal scale?
Random observation: They really need to make a movie about driver ants (Dorylus). Those are some scary bastards.
#16 by Braineater on October 12, 2011 - 7:15 am
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The Fast and the Formicidae?
#17 by lyzard on October 7, 2011 - 3:44 pm
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aka It Happened At Lakewood Manor? I honestly can’t say, to my shame. It must be 25 years since I saw that. I vaguely remember it being fun in a disaster-movie-ish, killing-off-the-B-list sort of way.
#18 by PB210 on October 7, 2011 - 8:13 pm
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The short story that this film adapts (or another story the same series with Leiningen versus the Ants by Carl Stephenson) appears in the recent reprint anthology The Big Book of Adventure Stories.
http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/37105/Big-Book-of-Adventure-Stories
The anthology also features short stories or novels with The Cisco Kid;
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle; Bulldog Drummond; Tarzan; The Scarlet Pimpernel; Conan the Barbarian; Hopalong Cassidy; Zorro; Peter the Brazen, Allan Quatermain, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Richard Hannay, Buck Rogers, Beau Geste (not sure about this one) and The Spider (Richard Wentworth).
#19 by lyzard on October 12, 2011 - 1:57 am
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Jose Johnson is right!
Took a re-look at Elephant Walk today – definitely just of the “exciting climax” school, despite much ominous elephant presence. It actually plays like a cross between The Naked Jungle and The Rains Came, although not as good as either, while Peter Finch’s daddy issues make Charlton Heston’s sexual hang-ups seem like a harmless quirk. I did like the way the elephants basically ignored the humans in their desperation to get to the water, though. (Except for the individual that deliberately knocked a lit lamp onto some spilled kerosene – there’s always one, isn’t there??)
#20 by RogerBW on October 12, 2011 - 5:48 pm
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The kerosene thing is gloriously sent up in Tucker and Dale vs Evil – I recommend it highly to any fan of bad films, since the makers have clearly watched an awful lot of spam-in-a-cabin pictures yet it comes from a place of love.