The Monolith Monsters (1957)

"The Monolith Monsters" was another of the low budget little Sci-Fi/Horror films turned out by Universal in the 1950s.This one is about a meteor crashing in the desert leaving a number of fragments scattered about. Geologist Ben Gilbert (Phil Harvey) stops among the fragments to add water to his car's radiator and takes along a meteor fragment for analysis.Back at the office, the fragment becomes wet with water and begins a reaction. The next day Gilbert's boss Dave Miller (Grant Williams) finds Gilbert essentially turned to stone with the fluids drained from his body. An autopsy by local doctor Reynolds (Richard H. Cutting) finds nothing. Newspaper man Martin Cochrane (Les Tremayne) wants to report the incident but is cautioned not to.Meanwhile on a school excursion on the desert, a little girl Ginnie Simpson (Linda Scheley), picks up a fragment to take home. Ginnie's teacher Cathy Barrett (Lola Albright) becomes alarmed when she learns of Gilbert's fate. Dave and Police Chief Dan Corey (William Flaherty) learn of this, they go immediately to the little girl's home. They find the girl's parents petrified and their farm in shambles with several more meteor fragments in evidence. Ginnie has survived but is in shock.Dr. Reynolds refers Dave, Cathy and Ginnie to Dr. Steve Hendricks (Harry Jackson) who discovers that Ginnie has begun to turn to stone. He feverishly tries to save her. In the meantime, Dave consults with his old professor, Flanders (Trevor Bardette) to try to find the cause of the trouble. They discover that the meteor and it's fragments grow to an astronomical size when exposed to water.Just then, as luck would have it, a thunder storm breaks out and.................................Most of the "horror" scenes are in the final quarter of the film. The first three quarters is spent trying to find out what is going on. I didn't find the monolith monsters all that scary although the premise of them rolling over the town suggests more horror than it shows.Grant Williams in his follow up to "The Incredible Shrinking Man" the previous year is nothing more than a card board hero this time around. Lola Albright would find fame as Peter Gunn's girl Friday in the TV series of the same name. Les Tremayne was a noted radio actor and voice over narrator. And watch for youthful Paul Peterson (as a paper boy), Troy Donahue and William Schallert in small unbilled parts.

This is a better 50s sci-fi movie, interesting plot, fast-paced and well-acted. The science is very questionable, especially the function of silicon in the human body (which is none), but in the 50s a lot of such theories were thrown around. Now the setting might be conventional, an isolated desert town, but the threat is different from most other sci-fi. I would have liked to see the crystals have some consciousness, after all they are called monsters, but that's a minor issue. I liked the way scientists, police and journalists worked together without stereotyping. Lola Albright is gorgeous. In the first scenes she wore pants, unusual for 50s movies!

Yes, it's another sci-fi flick from the '50s. "The Monolith Monsters" is about a meteor that crashes in the California desert, and pieces of it get exposed to water and grow to the size of buildings, threatening a nearby town. The characters in "2001: A Space Odyssey" never had to deal with these sorts of monoliths!* As is pretty much always the case with '50s sci-fi flicks, the whole thing is very enjoyable, although I did occasionally take the time to throw out the kinds of comments that the characters on "Mystery Science Theater 3000" make. An interesting thing about this movie is that there's a family named Simpson, and a character named Flanders.Anyway, good times.*Once while taking a course about Stanley Kubrick's movies, I thought of something: the word monolith in Greek means "one stone", which is also what Einstein means.

The Monolith Monsters starts as a meteorite crash lands near the desert town of San Angelo & shatters sending shards of black rock everywhere, the next morning & geologist Ben Gilbert (Phil Harvey) pick a piece of it up & takes it back to his laboratory to examine it. Later that night the wind knocks over a beaker of water which lands on the fragment of rock which then starts to grow. Ben's partner Dave Miller (Grant Williams) finds the laboratory wrecked with pieces of the rock everywhere & Ben dead, stiff as a board. Trying to work out what killed Ben leads Dave to discover that the rock is activated by water & grows to enormous heights until it cannot support itself & falls over & shatters in a thousand pieces each of which then also grow in a never ending cycle, then suddenly Dave realises that it's raining outside & all the other pieces of the meteorite start to grow & advance towards the town crushing everything in their way...Directed by John Sherwood this was yet another Universal monster film from the 50's that they churned out, to be fair to Universal they usually produced decent films & The Monolith Monsters is no exception thanks to a unique alien threat even if the basic story doesn't deviate too much from the stand small town comes under attack from some sort of alien or monster scenario. I must admit that I love the concept of the alien rock that simply grows like a skyscraper until it topples over & shatters in hundreds of shards each of which then goes through the same process as the alien rock just multiplies & engulfs anything that gets in it's way. It's a great idea, sure there's still some subplot about how it causes people to turn to stone by sucking the silicone out of them but otherwise The Monolith Monsters avoids the usual men in rubber monster suits & dopey science although some of the dialogue between Miller & the Professor is a bit dry & doesn't entirely convince. Once again The Monolith Monsters is a real product of it's time, it's amazing how polite & helpful everyone is here with a real post war community spirit where all the young kids in town decide to help out by delivering warning posters, the army, politicians, Doctor's & scientists all work together seamlessly without any arguments & even the local reporter decides not to cash-in on the story & keep it under wraps to avoid a panic. It feels a little naive when seen today but it's not a huge problem. At a brisk 77 minutes the plot takes no longer than it needs to & it moves along at a decent pace, the climax is a little rushed & everything works a little too well but the ending still works.With no aliens or monsters the special effects people had to somehow create huge rock formations that grow, fall over & shatter & start all over again & they do a fine job with some good model work & effects. The iconic scene of the huge monolith crashing to the ground & destroying the farm is still quite an impressive special effect. Less effective is the dam being blown up & the subsequent stock footage of gushing water. Apparently originally released by Universal as a double feature with Love Slaves of the Amazons (1957), the footage of the meteorite crashing during the opening sequence was taken from It Came from Outer Space (1953) which Universal made four years earlier.Probably shot on a low budget the makers did the best they could with decent production values & surprisingly good model effects work. Mainly shot on the back-lot at Universal studios like most of these sorts of films were. The acting is alright, it always seems a little wooden to me in these quick & cheap 50's sci-fi films but no-one really embarrasses themselves.The Monolith Monsters is an enjoyable slice of 50's sci-fi horror with a great central concept & some impressive effects work, for the time anyway. You could do a lot worse than spend an hour & a quarter watching this.