The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956)

As cowboys vs. dinosaurs movies go, "The Beast of Hollow Mountain" isn't all that bad. While not as interesting nor as well done as its spiritual descendant, "The Valley of Gwangi" (both originated from an idea of Willis O'Brien's), BHM has surprisingly good colour cinematography as well as a good script and reasonable acting. Of course, the centerpiece is the Mexican-munching allosaurus. The special effects here are erratic: some of the walking scenes are very good (for the era) but the big rubber feet undo much of the movie magic and the size of the Beast's tongue seems to vary from scene. Overall: not a great film by any stretch, but watchable and enjoyable.

An American cowboy living in Mexico (Guy Madison) discovers his cattle is being eaten by a giant prehistoric dinosaur.What is most strange about this film is that the dinosaur aspect -- which is played up with the poster, title and such -- really is not all that important. The bulk of the film is not about missing cattle but Jimmy's relationship with a woman who is engaged to another man.The story could be good enough just like that -- a love triangle, with some multicultural stress thrown in. Jimmy is apparently the only American in the film, making him something of a stranger -- he is encroaching on Mexican soil and trying to "steal" a Mexican woman. Much could be said about American opinion of Mexican immigration and how it is reversed here, but I will not go there.The film ultimately comes up mediocre because it does not blend its fantasy and western aspects as smoothly as it could. Fantasy fans will be bored for much of the film. Western fans may enjoy it a bit more, seeing as it never strays from the genre until much later on.

I like dinosaur movies. I like The Valley of Gwangi. This is barely either. Sure it has a dinosaur. Sure it has cowboys. Sure it takes place in that land of prehistoric adventure(Mexico)(?) But let us not get too carried away here. First of all - for much of the film - absolutely nothing happens except for a rather lame fight between Guy Madison as an American rancher versus the wealthy Mexican rancher who loves pretty(and perky) Patricia Medina. I mean nothing happens. We do not even get a real hint of the dinosaur until forty-five minutes into the film when Pancho gets a formal dinner invitation. Do we see the dinosaur then? Oh no. It does not appear for another ten minutes and its screen time is definitely limited. The dinosaur is done with that lost art - stop motion animation. It is done okay for its time. in fact the denouement of the film was pretty cool with the quicksand and guy Madison on a rope. I also liked the scene with the dinosaur skidding down a cliff and trying to get Panchito and Medina in a cabin. If more had been done with this, the film would have been markedly improved. Notwithstanding all of that, the film was fairly entertaining despite its legion of flaws. The acting is over-the-top from Madison giving his best good-guy cowboy impression(whilst secretly lusting after another man's woman" to Pascaul Garcia Pena doing one of the drunkest buffoonish characters on screen. Medina is over-the-top too - but boy what a top to see! Her bulletted blouse nearly explodes! The Beast of Hollow Mountain is interesting for nothing else than seeing some early stop motion animation techniques used. the film could have used the dreadful "let's dress up a lizard" technique but chose not to. I see many comparing this to Harryhausen's Gwangi - truly. I see little similarities. That is a very good film. This one, is at best, okay.

Cowboys being the archetypal movie hero for many previous movie generations, it's surprising that no one even seemed to try to combine a "real" Western with a monster movie and done it "straight" before this. And no, I'm not counting tripe such as "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter" - gimmicky novelty movies wearing Western trappings." "Beast" plays fair with the audience of its day - it is a Western through and through and really is built around all the standard Western trappings of its time. And when the monster comes out to play in the final 20 minutes, it's a genuine surprise and gives the movie a badly needed jolt of energy.It's just too bad that the use of Western screenplay staples is so clichéd - except for the actual monster plot elements ("who is stealing or eating the cattle?"), nothing that any character says or does will surprise you in any way. And someone needed to throttle the soundtrack guy down a bit - it's simultaneously overbearing and overdone.And the special effects aren't all that great, although I can respect the amount of back breaking work that must have gone into using "replacement" animation for some of the dinosaur sequences(as opposed to the more well known stop motion techniques mastered by Harryhausen.) "Replacement animation" involves creating a new wax figure for each and every frame of the stop motion sequences (as opposed to just changing limb placement, expressions etc on several models) and it must have made such demands on the production budget that they could only use a very limited amount...and it still doesn't look very good to eyes accustomed to Harryhausen.A devoted fan of the Western genre (and Mexican movies) will probably like this movie more than I did...but I give it credit for trying something interesting and playing it straight instead for exploitation value. (All the exploitation is in the title, nowhere else in the film).