Monster of the Day #3363

Updated on March 23, 2023 By Ken Begg 10 Comments

Bert I Gordon wrapped up his streak of six films released in two years with 1958’s The Spider (aka Earth vs the Spider, as it was known to us young TV viewers back in the day). This is my favorite of Mr. Gordon’s movies. Indeed, as I have noted in the past, I like it rather more than Universal’s pricier and rather more revered Tarantula. I understand that’s a, to say the least, minority position. However, I’ve always disliked side plots as a general rule, and the scientists infected with acromegalia thing leaves me sort of impatient. (On the other hand, Tarantula did costar Mara Corday, so….)

So let me prefer the stripped-down big bug hijinks of The Spider. The cast isn’t nearly as well known—John Agar, having recently starred in Mr. Gordon’s Attack of the Puppet People, had gone back to Universal for Tarantula—but it does sport Hank Patterson, Mr. Ziffel from Green Acres. Plus there’s that great scene where the apparently dead humongous arachnid is apparently brought back to life by some bad ‘50s rock ‘n roll.

Once again, Mr. Gordon’s special effects have taken a step forward. He’s a long way from King Dinosaur here. The spider effects are quite good, and again I think at least in the ballpark with the studio-made Tarantula. Probably the only somewhat bad ‘effect’ is the obviously doctored net used as the giant spider web. And really, I’m not sure what they could have done to improve that.

Meanwhile, there are de-juiced corpses and skeletons and a spooky cave and other atmospheric stuff. Like many independent productions it was at least a bit more gruesome than its big studio counterpart. Plus, the way they kill the monster is niftier than the “blown up by planes” climax of Tarantula. And Mr. Gordon’s spider rampages through town, rather than hovering menacingly on its outskirts.

The one miscue? And admittedly, it’s a major one. The fact that the spider screeches throughout. It’s dumb and annoying.

It’s also got one of Mr. Gordon’s little inside jokes, as the town theater sports a poster for The Amazing Colossal Man. At the time, with few people really tracking the seemingly disposable output of someone like Bert I Gordon movie to movie, that was a little slyer than it probably seems now.

Following this, and with the market winds shifting, Mr. Gordon took a well-earned break. It would be several years after that before he returned to monster-related flicks.

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  • Beckoning Chasm

    Is this the one where he also references Attack of the Puppet People? Some teen is trying to date some other teen and he mentions the theater just got “some wild film about Puppet People.”

  • I also like the fact that the sheriff and town authorities actually have pretty reasonable reactions to the giant spider: they laugh at first, but they take the missing person report seriously enough to send a search party, then when the spider’s confirmed they just get as much DDT as possible and gas it to hell. Then the sheriff *wants* to seal it up in the cave to be safe, and then in the end, after the rampage, they do so: a nicely pragmatic and direct way of solving the problem, which only causes trouble because of something they couldn’t have known about. And even the science teacher’s argument for preserving the ‘dead’ spider makes sense: we probably need to figure out *why* it got so big (something that, as I recall, is never answered).

    So, not brilliant stuff, but there’s some thought going on. More so than a lot of films today.

  • 🐻 bgbear_rnh

    I do like the transition of the sheriff as well, good ol’ Gene Roth*sell it. I believe Alan Hale had Gene in mind when he did “Giant Spider Invasion”.

    * Not to be confused with Merritt Stone who checked out of the film in the first scene

  • Rock Baker

    Yes, the theater owner’s son wants to check out the new feature his Pop just got in.

  • Rock Baker

    Mara Corday is nice and all, but this movie boasts both Sally Fraser and June Kenny -my personal votes for sexiest women to ever live.

    Interestingly, Mr. and Mrs. Kingman are Ed Kemmer and Sally Fraser, who has recently been the romantic leads of GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN. Their parts here are practically extensions of those they had earlier played, as if we were able to catch up with them shortly after the events of the previous film.

    Fun irony is that both this and TARANTULA feature Hank Patterson. Gene Roth, meanwhile, is another sheriff similar to the one he plays in THE GIANT LEECHES. And lest we forget, Ed Kemmer was Buzz Cory himself. Gives it all a warm, familiar feeling, doesn’t it?

    Gordon’s films from this era are all pretty neat, but this one has to be my favorite. In fact, I’d go so far as to call it the most emblematic of 50’s monster movies.

  • This is a better picture that Tarantula, if for no other reason it doesn’t have a freaking pointless mystery running its course. “Oh look! A pool of venom! Whatever could have caused this?” I don’t know, maybe the giant spider the audience keeps seeing running around. I swear to God the biggest mistake any genre movie can make is keeping the protagonist steps behind the audience. It makes them look stupid and it’s hard to care if they live or die.

  • Beckoning Chasm

    They’re all following the “Them!” formula. That movie was presented as mystery. “Who killed these people? What’s that noise? Why this, how come that?”

    But “Them!” was the only giant monster movie that did NOT name the monster in the title (although Beginning of the End also didn’t). So, yeah, the others made the characters seem rather dim.

  • 🐻 bgbear_rnh

    IIRC, the monkey is scarier than the spider in Tarantula.

  • Eric Hinkle

    I also wondered why, if the scientists in “Tarantula” were super-sizing animals to provide an improved food source for humanity, they decided to do it to a tarantula as well. What, were they going to pitch it as a substitute for lobster? Eight meaty legs at every dinner?

  • You see the ants in Them right when the characters do. There’s never a moment where the audience has positive confirmation of what’s going on (ignoring the movie posters.)

    In Tarantula, you spend most of the film waiting for someone to realize there’s a monster loose. It’s incredibly irritating. I also have a problem The Beast from 20000 Fathoms. It takes FOREVER before the gears stop grinding and things move forward. But at least in Beast‘s case it’s not the whole film.