Monster of the Day

After the frenzy of releasing six special effects-driven movies in two years, Bert I Gordon actually took a year off. In 1960 his work returned to the screen, via the kiddie movie (and his first color film) The Boy and the Pirates. We actually watched that on an Amazon Watch Party several months back.…

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…

Mr BIG returned to form with his one sequel, War of the Colossal Beast, sort of a mash-up of Amazing Colossal Man and The Cyclops. There's a really good remastered copy on YouTube, for those who want to give it a look. Clocking in at a lean 69 minutes (including flashbacks from the first…

Following The Amazing Colossal Man, Mr. BIG switched things up (sorta) by putting out a movie about smallified people rather than embiggoned ones. However, as this follows the path set down by Dr. Cyclops, it also features the doll-sized folk being menaced by a (comparatively) gigantic regular man and dog. Therefore, the difference is…

Back to Bert I Gordon tomorrow. Actually, I was planning to substitute Magic Sword for the Watch Party last Friday, in honor of Mr. Gordon. However, I checked the print on Amazon Prime and it was awful. So back to the long delayed Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf. And great timing, because…

Glenn Manning: The most relatable giant monster ever. The Amazing Colossal Man, the third Bert I Gordon movie to be released in 1957 (followed by three more in 1958), represents a, well, colossal leap forward quality-wise when compared to his earlier efforts King Dinosaur, The Cyclops and Beginning of the End. It’s certainly not…

Oops, posted this early. Oh, well. Bert I Gordon immediately followed up Beginning of the End with The Cyclops, which in retrospect looks like a run up for both The Amazing Colossal Man and, even more so, it's sequel. He also continued to work with solid, if often down on their luck, name actors…

For whatever reason (hopefully Tom Weaver or somebody had done a really good in-depth interview with Mr. Gordon), Bert I Gordon took a year or two off after releasing King Dinosaur. Maybe he just learned a bunch of lessons, as I don’t think he ever made anything quite that silly again. Which, admittedly, left…

Bert I Gordon (aka Mr. BIG) worked the giant monster genre like few others. Although some of his films have their good qualities, the fact is that many of them are poorly written and with substandard special effects. That said, and this must always be acknowledged, making films, especially back in the day and…