Fun Times With Ray Kellogg

The Killer Shrews (1959)
Directed by Ray Kellogg
Produced by Ken Curtis
Starring:
James Best as Thorne Sherman
Ingrid Goude as Ann Cragis
Baruch Lumet as Dr. Marlowe Cragis
Ken Curtis as Jerry Farrell
Gordon McLendon as Dr. Radford Baines

"Fun" films have their place, as do singing waiters and wall-to-wall carpeting. Call them light comedy, light romance, whatever; they don't manage to win many Oscars, but they sure make oodles of the green stuff. These are the films that stem the hemorrhage of red ink for studios whenever a "quality" film creates a lifeless void in theaters nationwide. These first daters create a safe, competent universe for all concerned; which is why a generically handsome fellow like Matthew McConaughey will work until his teeth fall out or he develops an allergic reaction to body waxing.

Identifying these films is easy, which is exactly as it is meant to be. The promotional artwork will have a pretty, thirtysomething couple laughing their asses off about some kooky circumstance - maybe a dog's leash has entwined their legs or, for reasons known only to them, they have pressed their foreheads together. The plot will find our couple thrown unwillingly together by some unavoidable, possibly madcap situation. The female lead will likely have a bohemian girlfriend who dresses like a 12-year old, but realizes love is afoot before either of the principals. Eventually, love will be proclaimed in a rainstorm or through the window of a taxicab. There will be one scene, minimum, near water.

A mutant shrew meets its maker. The Killer Shrews (1959)

Naturally, I am far too brooding and deep for this middling crap, you bet; yessiree. Yet, I can remember a post-sex, rainy, Saturday night spent with an ex-girlfriend, watching TV - me in a terrycloth bathrobe. She was wearing one of my largest sweaters, which hung down just above her knees. There was cold pizza from the night before. We watched Bridget Jones's Diary, laughing at the same moments. I was pretty certain I was in Heaven.

Be that as it may, when someone calls a sci-fi, creature feature from the atomic age a "fun film," I always feel the cloying tones of condescension. How this translates (often but not always) is that the movie - be it Mesa of Lost Women or Robot Monster - is only good for laughs. Since these films, unlike nearly every film featuring Hugh Grant, were not intended to be lighthearted, calling them "fun" means that the filmmakers, actors, producers, etc. have failed miserably. They have done worse than fail. The have become clowns to point at.

Yet, after recently watching a pair of Ray Kellogg films (The Killer Shrews and The Giant Gila Monster), my first thought was "that was fun." How to explain this hypocrisy? Permit me to try.

My explanation begins with a purely imagined sequence of human linkages, spanning years, forming a rickety chain of fired synapses across the membrane of Hollywood. The most prominent link in this chain, Director Ray Kellogg, was as an officer in the photographic branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS);1 during which time he met another cameraman/photographer - future director and god, John Ford. Like many servicemen trying to reintegrate into civilian life after wartime, Kellogg hoped his specialized military training would earn him a living in the private sector. Thus, he applied himself to Hollywood, where he eventually became head of the Special Effects Unit at 20th Century Fox. His credits with Fox include a long list of A pictures (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; The Seven Year Itch; Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison; and many more).

Our second principal player, Ken Curtis (co-producer of both Shrews and Gila), is best remember for playing Festus Haggen in television's Gunsmoke. Curtis began his career, however, as a singer. He was vocalist for the Tommy Dorsey Band in the 1940s but seemed to truly find his vocal niche as a member of Sons of the Pioneers from 1949 to 1953.2

After making a series of singing cowboy pictures for Columbia, his craggy, "western" face and natural twang (Curtis was raised in Las Animas, Colorado) caught the attention of John Ford, who cast him in several major films, including The Searchers, The Horse Soldiers, The Alamo, and How The West Was Won (although he didn't need the help, it certainly couldn't have hurt that Curtis was Ford's son-in-law by his first marriage).

Now comes the fun part.

The common element - in fact the single common element - between Ray Kellogg (director) and Ken Curtis (producer) is film legend, John Ford. Without a shred of corroborative evidence, let me suggest the following scenario circa 1955-56: Special effects man, Ray Kellogg, who has been stifling an itch to direct movies, has a couple film projects in mind and goes fishing for financial backing. He then contacts his old OSS pal, John Ford, who has, by the mid-1950s, become a top-tier director - an actual "living legend." Ford, for whatever reason, gives Kellogg a pass but suggests an actor of his acquaintance who might be receptive - his young son-in-law, Ken Curtis. Because of his singing background Curtis, in turn, knows a fairly rich, very eccentric radio station owner in Texas named Gordon McLendon3 who just might open his considerable wallet for a couple of sci-fi quickies with a chance to act thrown into the bargain (McLendon and Curtis both have major parts in Shrews). Viola!

Wasn't that fun? And not that hard to imagine, either. Normally, this kind of Hollywood synchronicity occurs from talents sharing work on films, but Kellogg and Curtis don't have any films in common. Thus the Ford connection becomes more viable.

Cast: James Best, Ken Curtis, Baruch Lumet, Gordon McLendon, and Ingrid Goude

This director/producer team of Kellogg and Curtis, despite both having impressive A-List credentials, combined forces to make two films in one year - both filmed in Texas and both astonishingly shoddy, earnest, low budget affairs. The Killer Shrews was made for $123,0004 which, even by B-movie standards of the era, is exceptionally sparse. The Giant Gila Monster, though more costly - was still parsimonious, coming in at a stingy $138,000.5 While certainly no fun for the actors (star of Shrews, James Best, remembers helping paint the slap-dash sets immediately before shooting scenes during a kamikaze, six-day shooting schedule. "You couldn't touch the set because you'd get paint on your hands."6 ), lovers of B-movies know that a shoe-string budget is the essential building block in constructing the movie moments we treasure. A huge, blockbuster budget effectively eliminates the chances for our kind of pure love.

More fun points: First: Both Shrews and Gila have a surreal edge of lunacy, produced by a heady combination of marginal acting, slap-dash production, interesting story concept, wretched casting; and (most importantly) enough off-kilter moments wherein, inexplicably, it all fits together and works. Secondly, each film takes itself completely - even grimly - seriously (no dreaded tongue-in-cheek). All actors concerned, even the ones who can't act; are completely committed, enthusiastic, and appear to be having a ball. Thirdly - each film contains a very unique, Kellogg universe that is completely unreal yet utterly consistent (which makes the world of each film magical).

Let's consider The Killer Shrews first. Despite costing roughly $15,000 less, Shrews is a better picture than its double-feature sibling, Gila (whom we well get to next post). Though certainly possessing its own charm, Gila lacks Shrews occasionally fine monster effects and frequently fine action sequences. It also lacks James Best who, more than anything else, makes Shrews memorable.

Shrews begins (as does Gila) with narration - a voice full of über doom: "Those that hunt by night will tell you that the wildest and most vicious of all animals is the tiny shrew." Let's pause things right there. I will have to admit, this made me snort. First off all, who hunts by night except frog giggers and alligator poachers? Deer night hunting, for instance, seems a venture fraught with comical danger few could expect to survive. And speaking of "those that hunt by night," I've known a few alligator poachers, living in south Florida as I do. When discussing the dangers inherent in capturing or killing alligators in the dark of night (other than the prehistoric beasts themselves), I've never heard them rate shrews all that high. Water Moccasins and feral hogs, yes. Shrews, no.7

The narration continues, describing the horror of the shrew: how they must eat their own body weight every few hours or starve, how they eat everything of their prey, bones, hair, etc. All laughably dramatic. But, hey! After doing a little research, it turns out that shrews are surprisingly hideous.

They are, for a start, the only mammals that have venom in their bite. That's right, chuckles, they're poisonous. Hell, the ancient Greeks thought them nasty enough to be considered evil by their nature. No less a personage than Aristotle wrote of them with obvious repulsion ("The bite is more dangerous if the shrew is pregnant when it bites; for then the blisters burst"8). Sure, they're not going to cause my 'gator-poaching pals, wading the fringes of Florida's swamps with their crossbows and knee-high snake boots, much concern - but still, with their needle snouts and bristling, toxic teeth; they sure are creepy, little bastards. And, yes, because of their high metabolism, they eat, eat, eat.

Still, as the monster choice for a creature-feature, the concept remains edgy, somehow slightly loony - maybe even ballsy. The principals must have known the very phrase "killer shrews" would produce laughs (I admit the first time I heard the title I thought it was a parody of 1950s sci-fi). Yet Kellogg and company proceed with gritty confidence, sure in their ability to turn this tiny leave-rustler into a symbol of terror. And amazingly, that's just what we find. Despite rudimentary, sometimes awful special effects (which we'll get to in a bit) and a six-day shooting schedule that must have found actors stuffing down sandwiches between scenes, the film manages to deliver some skin-crawling moments.

The film in nutshell: Charter boat captain Thorne Sherman (James Best) and his black sidekick and first mate, Rook (J.H. DuPree), arrive on a small island off the Gulf Coast, delivering supplies to a Dr. Marlowe Cragis (Baruch Lumet9). After their arrival, the doctor is unusually insistent that the pair drop off the supplies quickly and leave. The doctor also insists that they take his beautiful, somehow very Swedish daughter (Ingrid Goude), with him (actor Baruch Lumet, Ingrid's Father, speaks with a very heavy Eastern European accent). Sherman cannot leave the island, however, as a hurricane is rolling in.

Sherman eventually stays at the Cragis home for the duration of the storm and meets the rest of the scientific team working with Dr. Cragis: Dr. Jerry Ferrell (Ken Curtis) Cragis' scowling, unhappy lab assistant; Dr. Radford Baines (Gordon McLendon), a dedicated scientist complete with and thick horn-rims; and Mario (Alfred DeSoto), the Mexican hired hand.

Via Captain Sherman we quickly learn that this small cast are the sole citizens of the little island - all players revolving around the experiments of Dr. Cragis. Like Dr. Moreau before him, Dr. Cragis has found refuge on a small tropical island so that he may conduct his insane experiments in privacy, without the prying eyes and of society. Also like Moreau, Cragis' has become obsessed with the possibilities of genetic engineering. Cragis is determined to solve the problem of overpopulation which, the doctor is convinced, will soon lead to the extermination of the human race through suffering, starvation; and the horrible strife caused by dwindling recourses. Dr. Cragis' solution is to engineer a smaller human race. That's right - make humans dinky-sized (perhaps a foot or two high) so that as a species we will need just a fraction of the food and resources we consume at our traditional jumbo size.

Afternoon cocktails before the storm. (James Best, Ingrid Goude, and Baruch Lumet)

Thinking this theory through is one of the delights of this movie: To bring Dr. Cragis' dream of a pint-sized world to fruition, the entire full-sized world would have to be re-tooled. Tiny factories would have to be built to turn out the new, tiny cars required by the new, tiny human race. Everything would have to be made to scale, of course: clothes, light bulbs, toothpicks, condoms. Imagining further, would we then be able to ride dogs like horses? Would we leave our tiny homes, always looking overhead for swooping eagles or hawks? Would deer be the new elephants?

The kink in Dr. Cragis' mad scheme (or at least the kink other than marauding owls and gangs of killer, feral cats) is that as the human race becomes smaller, their metabolism would quicken; and thus life expectancies would shrink accordingly. Humans would live only 13 to 16 years. To remedy this, Cragis has been experimenting with the tiny shrew which, because of their frantic metabolism and their speedy gestation period, are the perfect specimen for his ungodly experiments. The doctor and his team are manipulating shrew DNA, making them larger. As the experimental shrews get larger, their metabolism slows down. In studying this, the doctor hopes to find a genetic key that will help him maintain a steady metabolism in his future race of human runts.

As one might expect, the doctor's experiments have gone hideously wrong. A small test group of shrews has developed a mutation, allowing them to grow at alarming rates and, also quite naturally, two of the mutations have escaped the laboratory and have been busily mating out in the scrubby forest of the small island. With a gestation period of 14 days or so, the island has quickly become infested with shrews weighing 50 to 100 pounds feeding primarily at night. The small enclave has become an armed camp with all inhabitants fraying badly at the edges. Daughter Ann has become a jittery, hand-wringing bundle of nerves; leaping like a cat every time a door is slammed. Research scientist, Farrell, has gone - well - feral - drinking heavily and carrying both a shotgun and a shitty attitude with him at all times (it hasn't helped at all that his romance with the doctor's daughter has hit the skids thanks to the arrival of the captain). The hulking nerd, Dr. Baines, has gone so deeply into his research any outside stimulus (like the coming of a hurricane, for example) leaves him blinking stupidly; and even chief scientist, Dr. Cragis, seems to have gone squirrely - a bit shrew obsessed. Continually smoking his pipe, the doctor's eyes all but glitter when describing the bone-chomping, hyperactive feeding frenzy of an adult shrew (which he does several times, often leaving his daughter in a state of near-faint). In essence, Captain Sherman has entered a familiar haunted house theme, with all participants warped by their confines; and the giant shrews cast as the evil spirits.

And the shrews are both multiplying and starving. They have eaten all the food on the island and have become desperate, bold. No longer strictly nocturnal, as is their nature, they have begun coming out during the daylight to hunt. Doctor Cragis predicts that the shrews, because of their aggressive cannibalistic nature, will eat themselves up within 48 hours. All the small group need do is wait them out. But Captain Sherman realizes that they haven't got that luxury. The coming hurricane will saturate the porous, adobe material of the camp's walls, allowing the frenzied shrews to gnaw and claw their way in. Quickly establishing himself as team leader, Sherman realizes he must somehow get them all back to his boat before the shrew dinner bell rings.

While Captain Sherman is busy establishing the plot and various conflicts ( and flirting over drinks with the mad doctor's foxy daughter), Rook - the black second mate, has been killed by the swarming killer shrews. Rook's early death is important to establish the fever pitch of the starved shrews, yet hardly surprising. His death, in fact, was a foregone conclusion. As a doomed character, he has it all. He is, first and foremost, a black sidekick. This places him in some very deep shit from the get go. Further he is jovial, slightly overweight; and has a relaxed, friendly relationship with his boss, Captain Sherman. The moment we see actor, Judge DuPree, in the movie's first scene, grinning broadly and joshing his boss about some point of navigation, we know he's a dead man. Had the black character of Rook been more serious, perhaps even angry, he might have survived until late in the picture, dying in some redemptive act of self sacrifice. As it is, the hapless, likable Rook is the first to go; attacked while securing the ship for the coming hurricane. With shrews in saliva-slinging pursuit, he goes squealing into the woods of the island in hysterics. He eventually gets treed by the huge, slavering shrews but proves too heavy. His girth snaps a limb and he plops out of the tree like a fat possum, howling all the way. Our Mexican servant, Mario, fares better, but not by much. He is able to hang on till mid-picture, earnestly nodding his head subserviently throughout; and he dies without much fuss, strictly so that the shrews' enhanced poisonous bite can be established.

Eventually, Sherman is able to concoct a supremely unsophisticated but clumsily effective method of leaving the camp and getting the surviving players to the boat; and thus to safety (The captain's raw-boned solution is part of what makes this movie so much fun and will be covered in a bit). The final scene finds our survivors drenched but safe on deck. As the end credits roll, the captain claims the sexy spoils, which in this case is the mad doctor's blonde daughter, who is soaking wet for good measure.

With that, let's get to the good stuff.

The Good Stuff, Part 1: The Furry Dogs

We might as well begin with the obvious: the shrews. In everything I've read about this movie (and there is a surprising amount written), every review describes the shrews as "fur covered dogs," sometimes "dogs covered in carpeting." I wanted so badly to find a different way to describe them, but it was like trying to describe an elephant riding a unicycle without using the words "elephant" or "unicycle." So, yes, these are dogs wearing some sort of fur coat, a long costume tail, and toothy snout-gear. Any fool can see that, particularly when the shrews move or run. When moving, they are nothing but dog, and the shrew illusion becomes challenging. What is often not appreciated, however, is how chilling the effect can be, particularly when mixing the live dogs with shots of jittering, snaggle-toothed hand puppets shot in a cinéma vérité style (probably by accident and long before the technique fell into a trite cliché). Certainly, if one is of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 ilk, then the dog costumes may be snorted over. But screw MST3K10 and the horse they rode in on. Scenes of the teeth-chattering, beady-eyed shrews - chewing the space between fence slats and peering through knot holes - gave me the whim-wams. And one scene in particular - wherein a shrew bursts into a room and chomps a leg - made me jump twice (once in the first viewing and again when searching for screen shots). That's a pretty good batting average; considering recent, pricey torture porn like the Saw franchise makes me doze off like grandpa in front of the fireplace.

Captain Thorne Sherman (James Best) - The Killer Shrews (1959)

The Good Stuff, Part II: James Best

Modern audiences will recall Best most fondly for his work in Dukes of Hazzard, where he played the buffoon sheriff, Roscoe Coltrane. I can't help but think of this as a shame only because the role crudely exaggerated and simplified the kind of character Best specialized in: a down-home, very likable southern boy - friendly and smiling - yet prickly in his manners, a bit defensive and quick to take offense; particularly around city folks or money.

He has given brilliant performances. I thought him dead on as the giggling outlaw, Billy John, in Bud Boetticher's Ride Lonesome; where his gangly, lethal energy was the perfect compliment to Randolph Scott's austere man of leather. Whenever I think of Best, however, I think of him playing the cocky, guitar-slinging hick, Jim Lindsey, who appeared in a couple of gem episodes of The Andy Griffith Show (a show that gave rural or southern "types" insightful expression ).

Without Best, Shrews might disintegrate into the nondescript. His Captain Sherman is a very unusual creation in a genre that favors heroes as either poetic scientists or square-jawed men of action - or often working both types together as a team, ala Forbidden Planet.11 In Shrews, Best is neither archtype. He's too intense and haughty to be dreamy and, while handsome, his jaw appears delicate as bone china.

Bests' lowly boat mercenary behaves like a scion of a southern aristocracy who has lost everything two generations passed through unspeakable scandal. Imagining a back-story, Thorne was surely abandoned by a weak father and raised by a mother in denial of her families' fall, complaining constantly about the help at the rooming house. Selling the family jewels and striking out at first opportunity, young Thorne managed to buy a used charter boat by way of earning a living.

He's edgy, quick to flare at the slightest offense, stiff and formal in a way hardly in keeping with his circumstances: "I would be glad to accept," he says when the doctor offers a drink. All this makes Best's hero highly watchable and unlike any other hero in B-movies. He becomes the camp leader by will and intelligence rather than macho intimidation. If anything, I found myself hoping the two male rivals wouldn't get into a fight as the raw-boned Farrell (Ken Curtis terribly miscast as a scientist) seems easily able to kick the shit out of our fragile, overly-sensitive captain (although the movie has it otherwise).

And, not for nothing, Best was/is a fine actor. His acting, in fact, carries the film. When he reports that his friend, Rook, is dead in his tense, angry voice, the moment seems real and touching - even subtle; and his distaste of the crude, cruel Farrell is palpable and believable.

The Good Stuff, Part III: Hypnagogic, B-Movie Moments

Shrews is full of moments the seem nearly dreamlike - scenes and images which skitter along the surface of some reality nearly our own.

Example 1: Former Miss Sweden, Ingrid Goude, in medium shot in scene after scene, emoting dramatically to horrible events happening off camera; her markup and hair perfect, amid sets of plywood and broken adobe. Ms. Goude was, in 1959, a stunning woman, but with her marked Swedish accent and goddess-like face, she appears here like some Nordic sex-angel mistakenly assigned a lowly, tropic outpost.

Example 2: There is a scene in the early going - Doctor Cragis, Captain Sherman, and Ann having "cocktails" over a crowded "liquor cabinet". Something seems terribly wrong about this moment, which was surely supposed to show the doctor and daughter as cosmopolitan sophisticates. It takes a minute to realize that none of the details of the set are remotely well done, to say the least. The walls are stained and cracked, the curtains which cover the windows in the corner of the shot are dirty, frayed, and rumbled. The mirror that hangs behind the bar has a cracked frame - even the liquor cabinet is a remarkably cheap affair - a plywood paneled piece on casters, wheeled into the corner for the scene and covered with a cramped array of bottles and an ice bucket.

And the longer one looks, the worse it gets. Whenever the camera pans the room, one sees wildly miss-matched furniture. A writing table has both wicker-seated chairs and a picnic table bench positioned around it. An overstuffed chair has ratty upholstery, and linoleum covers parts of the floor where other parts are left bare, etc. All this is made the more surreal by Ingrid Goude's elegant manner and pearls, sipping her mixed drink from a martini glass.

What makes this so brain boggling is that director, Ray Kellogg, was the special effects man that gave The Day The Earth Stood Still its high-toned, expensive polish. What the fuck was he thinking here? Lord have mercy, even Edward D. Wood, Jr., certainly no stickler for set detail by a wide margin, often managed more consistent and realistic environs for his actors.

Granted, Kellogg was hogtied hand and foot for cash, but still one has to wonder what this big-studio professional thought as he watched the daily rushes (if he even did). Was he sickened by the cheapness? Disheartened? Did he feel as though he was sliding down the side of Hollywood Hills into the slimy pits of forgotten talent?

Or perhaps, just perhaps, he enjoyed doing a quickie for money. Doing his best as circumstances would allow, surely, but absolutely loving not sweating those fussy details that mark an A picture. Why not imagine he enjoyed himself? After all, to paraphrase Milton, might Kellogg not have preferred to rule in squalor that serve in class? There is something in the freewheeling, imaginative nature of the film that suggests so. At any rate, it's as good an explanation as any and certainly more fun than the alternatives. Let's not forget, if a quickie for money was the order of the day, Kellogg hit a home run here. Shrews cost twenty-three grand to make and grossed a million bucks at the box office in US ticket sales alone.12 I choose to believe Kellogg enjoyed the holy hell out of making this film. After all, he turned out another equally brisk, shoe-string production in the same year - The Giant Gila Monster! How much fun can one guy have?

The Good Stuff, Part IV: Tense Action and Low-Tech Finale

Kellogg didn't seem much interested in directed actors, whom he left to their own devices (this is particularly true of the beautiful Ms. Goude, whom he let flounder in choppy waters without once offering a life preserver), and I'm betting second takes were extremely rare; but Kellogg did have a flair for claustrophobic action. In several scenes near the end, as the storm is building and the shrews gnaw and claw their way through the adobe walls, he manages to crank the tension nicely.

And the ending has a real low tech charm all its own.

As the film speeds to finale, the shrews have managed to claw and bite their way through the walls, and are overrunning the house. Captain Sherman and the three survivors (The doctor, his daughter, and the nefarious Jerry) flee the house into the camp's courtyard and frantically scrounge for debris to block the door, hoping to trap the shrews in the house long enough to permit a scramble to the roof for a last stand. While gathering together old crates and wood for an impromptu barricade, Sherman comes across some old, empty metal chemical containers. It's a eureka moment.

The "Sherman Tank" marches toward the sea - The Killer Shrews (1959)

"Doctor," he says, "we can use these old chemical drums as individual tanks!" Sherman demonstrates by scrambling under and inside a tank, crouching tightly. "See?" he says form inside the tank. Seized by inspiration, the captain empties three other drums, straps them together with rope, and cuts sight slits into each drum with a conveniently found acetylene torch. "Look, it's going to be rough," he says to the others, "but we should be able to duck-walk to the beach."

Granted, this isn't exactly the heroic rallying cry to action generally given when dynamic hero saves the cinematic day, and all concerned seem barely willing. Jerry, in fact, takes a pass on crouching in the rusty, heavy contraption and decides to take his chances on the roof with his trusty shotgun (Jerry, being an ass hole, dies a bit later - squealing under a pile of shrews, his legs straight up in the air).

Forging ahead, the three just manage to get the thing tilted on it's side. "Ok, doctor," says a panting Sherman, indicating that the doc should crawl inside a tank. "uh huh," says the doctor, equally breathless and without enthusiasm, bowing his head and crawling inside.

And, just as Sherman as promised, the passage to the beach is rough. We see the three pouring sweat in their cramped drums, gasping for breath as they duck-walk each grueling foot - holding the massive tanks inches off the uneven ground. The shrews swarm the tanks, slashing with tooth and claw at the thin slits, as the intrepid party inch their way along. We see Ann scream several times as the shrews thrust their heads under the bottom of the tank, trying to get inside. The crew even has to take a rest stop, as Ann comes close to fainting from the exertion. Finally at the beach, all nearly drown as they have to wade into the water until the level inside the tanks rises to their chins. They all manage to crawl under the tanks and swim for the boat, which is anchored 50 or so yards offshore.

Captain Sherman and survivors - gazing back. The Killer Shrews (1959)

A slam-bang, action-packed finish, this isn't. No atomic device is rigged, turning Shrew Island into a mushroom cloud. No incendiary weapon is created with aerosol cans, shards of flint, and petrol by which our captain can scorch a flaming trail down to the ship; and no grid of electricity is engineered from chicken wire and a generator. Nope, nothing like that. What happens here is a grinding, waddle-march under the heat of a tropic sun, inside metal tubs which must reek of benzene.

And the fun part is that not only does this brutal, blunt, effective solution fit the character of the film and lead actor perfectly, it might really work. Sherman's solution completely and utterly lacks dramatic punch, but the details are pretty well thought out and viable. Hell, the captain even rigs a line attached to the camp's exit, so that he can trip the latch and swing open the door once all are safely inside their tanks.

No question, this finale lacks the octane to suit the testosterone-choked likes of a Jason Statham, but it suits the touchy James Best just fine. What his methodical crawl in a smelly, heavy tank-o-tubs lacks in dynamism it makes up for in function. On a good day, I might even have thought of it myself and saved the day. Anyone might have.

That's another fun part in a movie full of fun parts. Next: more fun with Kellogg's The Giant Gila Monster!

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1. After the war, Kellogg was assigned to film the War Crime Trials at Nuremberg. Most of the footage commonly used and seen of these famous trails is the work of Kellogg.
2. Curtis was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame in 1981.
3. McLendon easily rates at least a post, or book, all to himself. Among many fascinating life tidbits, McLendon created the Top 40 Radio Format, edited Yale's Skull and Bones; and was the first person Jack Ruby wished to speak with once in custody after gunning down Lee Harvey Oswald - and these speaking points don't even scratch the highlights.
4. Warren, Bill. Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Films of the Fifties, The 21st Edition (North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers; 2010), 497.
5. Ibid., 337.
6. Latshaw, Steve. Psychotronic Video #17, Winter, 1994.
7. Alligator poaching is both reprehensible and illegal. The fellows I know that poach remain completely OK with both its reprehensibility and illegality. As of this writing, my disapproval has not effected any change in practice or attitude. To appreciate how I, an aging librarian who has trouble killing a rat caught in a sticky trap, could find himself occasionally sitting at the same table with poachers - one would have to live in south Florida for a period longer than the tourist season.
8. (http://members.vienna.at/shrew/cult-poison.html).
9. Father of director, Sidney Lumet.
10. The very phrase "MST3K," always spoken with a hopeful, expectant grin, brings a black mood. Loving the genre of 50s sci-fi like I do, it's often assumed I also love Mystery Science Theater 3000. But why in the name of bloody Jesus would I enjoy, even for a moment; this vile, ugly, soulless enterprise which ridicules the very films and film makers I love?
11. Warren Stevens as "Doc" Ostrow (dreamy, sensitive scientist) and Leslie Nielsen as Commander John Adams (as square-jawed as they come).

12. The Killer Shrews, Internet Movie Database(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052969/)

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