Making waves: It Came From Beneath The Sea(1955)

Lately I've been using my DVR quite a bit to record old classic monster and horror movies broadcast on Turner Classic Movies. Most of them are creature features from the 1950's and the most recent recording is 1955's It Came From Beneath The Sea. This Columbia Pictures film, directed by Robert Gordon, features an absolutely colossal octopus both enlarged by H-bomb tests and also rendered rather ornery because these same atomic bomb tests have scared off(or killed off) the creature's natural undersea food supply. Result: the gigantic octopus makes for the surface where it sinks a freighter and makes life generally miserable for those living on the western seaboard of the continental United States.

The enormous octopus in this movie is brought to life by Ray Harryhausen and his marvelous 'stop motion" effects. Kenneth Tobey portrays a U.S. Navy submarine commander who, when not putting the moves on Faith Domergue(who plays a scientist), leads the efforts to find and destroy the giant and menacing octopus. While I'm very fond of a 1977 Italian horror film called Tentacoli, aka "Tentacles" which also features a huge, killer octopus, I have always considered It Came From Beneath The Sea to be the best "giant killer octopus" movie out there. I still do.

I own both the 2003 Sony Pictures Home Entertainment DVD(the movie presented in its original black and white print and in 1:85.1 widescreen aspect ratio) and also the 2008 DVD which presents this movie in color. To see the '03 DVD for sale at Amazon click the title of this blog entry or click the link: '03 DVD

The films' trailer: