The Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese - Day 25 - Kronos

One of the problems that monster/sci Fi films had back in the 1950’s was simply that the technology to do some things just didn’t exist. I’ve taken potshots at the lazy use of CGI over the years but the film makers in the 50’s would have given their right and left arms for the technology because otherwise you end up with things like today’s slice of cheese – Kronos.

The film starts out with a bright light from outer space taking over a human being. I also noticed that before it did the truck he was driving came to a stop. Now I know that cars not working in the presence of UFO’s is part of the literature but this film was made in 1957 before the idea of close encounters was widely known. Which leads to the odd speculation are aliens watching our movies and getting ideas from them? I know that in the 30’s gangsters would watch the Warner Brothers films and take hints from them. Why not aliens? Or whatever they are.

I digress.

The light takes over this truck driver who then breaks into someplace called Lab Central – the driver then breaks into the office (and it’s huge –all of the rooms in this place are huge) and the light jumps to the director of Lab Central who is now controlled by aliens. The truck driver drops dead.

Meantime an asteroid M47 is causing Dr. Leslie Gaskel (Jeff Morrow in one of the 35 sci fi movies he did in the 50’s) fits – it’s changing orbit and speeding up and he’s got a date with Vera (Barbara Lawrence) who is the head of the photography department. In fact that’s about for the Lab Central Crew – despite the HUGE size of the place – really every office is enormous. The only other fellow who is there is Dr. Arnold Cluver who wears a bow tie and spends all his time talking to his computer SUSIE which in 1950’s fashion is also HUGE with lots of reels and dials and things that go click. Arnold is played by George O’Hanlon better known to folks of my age as the voice of George Jetson – I did keep expecting to hear someone yelling “Jetson!” form time to time.

Anyway – despite being taken over by a light that has come from M47 the Director of Lab Central doesn’t make too many objections to the decision to blow the damn thing up when its discovered to be on a collision course WITH EARTH (it’s never mars you notice that?) Stock footage is used and three h-bombs hit the asteroid – which looks like a flying saucer to everybody except Dr. Leslie and his crew. The explosions have no effect except to make the Director faint dead away.

The asteroid/space ship whatever then crashes in the pacific off the coast of Mexico – which leads to massive tidal waves and - well no nothing really happens. Actually if the thing had been as big as they said in the film it would have been an event on a par with the Cretaceous impact which killed the dinosaurs.

Leslie deices to on his own as the director is in a coma or something – to go to Mexico and investigate the impact as it would be to slow for anybody else to do so (and would mean more cast members and this film had no budget at all) and takes the staff of lab central, Vera and Arnold – seriously I think the Janitor was left with him to Mexico – there by the sea they search by helicopter for – well something we never quite figure out what – eat Mexican food – Arnold has the oh god its so spicy reaction – this was the fifties after all as far as America was concerned pepper was a spice. And Leslie and Vera make out –well why not.

Then after a dark and stormy night they find that overnight a massive structure has appeared on the beach. It’s Kronos (at bloody last I was getting a little tired of the antics of these three nincompoops) and here’s where the budget problems and the technical stuff really bite into the film. Kronos is a Big Black Box attached to another big black box with a dome on top with two antenna looking things – it seems to have about 4 legs one and each comer of the box – as monsters go – even monster robots - It’s not very impressive.

And then it’s revealed why the director of lab Central has been taken over – he looks up the locations of power plants in Mexico and tells Kronos where to go – and the monster starts to move.

Well kind of – the legs go up and down but bless me if I can see just how the hell that translates into forward motion. But it does and it’s a very obvious animation – as in drawing – that moves forwards.

Turns out Kronos is an energy suck – absorbing electrical, atomic whatever – the idea is that it will absorb energy and then I guess return to its home planet and act like a battery.

The crew of lab central struggle to figure out a way to destroy it – which they do – with the help of the director of the lab who when he isn’t controlled by the Aliens and murdering his doctor and trying to murder Vera gives them a vital clue to destroy Kronos at the edge of Los Angeles (turns out that the aliens control fizzles out when he’s subjected to electrical shocks go figure.)

So as the mighty Kronos melts down – Los Angeles is saved – except for the long term environmental impact of have a huge alien energy sponge melt down at the city limits – it can’t be good for the water supply.

Enjoy with mexican food.