Son of the Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese - Day 9 - Phantom From 10,000 Leagues

Okay first off the title doesn’t work. A league is old style measurement of distance (about 3 miles in the English version). So well 10,000 leagues puts you out the other side of the earth with leagues to spare – Jules Verne 20,000 leagues under the sea was about how much distance they traveled rather than the depth they went to.

And with that we are in American 1950’s drive in b-movie land – this is a b picture down to its ridiculous looking monster –which we see very early in the game – before the opening credits where it kills a fisherman (in rather shallow water one must add) the fisherman is in a rowboat – get used to that rowboat, you’ll be seeing it a lot.

The monster is a rather bug eye doofus looking thing as monsters go – the mouth doesn’t work too well and you’re not sure if that’s his tongue of a bit of costume that came unglued and got stuck in the mouth. Anyway it’s right up on your absurd looking monsters hit list.

So the monster kills and we get the credits.   Cut to scientist type walking the beach who finds a) rowboat and dead fisherman – he’s taking a stroll down the beach in his suit. He will do that a lot. He runs into what is I guess an FBI agent but they use another name – in those days Hoover was very particular about how his agents were portrayed on the silver screen and I guess the films producers didn’t want to be bothered with getting permission to use the term FBI so it’s something else – I forget- this is very forgettable film.

While these two  are talking we see someone hiding in the nearby bushes watching and one presumes listening in while carrying a spear gun – if he was carrying a shield and a spear and a sign around his neck saying “BAD GUY”  he’d be less conspicuous. Honestly. This is George an assistant at the nearby Pacific College of Oceanography which is closed for the holiday or something – anyway there aren’t too many folks there. Turns out the scientist type (who is a scientist – name of Ted Stevens) is off to see Professor King – who we just saw earlier looking at the body .

Anyway King comes into his house were daughter King greets him – he’s holding a turtle that he found in a very odd way and then dashes off to be bed telling his daughter he isn’t to be disturbed and he’s been there e for an hour. Dr. Ted (as we will call him now) comes a calling and is thus told thus but sees the wet footprints on the floor. Daughter King and Dr. Ted exchange embarrassed glances and Dr. Ted makes his way home.

The next day shows that the Pacific college of oceanography is a hotbed of intrigue and bitterness – The Professor spends most of this time locked away in his lab while his bitter secretary and George compete or team up to try and find out what the Prof. is doing behind closed doors.

Unnatural things to a turtle that’s what he doing turning a normal painted turtle into a snapping turtle like thing via radiation I guess.

Which is the crux of the biscuit here in this film – turns out  Prof King using radiation has turned something into that goofy looking phantom – (there is a block of glowing stuff at the bottom of the bay about 25 30 yards off shore which the phantom guards) meantime it seem that George is a want to be spy attempting to get information for the blonde lady Wanda who aside from the sheriff just about the only person we meet in the film – there’s talk of other folks but we don’t’ see them – oh yes sorry there is a young couple who go scuba diving and are killed by said monster – the wash up ashore alongside the same bloody rowboat that everybody in the film uses.

This is a very dull monster movie combined with elements of a bad spy movie – then add the painful romance bit between the Dr. Ted and Daughter King including the oh god I’m nude under this towel bit which must have socked ‘em dead in the fifties because you see it a lot but here it only  induces mild depression.

Anyway after some tooing and frowning which isn’t important really expect that there are scuba diving scenes you never needed to see. One the actors/extras for the scenes (Dr. Ted and FBI guy are blindingly white when they are in their bathing suits – even in a long shot the glare is blinding and also neither actors or extras are in the best of shape so you have rather doughy looking folks scuba diving. Then  Dr Ted for reasons that I refuse to even speculate about wears a bathing suit with polka dots – it’s hideous.

As said after some toing and frowing George ends up killing the bitter secretary with a spear gun while she is walking the beach. Everybody in this film walks the beach fully dressed as in suits and ties and skirts and blouses and heels it’s about as weird as them using the same boat all the time.

Then Professor King realizes he’s made a mistake and goes off to kill the beast with some sort of water proof time bomb – just as he sets it down the Phantom who really doesn’t have a lot to do in this film garbs him – my notes say irony? Justice? Fate? Or just dumb?

The Prof and the monster blow up – the daughter cries that his motives were good that he wanted to help human kind – yes putting a mutant to guard a radioactive source is just thing mother Theresa would do – Dr. Ted agrees – and he puts his arm around Daughter King  like he’s angling for a bit of grief nookie, yes it’s creepy – and says there are some things man was not meant to know – confidently leaving out that what the Prof did was based on his work.

Stupid dull film.

Enjoy with frozen fish of some sort with tartar sauce.