It Came from Beneath the Sea is just one of the many 1950’s era B-movies involving irradiated monsters, created by nuclear bomb testing, wreaking havoc. What sets this one apart from most of the others is the fact that the stop-motion SPFX genius, Ray Harryhausen, was hired to bring this beast to life and “Out of the primordial depths to destroy the world!”
A naval submarine is the first to encounter a radioactive something while on a shakedown cruise in the Pacific Ocean. A piece of the thing has become lodged in one of its rotors so the commander of the ship, Pete Matthews (Kenneth Tobey), brings it to a Naval base for study. The work is being done by two experts in the field of marine biology, Dr. John Carter (Donald Curtis) and the beautiful Professor Lesley Joyce (Faith Domergue). They discover that what Commander Matthews brought with him is, in fact, a piece of an enormous octopus. One that was affected by radiation and drawn to the surface in search of food. Now this trio (Matthews, Carter, and Joyce) must spearhead the hunt and destruction of the beast before it reaches the very populated city of San Francisco California. Oops, they’re a little too late and the monster destroys landmarks, like the Golden Gate Bridge, and squishing people under its enormous tentacles before finally being eliminated.
This is an interesting example of those 1950’s sci-fi B-Movies. It has elements of the stereotypical B-Movie, meant to play in drive-ins to a young audience, like a romance story taking place during the action, but it also has moments of rising above those typical B-Movies. For one thing, the performances, for the most part, are actually pretty good. The script has a few nice character moments, along with a few cringey ones too, and the military hardware and jargon are pretty spot on. But the best things by far are the Ray Harryhausen affects. Like all B-Movies, the studio did not allow much of a budget to create these pictures. They were meant to be put out there for “the kids” and not to be taken seriously at all. Harryhausen’s stop-motion octopus, which he delivered on a very slim budget, brings a lot of class to what could have been just another silly flick, like the movie Columbia paired it with- Creature with the Atom Brain. Which is certainly not remembered like It Came from Beneath the Sea is.
The three stars were actually talented actors. Kenneth Tobey had appeared in the Howard Hawks sci-fi classic The Thing from Another World, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and as Jim Bowie in Disney’s Davy Crockett. Faith Domergue had been appearing for about a decade in prestige movies, B-Movies, and TV. In 1955 alone she would appear in this film, Sante Fe Passage, The Atomic Man, and the now classic sci-fi film This Island Earth. Donald Curtis had worked with Alfred Hitchcock on Spellbound and John Ford in They Were Expendable. He would go on to be in Earth vs the Flying Saucers and The Ten Commandments. These were working actors who delivered good work in whatever they were given. Again, the script wasn’t bad but some of the dialogue and the awkward love story shoehorned in must have been tough to work with, but they kept the movie alive when there was no giant octopus on screen.
As I mentioned previously, the budget was low. To keep his cost down, and save time, Ray Harryhausen only put six tentacles on his octopus, or “sixtopus” as he called it. He also utilized a lot of the old style of rear screen projection behind his stop-motion work. It actually looks better than the technologically more advanced compositing process. The production couldn’t get permission to shoot on the Golden Gate Bridge so they stole some shots and then Harryhausen built a miniature version that his creature could destroy. This was also the first time Harryhausen worked with producer Charles Schneer, but they would work together on every Harryhausen “Dynomation” movie right up to his final project- Clash of the Titans in 1981. It Came from Beneath the Sea was a financial success upon it’s release, at least as successful as any B-Movie of the time, but as Harryhausen’s name and work progressed, and by the movie playing on television, over time appreciation for this movie grew. Now it’s considered a low budget classic. Due mainly to the amazing six limbed octopus.
If you’re a fan of Harryhausen’s and somehow not caught this one, you’ll enjoy yourself. It’s only 79 minutes long and won’t require a lot of your time. I watched It Came from Beneath the Sea in the, now out of print, The Ray Harryhausen Gift Set DVD release. Which, in addition to It Came from Beneath the Seas, includes Earth vs the Flying Saucers and 20 Million Miles to Earth. It can be found used and each of the films can be found for sale individually in different releases.
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