Reptilicus
          
Director: Sidney Pink
Year: 1961
Rating: 4.5
Though America and Japan had a near monopoly on the Giant Monster genre, there were a very few that came out of other nations. Hong Kong had the Mighty Peking Man, India had Gogola (a lost film) and Denmark had Reptilicus. Poor Reptilicus. A sock puppet. How embarrassing must that be. It was actually an American who was behind Reptilicus. Sidney Pink. Not a name much mentioned any more, but he had one of those great old-time film careers. He worked in Hollywood on the Tex Ritter and Tim Holt B Westerns, after the war he became a 3-D pioneer, produced the sci-fi The Angry Red Planet and then moved to Denmark in 1959 because he thought it was impossible for an independent filmmaker in Hollywood.  And then he thrust Reptilicus upon the world. Twice in fact.



There are two versions of this. The American one and the Danish one - same cast but two different directors and like the Dracula film, they were shot at the same time. Later the Danish actors were dubbed into English and it shows. This is the American version - I understand that a blue-ray release has both. The Danish version apparently has a musical number in a park with children. With any luck Reptilicus showed up and killed them with his green vomit.



I bought the dvd years ago because I thought it had a good reputation but never watched it till now. I had no idea it would be so amateurish in pretty much every way. The acting - in the American version - is awful with the most dreadful stilted dubbing this side of a Kung Fu film. At one point in the middle of the film, it becomes a travelogue of Copenhagen with a stopover at a nightclub where a singer sings about how wonderful Copenhagen is - I guess the least the producers could do for the city after destroying it. But mainly it is poor Reptilicus who brings the film down a few pegs. As mentioned - it is not a guy in a suit or an automated model or stop-motion - it is a puppet.  That is why in nearly every shot, he is rising from behind a building with only his head and shoulders visible. And the green slime he spits out is so phony looking that I would guess it was badly animated on the print. It is a bad film but there is some solid miniature work and the three women are all knockouts. And Copenhagen looked lovely on our scenic tour.



Up in Lapland, a miner for silver instead digs up some ancient body parts of a prehistoric creature that is . . . still bleeding. He brings the giant tail to two scientists in Copenhagen who freeze it and study it. One of the scientists has two gorgeous daughters and Sven, the fellow who found the tail, looks like he is in for a threesome. It is Denmark. Maybe in the Danish version. As the comic relief they hire a farmer in blue overalls to keep an eye on the place - and he keeps sticking his hand in the electric eel aquarium. One night the power goes off and they discover the tail regenerating itself. Great discovery! Let's feed it more nutrients and see just how big it can get. Sometimes science saves us, sometimes science kills us.



They bring in an American General to safeguard everything and he is just as obnoxious as you would expect. Another beautiful blonde scientist joins the fray and I was getting confused who was with who. Suddenly, Reptilicus - that they fondly named it - has formed an entire body and is huge. And it is time for some stomping. Lots of scenes of the military firing guns and panicked crowds running - in one case right off an opened bridge that was kind of cool. As bad as it is, there is still some entertainment value here - just that you can make a Giant Monster film with a sock is pretty cool.