It Came From Beneath the Sea

In today's melange of computer-generated miracles, where even the lamest motion picture can deliver eye-popping special effects, it is easy to lose sight of how extraordinary Harryhausen's creations were. It Came from Beneath the Sea was only his second effort -- coming two years after his monumental debut in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms -- and it's not his most spectacular work. Hell, a shoestring budget forced Harryhausen to limit the octopus to six tentacles, but the film's climactic monster attack on San Francisco is certainly impressive enough, and there is a wicked glee in watching the big cephalopod eviscerate such landmarks as the Golden Gate Bridge and the Market Street Tower.

The tale begins when an atomic submarine on routine maneuvers in the Pacific comes across an unidentified creature. Commander Pete Mathews (Kenneth Tobey) finds some sort of foreign matter attached to the sub's rotor blades, a substance that, as an omniscient narrator tells us, is "so strange, so inexplicable and alarming, that the best minds in the nation had to be called upon to solve the problem."

Lucky for Commander Mathews that one of those minds belongs to beautiful Lesley Joyce (one-time Howard Hughes protege Faith Domergue), a scientist who knows her way around a laboratory but can also flash her smoky bedroom eyes when the need arises. The two engage in some sexual tension, albeit Fifties-styled ("When you're driving that atomic submarine of yours, do you have time for romance?" she purrs), but the flirtation doesn't preclude her and colleague John Carter (Donald Curtis) from concluding that the substance belongs to a mutant, and very hungry, octopus.

Navy brass scoffs at the scientists' theory, of course, but they change their tune after a steamer is attacked at sea. The ship's few survivors are reluctant to tell military psychiatrists about the monstrosity they saw. Leave it to Lesley Joyce and her feminine wiles to coerce the truth out of those red-blooded boys. All it takes is a slinky evening gown and a cigarette that needs to be lit.

Like so many movies of its ilk, It Came from Beneath the Sea suffers in the lengthy lead up to the monster's debut. The screenplay by George Worthing Yates and Hal Smith has plenty of clunky moments -- although some of it is unintentionally funny -- and If the acting were any more wooden, it would contract Dutch Elm Disease.

But God bless that pissed-off octopus. While it takes too long for It Came from Beneath the Sea to hit that final reel, you've gotta love it once the tentacles emerge from San Francisco Bay to exact revenge on sushi eaters everywhere.  (Phil Bacharach, DVDTalk)