Gorgo
Caught in the wake of an undersea volcanic event off the coast of Ireland, the salvage vessel Triton, commanded by Joe Ryan and with partner Sam Slade as the divemaster, seeks safe harbour to make repairs at Nara Island, but the locals are hostile, the jealous harbourmaster also interested in the Viking treasures of the ancient wrecks, swords, coins, cups and the preserved prow of a longship carved in the form of Ogra, a fierce sea spirit.
The seabed stirred up, causing strange fish to float dead to the surface, they are followed by a huge beast which attacks the village; managing to capture the creature, Joe and Sam are asked to hand it over to the university for study but instead accept a cash offer to transport it to London where it will be displayed under the name of Gorgo at Dorkin’s Circus in Battersea for the sum of five shillings admission in a heart of the a densely populated city.
A British science fiction monster movie released in 1961, directed by Russian immigrant Eugène Lourié, ostensibly a response to Japan’s Godzilla and its American recut, Gorgo is actually closer to King Kong despite the presence of a towering amphibious reptile destroying landmarks, a dangerous wild animal of which they know little removed from its native habitat and displayed in an act of hubris for the equivalent of £7 per head, causing more of a stir than at Nara where the islanders were unsurprised by its emergence until it attacked.
Starring Born Free’s Bill Travers as Joe and 2001: A Space Odyssey’s William Sylvester as Sam with The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s Martin Benson as Dorkin, what is surprising about Gorgo is the scale of the production, a full-scale mockup of the creature crafted and transported through the streets of London, creating publicity at the same time as capturing footage of crowds on Picadilly Circus, the special effects and frequent matte shots not always successful but certainly ambitious for the modest budget.
The sixty-five foot high reptile billed as “the eighth wonder of the world,” inevitably it transpires that Joe and Sam should have listened to the scientists, Gorgo realised not to be an adult but a juvenile, the constant stream of water used to moisten its hide during transport having left a distinct trail for its mother to follow, the deliberate pace interspersed with occasional action of the first half changing to epic disaster in the finale as London is assaulted.
The genuine panic as crowds trample the unfortunate as they crush into underground stations unlike the civilised evacuations of equivalent films, while the fuzzy underwater footage is not to the level of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or even Stingray it is certainly adequate, and the expansive miniature knock-down sets terrorised by the suited performer, bolstered by stock footage of naval, army and air force operations, make it surprisingly impressive even as it almost wholly abandons Joe, Sam and Sean (Vincent Winter), the child the unspoken couple have presumably adopted.
Gorgo will be streaming on the Arrow platform from Friday 12th September
