Gorgo (1961) Arrow Player Review
Gorgo (1961) Arrow Player Review
Starring Bill Travers and William Sylvester (2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY), GORGO is a creature-feature classic and a cautionary tale about perhaps not putting a huge prehistoric lizard in the circus – in cast its even bigger mother comes to find it! “Pretty darn good” according to the New York Times, you will believe a giant lizard can stomp London into pieces!
A volcanic eruption in the North Atlantic brings to the surface a 65-foot prehistoric monster. Two treasure divers capture the creature and take him to London where he is made the star attraction at a circus. But when a scientist points out that the sailors’ bonanza is only an infant, Gorgo’s 200 feet-high mama comes thundering ashore to the centre of London to reclaim her offspring!
Directed by Eugène Lourié, who also came up with the story, GORGO is a GODZILLA-like lizard given a KING KONG storyline, whereby the titular beast is transported to civilization only to run amok and cause chaos, albeit in this case, it is the beast’s mother that kicks London’s ass.
Considering the age of the film I was surprised to find that much of Tom Howard’s effects work holds up better than many others of its type from that time. I was also surprised at how well Lourié’s film started off set on the fictional island of Nara, there was mood, tension and it boasts a decent men vs baby beast face-off. However, once the baby beast is sedated and whisked off by boat over to England’s capital city it becomes monster mayhem business as usual and consequently GORGO sags under the weight of plot familiarity.
GORGO would have thrilled me as a child but as an adult I all too easily became bored by the eventual routine plot. Had GORGO maintained the thrill levels of the first fifteen minutes and continued to deliver fresh ideas throughout then this could have been a winner. As it is, it is fun for a short time before becoming one strictly for ‘Monster Movie’ completists only.
GORGO is available to stream on ARROW from September 12th.
