A Major Disappointment

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Three men and the woman who is financing the expedition go into a forbidden part of the Mexican desert. Gloria Talbott is searching for her fiancé who was an aviator and went down in the region three years earlier. Her fiancé's best friend James Craig who is a scientist is along, pilot Tom Drake, and Lon Chaney, Jr. who is looking for uranium deposits is along.Radioactive material they find all right, it makes ordinary creatures grow to incredible size. One of those creatures is a 25 foot deformed man with only one eye like the legendary cyclops of Greek mythology. I think we know what happened to the fiancé.Bert Gordon produced this one for Allied Artists on an Allied Artists shoestring budget. But the studio got its money's worth. Some nice sincere performances from the cast about a human tragedy. The Cyclops is worth a look.

Some day, film historians who have entirely too much time on their hands might attempt to settle the question of which is Bert I. Gordon's "best" cheesy sci-fi film -- which would require hair-splitting on such an infinitesimal scale that in the end it could probably only be resolved by gladiatorial combat.On the other hand, there should be near-universal agreement that this is hands-down his worst. "The Cyclops" is just plain dull, even though it at times rips off -- er, I mean, echoes -- the Greek legend of Ulysses and Polyphemus. Gloria Talbott is literally this movie's only redeeming feature: she's the reason I give it two stars out of ten, instead of one. Well, her and the classic Stinson Voyager monoplane.She certainly emotes her heart out, during that forty-minute scene -- OK, maybe it was only ten minutes, but it sure seemed much, much longer -- in which she and her mates have been trapped in a cave by her radioactively-enlarged, brain-damaged, horribly disfigured fiancé. Ever-versatile Paul Frees supplies the monster's voice, in what may be the longest continuous series of inarticulate grunts and growls recorded outside of a Screamin' Jay Hawkins session.One way you could look at this movie is as a test-bed for plot elements of "The Amazing Colossal Man" and especially its sequel, "War of the Colossal Beast". My advice to anyone who isn't a Gordon complete-ist, though, would be to skip this one and go straight to the other two, which despite their ultra-cheap special effects and lower end of the B-list actors are still somewhat entertaining.

I love 1950s monster flicks. Despite the often cheesy special effects and low-budgets, they were often a ton of fun. So, whenever one of them comes on TV that I have not seen, I am sure to tune in and cheer for the giant ant, crab or whatever the screenwriters dreamed up in this installment. Some are great and some are pretty stupid, but they are enjoyable. However, "The Cyclops" manages to do something that few of them could do--it bored me half to death. So, it had the cheesy effects and budget but lacked fun.The film begins with a wife (Gloria Talbot) hiring a pilot to go on a seemingly fruitless search for long-lost husband. Not surprisingly, they discover the husband has been turned into a giant cyclops and other creatures in this wilderness have turned giant-sized as well. Guess why this is...yup, atomic radiation!! Along for the ride are handsome James Craig and worthless Long Chaney, Jr.--and I say worthless because his part was incredibly one-dimensional even for one of these films. Every minute Chaney was on screen he whined and complained and schemed and I was thrilled when his character was killed! So why else didn't I like the film? After all giant creatures and atomic radiation--two sure ingredients for 50s-style fun! Well, the problem is that there is no suspense at all, little action and in the end, the survivors simply got aboard their plane and flew off...and the credits rolled. Sluggish and not at all fun...this is one you can skip.

This was easily the most disappointing among the numerous B.I.G. efforts I included in this challenge – and not because the copy I watched was out-of-synch all the way through! The premise in itself was not bad – it plays a bit like THE LAND UNKNOWN (1957) incidentally – but the treatment left a lot to be desired, defeating a good cast (James Craig, Gloria Talbott, Tom Drake and Lon Chaney Jr.) in the process. Talbott goes to look for her missing husband in some remote territory we learn was hit by radioactivity; she is accompanied by his best pal Craig, philosophical drunken pilot Drake (actually the best of the lot) and Chaney (annoying as a sourpuss obsessed by uranium). The biggest let-down proves the titular creature itself, though his look is decent enough under the circumstances (Gordon would tread similar territory in the {hopefully better} THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN {1957} and its sequel, WAR OF THE COLOSAL BEAST {1958}): his relentless moaning is not only baffling but it even nullifies Chaney's own previous grumpiness!; besides, he does very little of consequence except fight a giant snake (the then-pioneering magnified lizards of ONE MILLION, B.C {1940}, also with Chaney, get another work-out here – as had been the case with the even more execrable ROBOT MONSTER {1953}); and it takes an awfully long time for the heroes – but not the viewer – to realize that he is really what has become of Talbott's unlucky spouse! By the way, looking at the IMDb entries on this one, I was shocked to learn Michael Elliott gave this a *** rating and even considers it Gordon's best "radioactive monster" outing!