MovieChat Forums > World Without End (1956) Discussion > The giant spider

The giant spider

posted 12 years ago by JimmyCagney
2 replies | jump to latest

After a long time, I decided to have a classic sci-fi retrospective on DVD.
I started with a couple of Ray Harryhausen flicks (the beast from 20.000 fathoms and 20 Million miles to earth) and the third one I chose was this one.
So, after having just watched the giant spider scene in the first 15 minutes, I couldn't help but laugh and wonder:
Besides Harryhausen, wasn't there on Hollywood a single other special effects expert who could present a decent creature?
I mean, this spider was so fake, it was like Rod Taylor was fighting a kids toy! Absolutely no movement at all! Even when they shot it in the head! Someone of the crew just threw it off the wall and that was it!
Not scary, just hilarious.

[–] gary_overman 11 years ago

I mean, this spider was so fake, it was like Rod Taylor was fighting a kids toy!

What's this 'it was like'? Rod Taylor was fighting a kid's toy!

Admittedly the special effects were primitive, but remember that this was a low budget effort. And CGI did not exist in the 1950's.

Still this is one of my favorite sci-fi movies and I really like post-apocalyptic stuff. The cast, plot and script were really pretty good, even if the special effects were not.

[–] hobnob53 11 years ago

It was more a medium-budget effort. Remember WWE was the first sci-fi movie to be shot in CinemaScope, and it was in Technicolor as well -- and all this from minor studio Allied Artists. AA made an effort. But the effects could have been better, even in 1956.

According to Rod Taylor in author Stephen Vagg's recent biography of the actor, "An Aussie in Hollywood", the spider's legs were supposed to move but the machinery broke, so it just sort of flopped there, making it look even worse than it was. Rod said he had to improvise, shaking the thing so it would appear that a life-and-death battle was going on (shades of Bela Lugosi fumbling with the inert rubber octopus in Bride of the Monster!), then add some histrionics afterwards to make his struggle's effects seem dire.

The sequence was repeated two years later to no improved effect in Queen of Outer Space, except there the pillow spider was zapped by a disintegrator gun, becoming just a smoldering black outline on the cave floor and relieving us of further appearances in future films.

Oh, to the OP's other point. Other people besides Ray Harryhausen were doing great special effects work in the 50s. Willis O'Brien was still around (though in failing health and getting lesser projects), and of course the great pioneer George Pal and his superb work, which won him five Academy Awards.