Details

Release year: 1957

Storyline

When a horde of prehistoric mollusk monsters enter the canal system of the California's Imperial Valley and terrorize the populace.

Top credits

Directors

Arnold Laven

Writers

Cast

Tim Holt — Lt. Cmdr. John 'Twill' Twillinger
Audrey Dalton — Gail MacKenzie
Hans Conried — Dr. Jess Rogers
Barbara Darrow — Jody Simms

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Did you know

• The magazine and story told in this movie are real and true. When Dr. Jess Rodgers (Hans Conried) is explaining how it is possible that the Monsters came into existence suddenly in the Salton Sea, he shows a Life Magazine dated October 17, 1955. This magazine actually had an article about fresh-water shrimp that suddenly appeared in a once-dry Mojave desert lake. David Duncan had read the article when it was first published and used it as the basis for his screenplay.

• The monster appears to be a greatly magnified hellgrammite (a Dobsonfly larva} or the larva of an aquatic beetle, probably a member of the Hydrophilidae. Many of the shots show the fearsome jaws that these creatures have, as well as segmented bodies. They do not look like "molluscs" at all.

• In prehistoric times the Salton Sea area was an empty desert sink nearly as far below sea level as Death Valley, or a lake (Lake Cahuilla), depending on the course of the Colorado River at the time; the modern-day Salton Sea originally formed in 1905-07 from a pre-Hoover Dam flood of water from the Colorado River. The 1931 project that created Hoover Dam (aka Boulder Dam) was the result of flood control on the river. Eventually becoming the largest lake in California, a boom town grew around the lake, with all the typical real-estate promotional development and hype, peaking in the 1950s. In the ensuing decades, as the lake slowly began to shrink, land values dropped, tourism faltered, the salinity of the water and pollution have increased, and the area has become a virtual ghost town.