The Beast of Hollow Mountain

"The Beast of Hollow Mountain" would likely have more appeal for any viewer who first saw it at a young and impressionable age. If you're seeing it for the first time as an adult, like this viewer, you may well still find it to be fairly charming, an interesting combination of the monster movie and Western genres. The beast of the title, a dinosaur, doesn't show up until 3/4 of the way into the movie, and until then we get a likable enough human drama with a touch of mystery and mysticism: just WHO, or WHAT, is responsible for the disappearances of cattle in Mexico?

One of those eager to find out is American rancher Jimmy Ryan (amiable Guy Madison, often to be seen with a smile on his face). In the meantime, Jimmy finds employment for local drunk Pancho (Pascual Garcia Pena) and loves the sweet Sarita (lovely Patricia Medina), although she's agreed to marry another man, Enrique Rios (Eduardo Noriega), a rival of Jimmy's in more way than one, and a constant thorn in his side.

Co-director Edward Nassour does the decent stop motion animation in this reasonably entertaining little diversion; the concept originated with the legendary stop motion specialist Willis O'Brien of "King Kong" fame. The colourful CinemaScope photography is quite gorgeous, giving us an eyeful of all of the flavour of the Mexican locations; there's a lot to take in. The script by Robert Hill is dialogue heavy so less patient viewers may fidget a little while waiting for the dinosaur to show up. But things do get pretty exciting once it does.

Madison and Medina are highly engaging leads, and the supporting cast features some fine performers. Julio Villarreal has a solid presence as friendly old Don Pedro, but Noriega captures the lions' share of the attention playing a man who turns out to be a real piece of work. The audience will be primed and ready to see this human antagonist get his comeuppance.

This Mexican-American production is fun stuff - nothing great, but very easy to take while it lasts and it doesn't overstay its welcome at a running time of 80 minutes.

Seven out of 10.

It is said that a mountain surrounded by a swamp is hollow and that a prehistoric monster from 'the dawn of time' comes out during times of drought to stalk the land.

Alright, so the plot lacks any sense of reality (there would have to be a whole race of dinosaurs for them to survive until the present day). The special effects also leave something to be desired. But look over these faults and you'll find that this film is actually very enjoyable and entertaining. The dinosaur isn't revealed until the last twenty minutes, but when it shows its face there's non-stop action, and for once the dinosaur can move fast and so poses a genuine threat. The dinosaur itself is fairly well-animated and there is a wonderful 'golden age of monster movies' feel about the whole thing.

I first saw this movie as part of a group of summer matinees offered for children. Later, I remembered it when it came on TV as part of a Cable TV Monstervision. This movie has some very interesting scenes, it is good family entertainment. I will try to contact the Cable TV Networks to please air this movie so others can enjoy it. IF ANYONE KNOWS WHERE I CAN GET A COPY OF THIS MOVIE, PLEASE E-MAIL ME.

Back in the 1950s, the big family weekend outing would be the drive-in movies. "It came from beneath the Sea", "The Alligator People", "Earth vs the Flyimg Saucers", "1984", "The Dam Busters", "The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake", "Love Slaves of the Amazons", etc. and (when I was 8 or 9) "The Beast from Hollow Mountain". I finally caught it again on DVR on TCM Thur 27 Jun 2013. For what is billed as the first Cinemascope and Color dinosaur movie, "Beast" has rough goodness.

And it is better than I remember. Surprised me. The dinosaur effects are some what better than "Dinosaurus!" 1960 (apparently the reviewers panning the FX have not seen "Dinosaurus!"), but it is not as good as what Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen did together in Irwin Allen's "Animal World" 1956. I think the "Beast..." FX were billed as RegiScope animation in depth.

I have read that Willis O'Brien's "cowboys and dinosaurs" idea had been kicking around since before his "Mighty Joe Young" another movie where O'Brien and Harryhausen worked together. And after O'Brien's death, Harryhausen decided to make his mentor's unmade pet project as "The Valley of Gwangi".

The dinosaur in "Beast..." appears late and the conflict between the gringo rancher Ryan from Texas and the Mexican rancher Enrique, and the growing romance between Ryan and Sarita, Enrique's betrothed, occupies the first two thirds or three fourths of the movie. Mysterious deaths of cattle are attributed to rustlers and the ranchers' rivalry. But after the steer-chomping Beast makes his appearance, he has lotsa screen time in the last part of the film. (OK, I concede the tongue gets to be a bit much in some scenes. Looks to me like the tongue was rotoscoped onto the sequences shot with replacement animation.)

What has stayed with me from seeing this film over fifty years ago, is the scene where Sarita and the kid Panchito are besieged in a cabin by the Beast. That was scary then, and is still is a moment (or that may be my nostalgia acting up again).

Just a little south of the Texas border, the cattle ranchers are having trouble with an unusual rustler -- a Tyrannosaurus Rex. This is one of the few non-Harryhausen stop-motion films produced during the 1950s. The original concept was bought from Willis O'Brien by Edward and William Nassour, but they reneged on their promise to hire O'Brien to do the animation. The Nassours did it themselves. The animation is extremely rough, but the model of the tyrannosaurus is pretty good (except for its excessively long tongue -- it looks like a long red tentacle!)

Be prepared for a long wait before the dinosaur shows up; the first two thirds of the film is pure Western soap opera and endless filler scenes of a Mexican fiesta. The dinosaur doesn't actually make an appearance until the last twenty minutes of the film. The climax, however, is action packed -- a running battle on the open range between a hungry dinosaur and the cowboy hero, Guy Madison (star of TV's `Wild Bill Hickok' from 1954 to 1957). Patricia Medina is the lovely heroine.

Watch for a scene in which the tyrannosaurus runs after a galloping horse; the animation was done with a series of plaster models, each one posed at a different point in the running reptiles stride. Special effects processing was handled by Jack Rabin and Louis DeWitt (`Kronos' and `Atomic Submarine').

TRIVIA NOTE FOR TRUE SCI-FI FANS: The T-Rex in this movie is just one of many sci-fi monsters that were defeated by actors who achieved fame in cowboy roles. In `Tarantula' the spider is destroyed by a bomb dropped by pilot Clint Eastwood. The Martians in `War of the Worlds' are pitted against Gene Barry, star of TV's `Bat Materson'. The ants in `Them' are gunned down by James Arness of `Gunsmoke'. `The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms' dies from a radioactive bullet fired by Lee Van Cleef, star of `The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly' (among others). `The Blob' proves to me no match for Steve McQueen, star of `Wanted: Dead or Alive'.

Other famous cowboys featured in 1950s sci-fi movies include Eric Fleming (`Rawhide') in `The Conquest of Space' and `Queen of Outer Space', Michael Landon (`Bonanza') in `I was a Teenaged Werewolf', and Ken Curtis (`Gunsmoke') in `The Killer Shrews'. Sci-fi veteran Richard Carlson never achieved fame as a cowboy star, but he did get to play a cowboy in Ray Harryhausen's faithful 1968 version of the ORIGINAL cowboy-versus-dinosaur idea -- which was first thought up my Willis O'Brien back in the 1930s; `Valley of Gwangi', twenty years before `Beast of Hollow Mountain'!