IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA—“What is the nature of that nameless subject caught in the damaged diving plane? A substance so strange, so inexplicable and alarming that the best minds in the nation had to be called upon to solve the problem.”

Fortunately, one of the problem-solving minds belonged to Ray Harryhausen, whose fertile imagination (and staggering patience) created the special effects for this 1955 matinee fray, one pitting puny humans against an oceanic It with an attitude. Large monsters, whether atomically irradiated or merely awakened before they damn well feel like it, are noted for having issues with architecture, preferably famous structures. This time the Golden Gate Bridge pays for our hubris. ‘It’ therefore marked the first ‘for-your-viewing-pleasure’ wrecking of San Francisco’s signature landmark.

Allow me to demonstrate why she will choose the submarine captain instead of me

US Navy Commander ‘Pete Matthews’ (Kenneth Tobey), and his spanking new nuclear submarine are shaken by some fast and vast entity that leaves tissue samples stuck on the sub’s dive planes.  Marine biologists ‘Lesley Joyce’ (Faith Domergue) and ‘John Carter’ (Donald Curtis) determine the goop came from ‘Enteroctopus dofleini’—but how could one be that large? Missing freighters, spooked eyewitnesses and sudden fatalities lead to a man v. mollusk face-to-tentacle showdown.

Written by George Worthing Yates (Them!, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, The Amazing Colossal Man) and Hal Smith (The Defiant Ones, Inherit The Wind)—do those credit rosters suggest  Darwinian favoritism or merely unnatural selection?—and directed by Robert Gordon, it follows Yates suspense schemata from Them! by taking the investigate route (‘what did this?’) and making use of the tension element from submarine war flicks and the convenient timing that it was the year the first nuclear sub, USS Nautilus, made its debut. The movie’s craft was played by the USS Cubera (alas, not atomic, and later sold to…Venezuela) and money was saved by shooting at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard, the service okay with a commercial. Bring in the popular radiation threat (‘what have we wrought?’) and of course a fast-track romance between the straight-shooting sailor and the lady scientist. She also quick-develops a “jet-propelled atomic torpedo“, the sort of unfeminine intuition that provokes the cave-manly observation “Hey doctor, you know you were right about this ‘new breed’ of woman.” Meaning they can, ya’know, think. We get that her male colleague is seriously scientific because he wears a bow-tie, a vest and a suit while riding in a submarine.

Is that a jet-propelled atomic torpedo in your smock or are you just gripping a tube?

“The mind of man had thought of everything, except that which was beyond his comprehension!”

Tobey had on-the-government-knob training, earning stripes facing down The Thing and The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms: his steadiness balances the bad acting from Domergue and Donald Curtis. Domergue (have a little Faith), a former ‘interest’ of Howard Hughes, also decorated ’55’s popular This Island Earth and its less-notable brethren Cult Of The Cobra and The Atomic Man.

The song ‘Octopus’s Garden’ was 14 years in the future

At the time, Ray Harryhausen’s effects of the mighty octopi were startling: while dated they’re still fun today and those suckers carry a definite queasy-quotient. Budget restrictions only allowed for animating six tentacles rather than eight, but kids didn’t complain, and it’s possible the more curious went on to study oceanography. Or join the Navy.

The craftily doled $150,000 budget was plankton to a comparatively monstrous haul, $4,900,000, 71st in ’55, sharing a perch with the Metalunans of This Island Earth.

Character actors in bit parts include Ian Keith, Harry Lauter (another instance of a guy learning that rifle + 4,100 ton beast = squished), William Bryant, Tol Avery and Roy Engel. 79 minutes.

The days before the f-word

* Just when you thought it was safe…the record for a Giant Pacific Octopus stands at a honker that was 30 feet across and weighed 600 pounds. Giant Squids beat that. So much for your life raft.