mark.waltz Review of The Cyclops

The Cyclops (1957)

Nothing new in the way of cheap science fiction.

[4/10 · 15 February 2016]

There's uranium in the Mexican hinterlands, bringing down a plane and ironically where passenger Gloria Talbott's missing boyfriend happens to be hiding among the gigantic creatures grown to huge proportions to their regular size. Desert lizards become dinosaur sized, a giant hawk devours a huge dog-sized rat, and the one-eyed title character seeks to find out his past through grunts and groans. So what do the other three passengers on the plane decide to do? Destroy him to put him out of his misery. It's all pretty dumb, with the creature looking like he's got a piece of lettuce over his eye with plastic costume shop teeth in his mouth to give the illusion of deformity due to radio active contact. Lon Chaney Jr. delivers a weak performance as the oldest member of the quartet with seemingly nefarious plans that have no real impact on the plot. James Craig us dull as the pilot, seemingly in love with Talbott and must break the shocking news of who the Cyclops is. Ultimately amateurish and not even funny in a silly way, this ranks as a boring stinker that seems hastily rushed out of the B studio assembly line and would be considered a stinker a decade before it came out.