Eegah (1962)

Teenagers stumble across a prehistoric caveman, who goes on a rampage.

Director:

Arch Hall Sr. (as Nicholas Merriwether)

Writers:

Bob Wehling (screenplay), Arch Hall Sr. (original story) (as Nicholas Merriwether)

Stars:

Arch Hall Jr., Marilyn Manning, Richard Kiel

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Arch Hall Jr.	...	Tom
Marilyn Manning	...	Roxy
Richard Kiel	...	Eegah
Arch Hall Sr.	...	Miller / Mr. Miller (as William Watters)
Clay Stearns	...	Band Member
Bob Davis	...	George
Deke Richards	...	Band Member (as Deke Lussier)
Ron Shane	...	Detective
Addalyn Pollitt	...	George's Wife
Lloyd Williams	...	Mr. Kruger, Helcopter Pilot (as William Lloyd)
Ray Dennis Steckler	...	Mr. Fishman (as Ray Steckler)
Bill Rice	...	Chef

Storyline

While driving through the desert, a teenage girl is frightened by a seven-foot giant which appears in her path. After escaping, she returns to the site with her boyfriend and her father in an attempt to find the giant. They do, and it proceeds to terrorize them and the rest of Palm Springs, California.

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Plot Keywords:

sexy brunette | legs | mini dress | short dress | pleated skirt | 

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Taglines:

Eegah had never seen a girl until one fell into his arms! Boy fights giant for girl prize! Desert dune buggy first time on screen!

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Genres:

Comedy | Music

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

1 April 1965 (Mexico)

Also Known As:

Eegah!

Filming Locations:

California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$15,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Fairway International Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastman Color)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Temperatures would frequently exceed 115 degrees in the Bronson Canyon location.

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Goofs

When Eegah lopes from his desert cave into modern town civilization (to search for his new amour Roxy) he's fascinated / confused by the untouchable manikins behind supposedly unknown to him glass .. but as soon as moves on to cross nighttime's road, he quickly checks both ways, presumably to be assured it is clear of modern dangerous cars ... (well, he was almost run over by Roxy in the opening reel, so perhaps he just learns quickly!)

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Quotes

Roxy Miller: That was Mr. Krueger from the airport. The helicopter blew a gasket or something... and he's back in the VA hospital. Anyway, he won't be able to pick Dad up.

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Connections

Referenced in I Hate Everything: the Search for the Worst: The Little Panda Fighter (2015)

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Soundtracks

Nobody Lives on the Brownsville Road
Performed by Arch Hall Jr. and the Archers

User Reviews

Brilliantly Bad

The great thing about "Eegah!" is that it's memorably awful. Even for a bad film, there's something so unique in the dopiness of this strange tale about a caveman loose in the arid wastes of Palm Springs that it really lifts "Eegah!" up to the level of Ed Wood, Gamera, and the film version of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band." Once you've seen it, you'll never forget it. There are many good films you can't say that about.

Richard Kiel, who went on to play a terrific villain in the best James Bond film of the 1970s, "The Spy Who Loved Me," stars as the misunderstood Neanderthal who falls in love with the daughter of famed adventure writer "Robert I. Miller." Like many great men, Dr. Miller is a maze of contradictions, wearing a pith helmet and khaki bush jacket along with black socks and carrying a tiny man-purse. He also installed two mini-ovens in his den, handy for TV snacking.

While trying to take a scintillating photo of a dead campfire, Dr. Miller is surprised by the lumbering giant, who takes him to a cave made of obvious canvas and filled with badly-carved mannequins supposed to be his long-dead kin. It's left up to Dr. Miller's daughter Roxy and her boyfriend, musician and dune-buggy enthusiast Tommy Nelson, to save him. But the horny caveman has other plans for racy Roxy.

Tommy is played by Arch Hall Jr., the other actor in "Eegah!" people remember. Unlike Kiel, it's Hall's performance in this movie that made him famous. He's not exactly repulsive by real-world standards, but his face really sticks out on a movie screen, like Michael J. Pollard crossed with Alfred E. Newman. To make matters worse, he wears his hair in a ridiculously exaggerated greasy blond pompadour and is presented in the film as something of a teen idol, fawned over by the ladies and prone to engaging banter like: "Wowsy wow wow!" It's hard to believe that director Nicholas Merriwether thought this bug-eyed scrub could carry a tuning fork let alone a tune, until you discover Merriwether was the alias of one Arch Hall Sr. (who also played Dr. Miller.)

Giving away more is a disservice. You really have to see the film for yourself. There are many bad films out there, but only one "Eegah!" Even the folks at Mystery Science Theater 3000 couldn't improve on this one, though they tried. Sure, they picked up on one absurd line, "Watch out for snakes," and it's now a catch phrase for those of us who have been "Eegah!-ed." But focusing on just that one line is so wrong, like just thinking "Rosebud" when someone mentions "Citizen Kane." There's so much else going on here, and for once Joel and his 'bots seemed at a loss.

You can't get angry at a film that fails on so many levels. It's like a reverse tutorial in cinematic competency. It's just good these guys found work making movies rather than in nuclear fission.

Really bad music, bad acting, bad dialogue, but all bad in an enjoyable way, like the phony fight scenes by the pool and the way Roxy pretends to cut Kiel's fake beard while her father murmurs creepy encouragement from the sidelines. Bad films are fun to read about, but they are rarely fun to watch the way "Eegah!" is.