Eight years before directing 'Gorgo' in 1961,
Eugène Lourié made '
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms' and arguably launched the whole giant atomic monster,
kaiju subgenre. After 'Gorgo', and with two other giant creature movies under his belt that left him feeling himself typecast, he retrired from directing forging a successful career in other off camera roles including an Academy Award nomination for the visual effects on '
Krakatoa, East of Java'. Of those four movies that led to him relinquishing the director's chair though the first and last remain central to the genre.
Following a volcanic eruption off the coast of an Irish island the crew of a salvage vessel capture a giant monster with bright red eyes and wiggly ears. Ignoring the claims of the Irish scientists they take the creature, 'Gorgo', to London and put on display for the gawking masses until it's 200 foot tall mother, 'Ogra', turns up and rampages across the city.
Beyond the obvious stompy bloke in a rubber suit limitations of the movie and an over-reliance on stock footage there's some striking effects work here as 'Ogra' eats everything in her path in her desperate search for Chewits her lost baby. With barely a female in sight - beyond the 200ft tall one - this is a remarkably male-centred movie even for the time and in their absence Lourié puts the emotional heart of the movie in the hands of the young orphan, Sean (Vincent Winter), and the two kaijus and, through their greed and their voyeurism, firmly establishing the humans as the actual monsters.
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