I’ll solve the puzzle, Alex. Oh, this isn’t Wheel of Fortune? And Alex is the wrong TV host? Well, shiiiiiiit.
A movie in the classic B-list tradition, Giant From The Unknown (1958) tells the story of the discovery of a Spanish consquistador from the 1600s – still alive and kicking in the hills of California in the 1950s. Indulging in bloody murder and mayhem, “Diablo” Vargas does his best to cover up the sins of this script, the foremost of which was the terrible role assigned to the lead female, the daughter of the archaeologist in search of Vargas. She is, at best, vapid. And a bad screen kisser. Of course, there’s the handsome local with whom she’s tangling tonsils, the local sheriff who hates the handsome local, various minor characters, and a not-too-awful hunt-down-the-murderer scene, in which the locals actually suffer significant casualties.
But it’s all fairly dull. The daughter grates on the nerves, the archaeologist is just a trifle too, ummmm, sciencey, and I kept hoping they’d push the sheriff off a cliff. But it’s Diablo who takes the tumble in this one, leaving us with another yawner worthy of watching only because we were both sore from shoveling snow. In fact, the mystery gecko was perhaps the most interesting part of the movie. He’s a real scene stealer.
Believe it or not, this little guy embodies the most important plot mechanism of the movie.
