Rainey Dawn
Crazy, super sized fun film! It's one of those large creatures films that was so popular in the 1950s thru the early 1960s. If you like those types of sci-fi, horror films then you might like The Cyclops! Susan Winters' (Talbott) fiancée is missing. He has not shown back up from his trip to Mexico so Susan decides to get help from Martin Melville (Chaney) to fund her trip in exchange for some of the uranium that is suppose to be in rich supply in the area. She enlists the help of Russ Bradford (Craig) as a guide and Lee Brand (Drake) a pilot. What they discover are an abundance of uranium, over-sized creatures and The Cyclops! I really enjoyed watching this film again after years of no-see! 7.5/10
dougdoepke
Four adventurers go searching on a radio-active island for the girl's lost love. What they find is a couple days work for a special effects department.Okay, the reason I tuned in was to catch cult favorite Gloria Talbott in another of her Z-grade drive-in films. She does manage to get into a tight sweater, but she also looks like she swallowed a lemon. There's none of that charming fright girl from her classic I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958). Here she just looks glum, like she can't wait to exit the set. Too bad.The rest of the movie almost reaches camp level. The monster's make-up looks like they stuck a billiard ball in one eye and left a Kleenex on his cheek. Besides that endless grunting almost left me hearing impaired. Then too, Chaney acts like he's going to make up for the general lack of motivation all by himself. For former A-movie actors like Craig and Drake, this must have suggested the end of the road, which may be why they just walk through their parts.Sure, it's easy to make fun of a drive-in cheapo like this. But even on that lowly scale, this Bronson Canyon, LA Arboretum, special is nothing else than a bad horror movie, dear Gloria or not.
MartinHafer
I love 1950s monster flicks. Despite the often cheesy special effects and low-budgets, they were often a ton of fun. So, whenever one of them comes on TV that I have not seen, I am sure to tune in and cheer for the giant ant, crab or whatever the screenwriters dreamed up in this installment. Some are great and some are pretty stupid, but they are enjoyable. However, "The Cyclops" manages to do something that few of them could do--it bored me half to death. So, it had the cheesy effects and budget but lacked fun.The film begins with a wife (Gloria Talbot) hiring a pilot to go on a seemingly fruitless search for long-lost husband. Not surprisingly, they discover the husband has been turned into a giant cyclops and other creatures in this wilderness have turned giant-sized as well. Guess why this is...yup, atomic radiation!! Along for the ride are handsome James Craig and worthless Long Chaney, Jr.--and I say worthless because his part was incredibly one-dimensional even for one of these films. Every minute Chaney was on screen he whined and complained and schemed and I was thrilled when his character was killed! So why else didn't I like the film? After all giant creatures and atomic radiation--two sure ingredients for 50s-style fun! Well, the problem is that there is no suspense at all, little action and in the end, the survivors simply got aboard their plane and flew off...and the credits rolled. Sluggish and not at all fun...this is one you can skip.
Michael_Elliott
Cyclops, The (1957) *** (out of 4) A woman (Gloria Talbott) travels to the Mexican desert to locate her husband whose been missing for three years. She finds him but he's now a huge, one eyed Cyclops. Here's a classic of the 50's sci-fi directed by Bert I. Gordon who would make a career out of these "man/animal grows big" films. The entire cast, including Lon Chaney, Jr. are a lot of fun and the dialogue gets some nice chuckles as well. Gordon made a lot of these "big" pictures throughout his career but I think this one here is the best of the bunch.
AD
