Fans of vintage genre films like Ray Harryhausen for his great stop-motion creature effects. Makers of vintage genre films liked Harryhausen because he could deliver ’em on a low budget. Exhibit A is this quick and clumsy monster job from producer Sam Katzman, who cranked out these suckers by the truckload for Columbia Pictures. This is the one about the giant octopus that attacks US Navy submarines in the Pacific and then treats the Golden Gate Bridge like my cat treats her toys. The military and a pair of marine biologists played by Faith Domergue and Donald Curtis spend a whole lot of time talking about the problem while Katzman and director Robert Gordon save their money for the big underwater climax. Next to Harryhausen’s excellent sea creature that surely had ’em screaming at the Saturday matinee, the most memorable parts of this otherwise unmemorable film are scientist Faith Domergue’s sharp retorts to Navy commander Kenneth Tobey’s casual sexism while she’s trying to save the world—and the movie is on her side. If you’re on the lookout for “progressive” moments like that in old B-movies, this one brings it.
Funny enough though, this was originally released on a double-bill with another Katzman production The Creature with the Atom Brain, which has one of the most outrageously sexist characters in 50s American sci-fi (Richard Denning’s bumbling housewife). So, you win some, you lose some, I guess.