BUUUUUGGGGGGGGSS!.........FUMIGATING "THE DEADLY MANTIS"

The Deadly Mantis (1957)    Couldn't resist borrowing the title of this post from one of the immortal lines in "Starship Troopers"........

            As a kid in summer camp, I remember coming across two Preying Mantises (Manti?) locked in a mating embrace.......

            Even then, I knew this didn't bode well for the male mantis, who'd soon have his head bitten off by the female as soon as she felt properly impregnated.......

           Well, that's the way it goes sometimes in relationships......

              And now you know why male mantises don't go on dating websites and avoid singles bars.....

              But enough modern frivolity. Let's return to the fabulous 50's when hordes of giant mutated insects came crawling out who-knows-where.........some of 'em super-sized by Atomic bomb testing, some of 'em just waiting for defrosting.......

                These movies deployed a full range of special effects techniques to create their monsters......everything from full scale, ambulatory models, ("Them!"), stop motion animation ("The Black Scorpion") and photo-enlarging the real bugs into  behemoths ("Tarantula", "The Beginning Of The End")

                 "The Deadly Mantis", however chose to use a meticulously creepy,  miniature model of a mantis, complete with its own guttural roar, as if it came fully equipped with a pair of lungs to rival Pavarotti's.........

                  In flight, it's a stately thing of beauty.........essentially one big-ass drone.....and boy does it drone. (In fact, it's probably about the same shape and size as the drone recently shot down the by Iranians....)

                   Not for long, though. This is the 50's, after all......where the U.S. government, military and all their attendant bureaucracies are still the good guys, worthy of rousing cheers.  Compare that attitude to today.....heh, heh, heh......

                   The Big M goes down hard, crashing into a New York traffic tunnel right in the middle of rush hour.......the poor sucker ends up looking like just another auto wreck, with extra large headlights.........but not before he stops off, like any tourist, to crawl up the Washington Monument and and snack on an all-night buffet of bus and train passengers.......

                  So let's hear it for our brave jet pilots along with the civilian observer corps, who have no trouble spotting an insect the size of a 727...…..

                   All things considered, the Mantis got off easy......he could have suffered a far worse demise......

                    He could have run into a horny female mantis.........and she'd give 'im something to drone about. Now there's a sequel BQ would have prayed for......

                     Or preyed for.  3 stars for "The Deadly Mantis" (***).  Drone on, big guy......you forever want to make me scream B  U U U U U G G G G!!!!!!!!