It! (1967) I may have initially skipped seeing this way back when, 'cause though it was shot in rich, ripe Eastmancolor, all the U.S. prints were duped in black-and-white.
When a color print finally popped up on TCM, I dutifully, grudgingly sat down to watch it, not expecting much. After all, it came from writer-director Herbert J. Leder, strictly a bottom-ot-the-barrel guy who also did the freeze-dried Nazi movie "The Frozen Dead".......(though I did enjoy the talking beheaded girl in it.....)
The "it" here is our old, old, old movie monster friend, the Golem......big stone guy meant to protect defenseless villagers, but usually misunderstood because.....because, well, he's a big, freaky-deaky stone guy.
In this film, Big G's found in the U.K. and comes under the care and protection of assistant museum director Pimm (that one time child star and longtime genial hammy character Roddy McDowell.)
You do indeed get the full scene-stealing McDowell here, doing one of his specialties - the prissy, preening fussbudget minion.....Uriah Heep reborn.
His boss, the museum director browbeats Primm without mercy, until one of Golem's massive stone arms comes down on him like Maxwell's Silver Hammer......clearing the path to promotion for Primm.
Let us not forget to mention that from the very outset, the film establishes Pimm as a world class whack-a-doodle. Like Anthony Perkins' Norman Bates, Pimm bonds with the skeletal corpses of his dead mom, whom he still keeps at home with him in a a wheelchair.
So before long, with help of a secret scroll he sticks in the Golem's mouth, Pimm can command Big G to do his bidding.......mainly wiping out senior museum guys so Little P can become the U.K.s youngest curator.
Another big task Primm hands to Stone Head, impressing the hell out of his cute blonde co-worker (the criminally cute Jill Haworth). This involves ordering Big G to park underneath a bridge and upend it......yes, folks, this movie lets you see a London bridge come falling down.
Now here's where "It!" stops being just another mundane monster movie and begins to go seriously off the rails.......which I dearly love.
The authorities not only figure out Primm's using Big G as a combo bullyboy-genie, but don't seem to have any trouble believing it. (Remember how long it took the powers-that-be in 1950's sci fi horror movies to comprehend weird shit was happening?)_
The cops and the army come ready to rumble, but Big G's fairly indestructible......even bazooka shells and cannon fire won't put a dent in him.
Their response? Wait for it.......nuke the Golem! I kid you not. The Brits, rather that trying out a wrecking ball or a a frickin' laser beam, resort to dropping a low yield warhead on top of ole Stoney.......large enough to turn him into pebbles and probably give half the country radiation sickness. But what the hell, you gotta crack some eggs to make an omelot, right?
The nuke does in fact vaporize Primm.....but guess who is still left standing! And leaving us all between a rock and hard place? Not to worry, because the movie, in a last gasp bid for irony comes up with a suitable ending and warning to all of us........don't mess with effin' mother nature.....and a Golem.
For that bonkers third act and the additional bonus of seeing Jill Haworth in a nighty.....3 stars (***). Stone cold crazy.
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