If I created a film trailer for The Monolith Monsters, it would have some of the movie’s astonishing quotes flash across the screen with extra exclamation points.
“Her hands are turning to stone!!”
“He’s been welded into a solid mass!!”
“Local geologist turns to rock!!”
“Looks more like a petrified forest than a town!!”
Who wouldn’t be interested in seeing that 1957 B-movie after reading those exciting quotes? The ability to turn a person into stone – like Medusa, the gorgon of Greek mythology, can do with a single look – is one of the most awesome evil powers ever.
But we have to wonder how a monolith – defined by Merriam Webster as “a single great stone often in the form of an obelisk or column” – can pull off that feat, let alone be a threat to the world’s population.
For the answers, don’t look to Greek mythology, but to the skies and the fertile imaginations of B-movie wizard Jack Arnold and Robert M. Fresco who are credited with the film’s story (they’re the same team responsible for the great Tarantula). The screenplay is by Fresco and Norman Jolley; director is John Sherwood (The Creature Walks Among Us).
The monoliths are not from this world (of course) as we learn in the nearly 2-minute opening voiceover that dramatically explains how objects from space have pierced our atmosphere “from time immemorial,” forming craters that will be explored from scientists around the world.
Sure enough, a meteorite crashes into a desolate California desert, creating a large crater as it splinters into hundreds of pieces. Somehow it goes unnoticed by the nearby town until geologist Ben Gilbert (played by Phil Harvey) stops to cool his overheated radiator with water. Intrigued by the shiny, black rocks scattered about, Ben takes one but doesn’t see that the water dripping down through his radiator has left similar rocks “smoking.”
Back in the lab at the District Office for the Department of the Interior in the small California town of San Angelo, Ben is stumped by the rock, even calling it “weird” to newspaper publisher Martin Cochrane (played by always welcomed familiar face Les Treymane). It definitely doesn’t belong, Ben says.
“The desert is full of things that don’t belong,” says our news guy who doesn’t feel he belongs either. “What good is a newspaperman in a town where nothing happens?”
Uh-oh. Just like a sports announcer jinxes a player by saying he hasn’t missed a kick all season, we know something bad is about to happen in San Angelo. It’s helped along by an overnight storm that blows through the lab’s open windows, knocking a beaker of distilled water on the rock and creating that ominous smoke again. (You will be surprised at how much heavy rain there is in this desert town.)
Head geologist Dave Miller (Grant Williams) arrives in the morning to find the lab destroyed, black rocks everywhere and Ben’s hard dead body – and we mean hard. Rock solid. Petrified.
Everyone, including the doctor, is stumped. Could it have something to do with that weird rock Ben brought to the lab? That sets off Dave’s girlfriend Cathy (Lola Albright), who shares that one of her students took a similar rock during their field trip to the desert. (To be honest, even Dave thought that was a strange spot for a field trip.)
They race to check on Ginny and her family, but we know they’ll be too late. We saw her wash her rock with water after mom said it was too dirty to bring into the house. By the time they arrive, the house is destroyed and Ginny’s hand is turning black from being petrified.
Much time is spent in labs and medical offices as our geologist Dave, teacher Cathy, two doctors, a professor and police chief look for answers to save Ginny and figure out what’s happening. That means it’s time for the mumbo-jumbo scenes we look forward to in sci-fi films. We’ll learn about rock compositions (“you can see the strata!”), silicates (chert, feldspar, pyroxene!), “negative cleavage” of the minerals (I have no idea, but it sounds equally important and funny), and the natural role silicone plays in humans.
A cup of bad coffee is the unlikely key to solving the mystery. Just a tiny amount of water – or coffee – helps a small rock self-replicate and grow into a giant monolith that will ultimately fall to the ground and shatter into pieces, starting the process again. (As we’re urgently told, by the third cycle of this happening, there will be a million rocks!) Each time it expands into a larger geographic area and in this case, it’s headed toward San Angelo.
And so is another rainstorm – time is running out.
If you’ve seen Jack Arnold’s Tarantula, a film he directed in 1955, you’ll remember that awesome scene of the giant arachnid slowly approaching the town. It’s a striking visual that’s worth repeating as it is with the monoliths. And that makes me think of how The Monolith Monsters had much more potential than it could ever reach on a tiny budget and with 1957 technology.
While it’s still fun to watch, I wish a modern filmmaker with respect for the genre would remake The Monolith Monsters and give the out-of-the-box idea the treatment it deserves. The visual of a million black, shiny rocks taking over the world deserves to be seen. The hero, of course, would have to be played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He’s big enough in size, personality and stature to fight the monoliths.
I can see the ads now: “It’s The Rock against the rocks in a battle to save the world!”
A BIT OF TRIVIA
A location doesn’t need to be real to be reused. The fictional California Medical Research Institute was also a “character” in director Jack Arnold’s The Incredible Shrinking Man, released earlier in 1957. It also starred Grant Williams.
And a set can be reused as often as necessary. Multiple sci-fi and horror films of the 1950s had a quaint town that would be in peril from an approaching creature. The set was often Courthouse Square on Universal’s backlot. Among the many films it appears in are The Monolith Monsters, Tarantula and It Came from Outer Space.
Hey, is that? Yes it is.
William Schallert (best known for The Patty Duke Show) brings levity to the film as a meteorologist with a penchant for jargon (“the duration of precipitation”) and rolls of weather maps on his desk in a short but memorable scene.
Child actor Paul Petersen is newspaper boy Bobby who rides off on his bike to spread the word of the impending disaster.
Troy Donahue is hidden under his ball cap playing a dynamite expert, but you’ll recognize his voice in the four lines he speaks.
– Toni Ruberto for Classic Movie Hub
You can read all of Toni’s Monsters and Matinees articles here.
Toni Ruberto, born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., is a freelance editor and writer who also previously worked at The Buffalo News. She shares her love for classic movies in her blog, Watching Forever and is a member and board chair of the Classic Movie Blog Association. Toni was the president of the former Buffalo chapter of TCM Backlot and led the offshoot group, Buffalo Classic Movie Buffs. She is proud to have put Buffalo and its glorious old movie palaces in the spotlight as the inaugural winner of the TCM in Your Hometown contest. You can find Toni on Twitter at @toniruberto or on Bluesky at @watchingforever.bsky.social
