Beast of The Amazon

CURUCU: BEAST OF THE AMAZON-1956-Rock Dean (John Bromfield), an American plantation owner in Brazil has all his native workers quit because they are afraid of a monster they say lives along the Amazon River. Dean reluctantly teams up with a female doctor Romar (Beverly Garland) who's looking for a potion the natives use to shrink heads to find out what's going on. The beast looks like a mutated version of Toucan Sam but with fangs. Later it turns out their guide (Tom Payne) is impersonating the monster because he's the leader of a group who want to stop “the white man” from invading. 

Filmed in parts of Brazil and Argentina this color production has lots of stock footage and bad SFX. It was written and directed by Curt Siodmak who'd seen better days when writing Universal horror movies (THE WOLFMAN, FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN). 

Lead actor Bromfield had been in THE REVENGE OF THE CREATURE the year before and was later in the TV series SHERIFF OF COCHISE). Garland was in SWAMP WOMEN and IT CONQUERED THE WORLD, both for Roger Corman, the same year.

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