Scorpions

 

 (YouTube)

THE BLACK SCORPION-1957-Hank (Richard Denning) and Doc Ramos (Carlos Rivas) investigate a volcano eruption in Mexico. They find a wrecked home, a smashed up police car, a dead police Sgt and a baby. After delivering the baby to a church, the priest tells them of some mysterious deaths and the legend of "the demon bull" that ranchers say kill their cattle. They meet rancher Theresa Alvarez (Mara Corday) after she falls off her horse. They become her guests and try to help out after a giant scorpion attacks. Juanito (Mario Navvaro), a little kid, hangs around acting cute. Dr. Valesco (Carlos Muzquiz) comes to evacuate the city and identifies the creature as a prehistoric scorpion. He says "I beg of you all not to lose your heads...in any sense of the word". Ramos & Hank go down into a huge underground cavern and besides scorpions encounter a giant worm and spider. PITA Juanito hides out with them and almost gets them killed. Dynamite seems to kill prehistoric scorpions but….

Despite it's low budget this movie is saved by the great stop motion SFX by Willis O'Brien and Pete Peterson. Some of it finished, they say, in Peterson's garage due to budget constrictions. The scorpion puppet was created by Wah Chang. Nice climax though I never liked that they killed a character needlessly to make Hank the hero.

 If Warner Brothers had spend some more money on this they would have had a real classic! Director Edward Ludwig began his career making silent short films, went into feature films when sound arrived (WAKE OF THE RED WITCH) and by the time of THE BLACK SCORPION was doing a lot TV. 

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