Mantis!

 

 (TCM)

THE DEADLY MANTIS-1957-After a lengthy introduction about the creation of the Dew Line, an US Arctic outpost is mysteriously destroyed. Col. Joe Parkman (Craig Stevens; TV's Peter Gunn series) investigates and the Air Force spends a good deal of time looking for what caused it. All they find is a piece of giant claw which a bunch of egghead doctors can't figure out. They contact Dr. Nedrick Jackson (William Hopper; TV's Perry Mason), a paleontologist who deduces the claw is from a giant praying mantis, which later destroys a village in Greenland. When Jackson is sent to the Arctic to check things out, a female museum reporter Marge Blaine (Alix Dalton) goes with him. During a dance at the air force base the mantis attacks. Later it heads down the coast to terrorize the eastern seaboard. It wrecks a bus, buzzes the Capitol and the climbs the Washington monument. Later it lands in NYC and hides in the Manhattan tunnel where it is eventually destroyed. 

Pat Conway (from TV's TOMBSTONE TERRITORY is also in it. Good '50's giant insect horror, despite some phony looking effects, directed by Nathan Juran who in the same year made 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH, THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS (with John Agar) and HELLCATS OF THE NAVY (with Ronald & Nancy Reagan). Story is credited to William Alland.

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