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Rating: 6.5 stars

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TCM

All movies seen on 06/30/2011

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The Magnetic Monster (1953)

Directed by Curt Siodmak, Herbert L. Strock

Science Fiction

Most recently watched by sleestakk

Overview

The Office of Scientific Investigations tracks down the source of increased magnetism and radioactivity in Los Angeles, and discovers that a man-made isotope is consuming available energy from nearby mass every few hours,  doubling its size in the process.  Although microscopic, it will soon become big enough to destroy Earth; and how to stop it is yet to be determined.  The film’s Deltatron special effects footage is taken from the 1934 German sci-fi film GOLD.

Rated NR | Length 76 minutes

Actors

Richard Carlson | King Donovan | Leo Britt | Jean Byron | Harry Ellerbe | Frank Gerstle | John Vosper | Byron Foulger | Leonard Mudie | Kathleen Freeman | William Benedict | John Zaremba | Douglas Evans | Strother Martin | Michael Fox | Watson Downs | Lee Phelps | Roy Engel | John Dodsworth | Charles Williams | Michael Granger | Jarma Lewis | Elizabeth Root | Juney Ellis

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Viewing Notes

The Magnetic Monster is a strange film, more science than science fiction. It starts off as a criminal investigation involving various incidents and deaths due to radiation exposure and magnetization of metal objects, but then heads into The Monolith Monsters territory.

There’s a lot of stock footage here, but it’s used pretty well and cut into the dramatic scenes exceedingly well, and so, somehow, it all works better than it sounds like it should.

It’s still a bit sleepy, but considering it was done in 1953, I think it turned out fairly well.

This was the third movie of the evening in Turner Classic Movies’ final TCM Drive-In feature that they’d been running for about a month on Thursdays. I hope they revisit the idea from time to time because it’s been a lot of fun.

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