Mr B.I.G

Apparently, Mr B.I.G himself died recently, at the age of 100.  Mr B.I.G, of course, being famed low budget film maker Bert I Gordon.  Coincidentally, I was watching one of his films - Empire of the Ants (1977) - last week and had been planning to write something about it this week.  Gordon built his career on a series of fifties monster movies for which he also created the special effects. It was these special effects for which he is probably best remembered - their effectiveness varied wildly and were generally based around the use of rear projection to create its monsters, which took the form of giant insects or giant mutated humans.  While in films like the Amazing Colossal Man (1957) and its sequel War of the Colossal Beast (1958) these came off quite well, (mainly because the actors playing the monsters could be controlled and directed), in films like The Beginning of the End (1957) or Earth vs The Spider (1957), which respectively involved back projections of actual grasshoppers and arachnids, the technique looked utterly ludicrous.  The Beginning of the End, in particular, becomes almost surreal as real grasshoppers are seen crawling over a photograph of some skyscrapers, every so often appearing to wander off into the sky.  Incredibly, Gordon was still using the same techniques into the seventies, most notably on a pair of movies allegedly derived from H G Wells' stories that he produced for AIP: Food of the Gods (1976) and Empire of the Ants  Both employ real, photographically enlarged, back projected animals to provide their monsters.  While the various giant chickens, worms and rats (amongst other animals) of Food of the Gods re, most of the time, reasonably effective, (although never convincing), Empire of the Ants is a complete throwback to The Beginning of the End, with its back projected 'giant' ants scurrying around.

Both films supplement their back projected live animals with full-size giant mock ups for close ups:  several cast members get mauled by giant puppet rat heads in Food of the Gods, while various characters in Empire of the Ants fall into the mandibles of giant rubber ants. It has to be said that in the latter film these rubber mock ups are actually more convincing than the real ants.  To be fair, neither film is entirely without merit.  Empire of the Ants, in particular, actually has a half decent script, containing some intriguing ideas, such as the giant ants being able to control humans via a dosage of pheromones, forcing them to serve their queen like worker ants.  Being a cheap exploitation film, however, it never fully explores this idea, introducing only late into the film's running time.  The fact is that Gordon, special effects aside, was a pretty solid director - his films are generally well paced, feature reasonable performances from their casts and in spite of their low budgets, look decent enough, with good production values, lighting, camera work and editing.  Indeed, some of his non-monster pictures, which didn't require his wonky special effects, are pretty good - 1972' The Mad Bomber springs to mind, as an example.  He was also a film-maker who never allowed a lack of resources to stand in the way of his cinematic ambitions.  His The Magic Sword (1962), for instance, is an attempt at a fantasy epic on a shoestring budget (and Gordon's shaky effects work), which is remarkably enjoyable despite its shortcomings.  Although associated with giant monster movies, Gordon's output was actually quite varied, including a children's film, The Boy and the Pirates (1960) and a number of horror films including Tormented (1960), Picture Mommy Dead (1966) and Necromancy (1972), a tale of modern witchcraft that starred Orson Welles.  Burned at the Stake (1981) was another horror film featuring some interesting ideas, mixing together time travel, reincarnation and the Salem witch trials.

While many of his films are easy to ridicule and none were ever likely to win any awards, Bert I Gordon's output is, on the whole, at least entertaining and more often than not a cut above most of the other science fiction and horror B-movies being put out in the fifties and sixties. That said, his first directorial effort, King Dinosaur (1955), is pretty much indefensible...