DESTINATION INNER SPACE (1966)

 "LOOKS LARGER.  LOOKS LIKE IT'S GROWING!"

Less exciting than an episode of VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, less (only just) cringy misogyny than THE ANGRY RED PLANET, DESTINATION INNER SPACE is a conundrum and no mistake.  It's sort of on the cusp of the 1950's moving into the 1960's, with all the awkwardness that implies.  It's simply not fish nor fowl (sorry about that).  There are, in fact, fish.  But I'm not sure the movie knows what it wants to be.  An underwater sealab (I HATE pod six!!!) has detected something moving around under the sea (now THAT song is stuck in my head!!!)that they cannot identify.  Turns out it's a flying saucer.  Under water.  Um . . . a swimming saucer???  Yeah, I'm going with that.  There's a swimming saucer tooling around the ocean floor.  The sealab is full of grumpy, crotchedy middle-aged white men and a couple women whom they assume will fall in love with them at the drop of a sexist epithet.  The sealab is a civilian operation run by Dr. LaSatier (upper-middle-aged Gary Merrill).  Middle-aged military Commander Wayne (middle-aged Scott Brady) is sent down to the sealab for some reason or other.  I can't rightly remember.  Down in the sealab is also Hugh Maddox (earlier middle-aged Mike Road) who has a major beef with Wayne.  Apparently some time before, Wayne left Maddox and a bunch of other men inside a flooding compartment to die.  Only Maddox escaped.  Now they get to work together down in the sealab which leads to lots more grumpiness and crotchediness amongst the middle-aged white men.  The two women -- and the ONLY two women I can see -- are Dr. Rene Peron (Sheree North) and Sandra Welles (Wende Wagner) and they get to endure all the outrageously sexist staring and ogling and innuendo hurled their way by said middle-aged white men. 

Wende Wagner absolutely smothered by middle-aged white men!!!

I mean, surely if I were them, I would lure the middle-aged white men outside the sealab then double back and lock the doors; leaving them outside to drown . . . while still probably leering at them through a porthole!  The above quote at the top of this post is by Sheree North as she peers through a magnifying glass at what looks like an oxygen tank brought back from inside the deserted, drone swimming saucer (Wayne and Maddox had a bickering excursion to it while Sandra Welles tagged along) and discovers that it's two inches longer than it was an hour ago.  If only one of the middle-aged white men could do the same.  But that's a thought better left un . . . thought. 

Sheree North, Scott Brady & Gary Merrill

After doubling in size, the 'object' begins emitting sonic waves which start shattering glass.  Another middle-aged white guy -- not sure what his character's name is --  tells Dr Peron that if the sonic waves get any stronger they will shatter that huge bottle of acid conveniently just a-sittin' on the table over there; so he tells her to go fetch Dr. LaSatier (I'm sure the ". . . like a good girl" is implied if not actually spoken).  She leaves and the guy intelligently grabs the bottle of acid and slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwly waddles towards the door but the bottle naturally shatters and the doc gets an acid bath.  Middle-aged white men come running, shut off the ventilators because of the 'acid gas' then starts spraying fire extinguishers all over the place.  There's no fire.  There's just stinky acid gas.  This is apparently what one does when there is acid gas.  We see the 'oxygen tank'-looking thing has burst open; apparently it was an egg because -- at the 40 minute mark -- we have our monster, ladies and jellyspoons. 

And what a monster it is!!!  I mean, this is the best looking monster you ever want to eviscerate you!  Make-up man Richard Cassarino outdid himself in his one and only screen credit!!!  I love this monster so much and saw it in old issues of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND magazine and the like!  My gosh, it almost makes up for the dull and cringy first half hour of this flick!    I mean, this monster is so cool that Cassarino and the monster made an appearance on TV show TO TELL THE TRUTH. 

I mean, that's incredibly awesome!!!!  You can watch the episode on youtubers here   host Bud Collyer (Superman himself) hosts with panelists Tom Posten, Peggy Cass, Orson Bean and Kitty Carlisle.  You just can't GET a better pedigree as a 60's monster than that!!!  So yeah, frankly what's more to say.  The Amphibian (as the monster is called when he shambles out of the shadows at the beginning of that TO TELL THE TRUTH episode) does a bunch of sea creature things to the cast and crew of the sealab and we are all the more grateful to it for saving the movie!  There IS the whole thing about the magnificent James Hong being relegated to a stereotypical Chinese cook named Ho Lee on the sealab who must refer to himself in the third person i.e. "What can Ho Lee make you for dinner?"  Luckily, the inherent dignity of the man prevents him from having to fall to the Willie Fung level of Chinese stereotypes from the 1930's but one wishes Hong was given more to do. 

It looks like there is a Riff Trax version of this film with James Hong prominently featured on the cover art so that's some small recompense to a wonderful actor, I guess.  So yes, make no mistake. . . this is a terrible movie but it's totally made enjoyable and worthwhile by the great monster suit made by unheralded genius Richard Cassarino.  Gosh, why did he not get more work?!?!?!  Anyway, DESTINATION INNER SPACE has been described by many people besides myself as an undersea version of IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE or possibly a dozen more monster movies like it.  But when you have a monster as lovable and spectacular as this one, there's no room for complaint.  And I ain't complainin'.

Art by earthbaragon @ DeviantArt