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Greetings, and welcome to VIEWING THE CLASSICS. Here you'll find capsule reviews of vintage movies from the early days of cinema through the 1970s, with a special emphasis on sci-fi, horror, and mystery movies. Be sure to check out the Pages links, where you can find a Film Index of all my reviews, links to the reviews organized by cast members, directors, and other contributors, and links to my reviews of the films of talented young director Joshua Kennedy.

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Sunday, February 2, 2014

Tarantula (1955)

Starring John Agar, Mara Corday, Leo G. Carroll, Nestor Paiva, Ross Elliott
Directed by Jack Arnold
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A scientist experimenting with a radioactive nutrient unwittingly lets a tarantula he's treated escape from his lab, and it grows into a huge menace that threatens the community nearby.

One of the best monster movies of its kind, director Jack Arnold's follow-up to It Came From Outer Space and Creature From The Black Lagoon is an involving sci-fi thriller with special effects that still look seamless, great makeup effects for the unfortunate human beings that have been injected with the nutrient, and a stalwart performance by familiar '50s leading man John Agar.  Although the picture's somewhat derivative of Them!, which set the gold standard for "giant bug" movies when released the previous year, it holds up on its own terms, and is a personal favorite of mine among Arnold's and Agar's credits.

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