Starring Richard Carlson, King Donovan, Jean Byron, Harry Ellerbe, Leo Britt
Directed by Curt Siodmak
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
The Office of Scientific Investigation finds itself the hope of the world when a dangerous new element starts doubling in size every 12 hours, drawing in the energy it needs with magnetism.
The first of a series of films by producer Tors and writer/director Siodmak, focusing on science-based threats to Earth, is in my estimation the best of them, with Carlson providing a strong lead, as the story follows his investigation in a Dragnet-like style. There's a lot of technical concepts and terminology but I'd have to say overall the filmmakers succeed in conveying the threat of the element without confusing the audience. It was a big risk on their part to make the "monster" of the film a largely intangible menace, but with the real-life atomic threats of the time, people did have such menaces already in their mind, and they were able to tap into that paranoia effectively. Without many special effects or likely the budget for them, the film has to depend on cribbing footage from the impressively staged 1934 film Gold for its climax, but it works well enough for a satisfying viewing experience.
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