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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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Saturday, August 5, 2017

Monster On The Campus (1958)

Starring Arthur Franz, Joanna Moore, Judson Pratt, Nancy Walters, Troy Donahue
Directed by Jack Arnold
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A professor of science brings a giant prehistoric fish to his university but discovers too late the creature's blood transforms anything that swallows it into a savage beast of the past. 

An entertaining sci-fi/horror romp from Universal-International with some worthy creature effects, I've always been fond of this picture, although it's probably one of the lesser regarded films of director Jack Arnold.  It's not on the same level as Creature From The Black Lagoon and The Incredible Shrinking Man, but it's a lot of fun, with Franz as the obsessed scientist who cares more about his experiments than his college lectures, Pratt as the no-nonsense police detective who has to start believing in the fantastic, and the always welcome Ross Elliott as his ill-fated partner.  Plenty of great Universal cues are tracked into the music score, including a generous sampling from Son Of Frankenstein once a neanderthal man appears on the scene.  Although the film's somewhat predictable, it's still enjoyable viewing everytime I revisit it.

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