I love 1950s monster flicks. Despite the often cheesy special effects and low-budgets, they were often a ton of fun. So, whenever one of them comes on TV that I have not seen, I am sure to tune in and cheer for the giant ant, crab or whatever the screenwriters dreamed up in this installment. Some are great and some are pretty stupid, but they are enjoyable. However, "The Cyclops" manages to do something that few of them could do--it bored me half to death. So, it had the cheesy effects and budget but lacked fun.

The film begins with a wife (Gloria Talbot) hiring a pilot to go on a seemingly fruitless search for long-lost husband. Not surprisingly, they discover the husband has been turned into a giant cyclops and other creatures in this wilderness have turned giant-sized as well. Guess why this is...yup, atomic radiation!! Along for the ride are handsome James Craig and worthless Long Chaney, Jr.--and I say worthless because his part was incredibly one-dimensional even for one of these films. Every minute Chaney was on screen he whined and complained and schemed and I was thrilled when his character was killed! So why else didn't I like the film? After all giant creatures and atomic radiation--two sure ingredients for 50s-style fun! Well, the problem is that there is no suspense at all, little action and in the end, the survivors simply got aboard their plane and flew off...and the credits rolled. Sluggish and not at all fun...this is one you can skip.

Three men and the woman who is financing the expedition go into a forbidden part of the Mexican desert. Gloria Talbott is searching for her fiancé who was an aviator and went down in the region three years earlier. Her fiancé's best friend James Craig who is a scientist is along, pilot Tom Drake, and Lon Chaney, Jr. who is looking for uranium deposits is along.

Radioactive material they find all right, it makes ordinary creatures grow to incredible size. One of those creatures is a 25 foot deformed man with only one eye like the legendary cyclops of Greek mythology. I think we know what happened to the fiancé.

Bert Gordon produced this one for Allied Artists on an Allied Artists shoestring budget. But the studio got its money's worth. Some nice sincere performances from the cast about a human tragedy.

The Cyclops is worth a look.

You know, it's weird. Director Bert I. Gordon only made seven films during the 1950s, but I could have sworn he made dozens. That's because his name – and, more specifically, his nickname ("Mister B.I.G.") is synonymous with the back-projection craze in monster movies. Spend ages creating a stop-motion dinosaur? No thanks – what's the point when you can just dress up everyday creatures, blow them up to full size and then use back projection to have them 'menace' your real-life actors? Unsurprisingly, Gordon has developed a cult fan base over the years, and it's easy to see why. His films may not be masterpieces, but they are universally entertaining, and the same can be said of THE CYCLOPS.

It's typical stuff, thinking up some 'whatever' excuse to get the small cast (4 actors here) into a remote location. The good news is that, thanks to the short running time, barely minutes have passed before they're up to their neck in huge rodents, birds of prey, spiders and (inevitably) lizards. So far, so good, you might think, but then Gordon reveals his trump card: a HUMAN, horrifically scarred by an accident, transformed into a bloodthirsty GIANT! From then on, our characters must try to escape from this gigantic menace while there are a few nods to Homer's Odyssey as they get holed up in a cave and figure out a less-than-original way to destroy the beast.

One thing that surprised me was that this little 1957 flick was actually SCARY. That's all down to the disgusting make-up job done on the Cyclops; apparently, it was so good that Gordon used it in a few different movies! With exposed, rotting teeth, an eye bulging out of its socket and the rest of its face a slump of liquid flesh, this monster looks NASTY – definitely the scariest '50s creature I've seen yet! (when you compare this with the carrot-man Boris Karloff-impersonator in THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, you'll see what I mean). The special effects might seem cheesy and dated, and the script often laughable, but it's the makeup which makes this film, if you see what I mean. Oh, and Lon Chaney Jr.

Everybody gives Chaney a hard time, chuckling at his performances because he was an alcoholic by this stage of his career. I have to ask, who cares? Chaney's still got it, and to prove that he gives one of his very BEST performances in this film! He's essentially the no-good villain of the story, although his character is painted in shades of grey rather than black. I have to say, I loved Chaney here, and he pulls off a great performance that puts the other cast members into the shade – especially unlikable wooden hero James Craig who ended up in an Ed Wood movie after a long career in westerns! Gloria Talbott is another who doesn't make much of an impact. If you want to see this film, watch it for Chaney and the monster. It's no classic but it IS an entertaining B-movie of its time.