- Director: Nathan Juran
- Writers: Martin Berkeley, William Alland
- Stars: Craig Stevens, William Hopper, Alix Talton
- Run Time; 1 Hour, 19 Minutes
- Link: https://amzn.to/3nQPgnl
Synopsis
In the southern Atlantic Ocean, a volcano explodes. We are told that, “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Up near the North Pole, icebergs start tipping. One of the falls down and reveals… The Deadly Mantis! Credits roll.
We get a lecture about radar and about the electronic radar “fences” that we had set up all over Canada to watch for attacks from the polar regions.
Colonel Parkman arrives at Red Eagle One, the command post for the DEW line. Further up the DEW line, a weather station spots something on radar that soon attacks them. Command soon notices that the station isn’t answering their radio. A rescue plane is dispatched. They find the weather station a wreck and the men are missing.
The base spots something on radar and launches fighters to investigate. They don’t see anything, but it’s not long before one of the planes is knocked out of the sky. They find a mysterious pointy thing in the wreckage, but it looks like a claw. The people at the base send it to the Pentagon, who confirms that it is a huge creature. They ask an expert, Dr. Jackson, who can reconstruct dinosaurs to take a look at it. Jackson narrows it down to a giant flesh-eating insect of some kind, and he thinks it might have been frozen alive in the ice at the North Pole. Actually, he says it’s a praying mantis.
We cut to a bunch of Inuits evacuating their town and being attacked by you guessed it: a giant mantis. Jackson and his photographer, Marge, hop on a plane to the deep north. As they get settled in, the mantis approaches the base.
The Colonel and Jackson have a long discussion about why no one has seen the creature while the mantis looks in the window right behind them, and they don’t even notice it until it starts tearing the building down. They scramble fighters and start shooting with guns and flame throwers, but that doesn’t stop the thing. It eventually flies off, but they all got to see it, so there’s no longer any doubt about what it was.
It’s reported at the mid-Canada line which is 1500 miles away. That means it can fly at over 200 miles per hour. Also, they notice that it’s heading due south toward the USA. They explain everything on a special news report that goes out to all the live TV and radio in the USA. Everyone is waiting for the mantis to show itself again.
Some jet fighters shoot missiles at it, and although some hit, it doesn’t kill it. It does, however, land. That evening, the Colonel and Marge drive home, and they hear about a nearby train derailment. They check it out and head towards home. They stop to “make out,” and then they hear about a bus accident in the area as well. Someone spots it flying over Washington DC, and the army goes berserk. It crawls up the side of the Washington Monument.
They track it for a while, with lots of shots of people looking at the skies and calling in sightings. They shoot it down again, and it lands in New York City. It hides in the Manhattan Tunnel, which they fill full of smoke to drive it out. A group of armed soldiers go in after it. There’s a lot of shooting, and they finally kill it. As they examine the body, it starts moving. Dr. Jackson says it’s a reflex; it really is dead.
Commentary
The first five minutes seem to be a propaganda film for the US military. Actually, much of the first half hour looks like it was shot for a documentary about life in the arctic. It’s got jet fighters, big ships, radar, DEW line, and all your favorite Cold War technology.
The mantis is a practical model, unlike the film “Tarantula,” which used blown-up footage of an actual spider. The mantis here doesn’t really look all that realistic, but it’s clearly visible and not the victim of camera limitations.
It’s a long time before we see the mantis, and once we do see it, it’s mostly flying around. Still, for the most part, it’s not boring, and if you are interested in the military hardware of the 50s, we do see a lot of it.