The Giant Gila Monster

The Giant Gila Monster, hmmm, what could this one be about?
It starts off with a pretty sweet narration that fades in behind loud drums.

"In the enormity of the west there are still vast and virtually unexplored regions bleak and desolate where no human ever goes and no life is ever seen. It is as though the land had been posted by God. It is in these lonely areas of the impenetrable forest and dark shadows that the Gila monster still lives. How large the dreaded Gila monster grows, no man can say.

"...unexplored regions where no human ever goes..." - like this unexplored region with a town in it?

"...no life is ever seen..." - except for Gila monsters

"...posted by God..." - here we are, definition number 5 of the word "post", to put up signs on [property] warning against trespassing.

"...the dreaded Gila monster..." - how dreaded are these things, anyway? I know they're dangerous, but dreaded?

After the narrative, we see a couple parked along the side of the road. For some reason, the guy still has a hand on the wheel while his girlie tries to snuggle up with him. Fortunately, this scene doesn't last long as we hear air escaping from a tire, oh wait, that's the hiss of the Gila monster. The two give a frightened look and before they know it, they're rolling down the side of a hill. Then, from the car's point of view, we see Godzilla's foot come down on the camera...The Giant Gila Monster.

The first scene is set in the proverbial malt shoppe where all the gang has gathered to get ready to go to the drive-in. Chase and Lisa (doesn't sound French, but she is) roll into the scene. Mr. Harris, the town drunk, pulls up, makes some wise cracks to the kids (who all love that crazy drunk guy) and sits on a stool at the bar. After a bit of discussion, Lisa reveals that she once went to a drive-in in France with her brother on a motor scooter, to which some idiot replies, On a motor scooter! Now that's my idea of absolutely nothing to do. What? Where does he get this idea of "nothing to do" from? Must be an old timey saying I don't understand. They leave the malt shoppe and tell the owner to tell Pat and Liz (from the opening scene) to meet up with them at the drive-in.

The next scene is Pat's dad, Mr. Wheeler, talking to the sheriff about his boy's disappearance. Wow, what an actor this guy is. Here's a clue for ya Mr. Wheeler, next time you're getting angry and yelling at the sheriff about your missing son, raise your voice a bit more, maintain eye contact, and whatever you do, don't shake your head up and down like the sheriff just said something you agree with. And don't press your lips together either, it makes you look like you're contemplating some mystery of life, not getting angry.

Chase is working on a car when Mr. Compton, maybe Chase's boss, they don't tell us until the last 30 seconds of the movie, walks in and explains why he has four quarts of nitroglycerine in the back of his truck. I can't understand the conversation though so I'm not real sure why he has it. I think he was working on a race car driver's car and that's how he ended up with it. There is some good dialogue though, like this for example,

Mr. Compton: Sorry I was so late getting back, but with that cargo I was afraid to go over five miles an hour.

Chase: Well, it's not so dangerous as long as it's in a nitro case.

Mr. Compton: But I took these outta the case!

Chase: Holy smoke, you're lucky to be standin' here talkin' about it, I'll put it in the shed.

Why are you putting it in the shed? Are you going to put it back in the cases? Do you still have the cases? These questions remain unanswered. Adding more to the confusion of why Chase seemed so adamant to get the nitroglycerine in the shed is the very next conversation,

Mr. Compton: Is that nitro safe out there?

Chase: Well, if it decides to blow it's not safe anywhere. (We see later that the 4 quarts of nitroglycerine along with Chase's hot rod are only capable of creating an explosion with a 15 foot blast radius.)

Chase does a little amateur phone tapping and hears that there's a car about 12 miles outside of town in a ditch so he and the sheriff meet up at the site of the accident. This is where we hear the most awkward dialogue of the movie,

Sheriff: Let's take a look around.

Chase: I've already looked around, there's nobody here.

Sheriff: Real good?

Chase: Yeah, real good.

The "real good", in case you too are confused by the dialogue, refers to how well Chase has looked around the scene of the accident. The Sheriff tells Chase to steal a headlight off of the wrecked car to replace one of his own. Chase drives away with the car hitched onto his tow truck. He very discourteously drives past a man in a suit with a briefcase who is for some reason hitchhiking 12 miles outside of town. It doesn't matter who this guy is or why he's there, as long as we get to see someone stepped on by Godzilla's foot again. The hitchhiker turns around, startled to see who it is that's releasing air behind him. Nothing's behind him. Oh well, guess I'll just light up this cigarete and-- oh no, here comes the same Godzilla foot from the opening scene! Ahhhhhhhhh!

The next day, maybe, decide for yourself, we see a black car speed pass Chase's tow truck. A cut away to the Gila monster suggests that the Gila monster is close by. The black car swerves into the shoulder. Chase pulls up along side the car and the drunk inside says that he saw a black and pink striped animal. Chase discounts this and helps the drunk back into his car so he can safely drive away. I guess Chase didn't see the Gila monster. Chase eventually tows the drunk back to his place and gives him a good night's rest. He later learns that this is Steamroller Smith, the famed disc jockey. Wait a second, I thought these people were living in "...vast and unexplored regions...", where are these DJ's coming from?

I think this is an appropriate time to go through all the remarkable qualities of Chase. Chase is an accomplished mechanic, taking correspondence courses to become an engineer (What kind? Who knows?), and a songwriter. He�s the 50�s renaissance man if you ask me.

Next, we see the sheriff and Chase by the scene of the previous crash and good ol� boy scout Chase is stealing tires off of the car (come on, Chase, you already got their headlight). Chase suggests that he and his gang form a search party and look for clues. While doing this, Chase stumbles over one of his lines, the Gila monster gets jealous of Chase when he sees him kissing Lisa, and I begin to suspect that Lisa has a learning disability. As they�re searching, Lisa says, For some reason, this place gives me the creeps, it always has. Really? So you spend a lot of time in this wash, huh? Chase tells Lisa to turn on the motor to pull Pat and Liz�s car out of the wash to which she responds, OK, in a tone that makes her sound like a door-bell saying, ding-dong. Scene over, thank goodness.

Upon making it back to town, we learn that Pat and Liz must have gotten out of the car and climbed into the Gila monster�s mouth. The car was completely intact, making me wonder what exactly the foot was stepping on in the opening scene, and he says there was no blood anywhere! Then where did they go? The Gila monster must have chased them for quite a while before eating them up because Chase also explains that his friend looked up the wash for about a mile and didn�t find a thing. The conversation ends with an inquiry about the whereabouts of Mr. Compton. Chase replies that he�s driving around with a load of fuel oil. Let�s see, driving, fuel oil, big lizard with an appetite for destruction, what could the next scene possibly be?

Well, what do you know? It�s ol� man Compton driving on a road. And what�s this? A close up of a Gila monster�s head! Oh no, and now Mr. Compton's car has run off the road and exploded. Yet another car accident. How many is that so far? Let�s count them.

1. opening scene roll down the hill

2. Pontiac Sedan

3. Steamroller Smith

4. Mr. Compton�s car

...and we�re only 35 minutes into the movie!

The next scene is the most agonizing of the movie. We get a glimpse into the home life of Chase. He lives with his mom and little sister, Missy, who�s just a quarter inch away from a unibrow. Now despite the obnoxiousness of the song, I must admit that Chase has quite the voice and is one handsome devil. In fact, he seems to be the cream of the crop in this podunk town and I�m sure he often wonders why he was cursed to live in this town of morons. Probably not, he's too good of a guy to think something like that. Well, Chase sings his pretty song called, "Laugh, Children, Laugh" while mom, Missy, and Lisa sit and listen. Mom and Missy exchange about 4 annoying smiles as Chase plays his song for a full two minutes. At the end of the song, The Giant Gila Monster turns into Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood when Missy says, Laughing's important isn't it, Chase? Chase snuggles up to her and says, Oh, it sure is. What's going on here? The Giant Gila Monster has turned into an episode of Sesame Street! The scene closes up with Chase getting a phone call from the sheriff informing Chase of Mr. Compton's accident.

At the scene of the accident, Mr. Harris tells the sheriff that a guy who saw the accident said he saw Mr. Compton's headlights rolling over as if the car had rolled a few times, which didn't happen. The sheriff also tells Chase that "headquarters" still won't send a criminal investigator to investigate. Geesh, what does it take to get an investigation around here? "4 car wrecks and 4 missing people all within a couple of days, you say?. Stop wasting my time!

The next scene is probably my favorite. We see Mr. Harris driving in his truck along side of a railroad. If you look in the bottom left hand corner of his windshield you can see the reflection of somebody�s face. You can also see a director's hand telling Mr. Harris' eyes where to follow. Anyways, a train pulls up along side Mr. Harris and Mr. Harris decides to race it to a point where the road crosses over the train tracks. The frightened engineer covers his face as Mr. Harris zips across the front of the train. In this scene, I think there are a total of 6 different trains used, if you count the model train that crashes at the end of the scene. The first two are shown as Mr. Harris drives parallel to the train, the third is shown as a head on shot, the fourth is the shot of the engineer covering his face, and the fifth is the model, none of which look anything alike. I should probably explain that the Gila monster crawled under a bridge, destroying it, and that's why the train crashes. That brings the crash count to 5.

The sheriff and Mr. Harris have a talk about the accident, during which Mr. Harris demands a 'soberty' test.

Chase goes over to the sheriff's place to talk about the accident. Fortunately, we miss the talk about the accident and get straight to the talk about how a Gila monster can grow so big.

Sheriff: Well, now I'm going to tell you something you don't know. I've been talking to a zoologist and the Gila monster's size is controlled, like everything else, by a sort of a thyroid or pituitary gland. Sometimes a change in diet can throw the balance all out of wack. Either the cells break down too fast or build up too slow. And this upset makes either runts or giants out of them. Then the sheriff talks about some other animal reports...the theory was that they live in kind of river delta country and certain salts had washed into the valley, been absorbed by the plants and then transferred to the animals, causing them to be giants.

Ah, the magical properties of salt. It's almost a refreshing change from the classic radiation mutation.

All the kids are now at a mill having a dance party with Steamroller Smith.

This next scene is excruciating to sit through. The two worst actors in the entire movie, the sheriff and Mr. Wheeler go at it about who's to blame for all the recent deaths. Chase's crime spree ends when Mr. Wheeler tells the sheriff he's noticed that the wheels on one of the crashed cars are now on Chase's hot rod. The gut-wrenching scene concludes with the sheriff's consent to arrest Chase for his 'thievery'.

Oh no, Chase is playing "Laugh, Children, Laugh" again inside of the mill! If this song doesn't get the place hoppin' I don't know what will. Who will save us from this auditory assault? Enter our hero, the Gila monster. The Gila monster busts through the mill wall in the middle of Chase's performance debut. Chase thinks this is not cause for alarm and yells, Don't panic!. Yeah, right, Chase.

Chase and Lisa drive back to the shed where Chase has stored the nitroglycerine. He pointlessly tells her to stay in the car as he makes the 10-foot journey from the car to the shed only to turn around and see that Lisa hasn't stayed in the car at all (shocker). She insists on helping him and he concedes. He gives her the ever-important job of holding onto the nitroglycerine as they drive through the dirt roads of town podunk. I guess he was planning on holding the 4 quarts between his knees. They drive to a house that's been torn apart by the Gila monster. Chase bestows some of his reptile intelligence on us when he explains that Gila monsters generally travel in a straight line. He then realizes that the Gila monster is going toward the Blackwell home, where Missy is. They see Missy and Mrs. Blackwell running through a field. This scene apparently took a few takes because you can see a few tire tread marks going through the field exactly where Chase is driving. Chase tells Lisa to get Missy and lie flat on the ground! Great hiding spot! Chase aims the car towards the Gila monster and lets it crash right into the beast and blows it up.

The movie ends with Chase, Lisa, Missy, and the sheriff all standing around watching the Gila monster burn. Chase picks Missy up in her arms (nearly pulling Lisa's dress up past her shoulders) and the town is safe once again. The end.

Hey. Whatcha doin' later?Feel like dying?

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