Lt. John Twillinger - Naval commander and a complete hard ass. This guy is tough, strict, and does everything by the book! But once Gail and Sandy walk into his life, we discover that Twillinger is just a big puppy dog with more bark than bite. He leads the military campaign against "The Salton Sea Snails!"

If I asked you to name some old giant insect movies from the 1950's, what would your answer be? THEM!, Beginning of the End, The Deadly Mantis, Tarantula, and The Black Scorpion would probably be the most common answers. Even a few of you might mention something obscure like Monster From Green Hell. However, odds are that you would not mention this poor film, The Monster That Challenged the World. For some reason, this movie isn't very well known at all and that is a total shame! It has some great acting, some spectacular creature effects, and a lot of cheesy dialogue!

The movie opens at the Salton Sea naval base, with a narrator droning on about the paratrooper training and atomic radiation tests that occur there. During one routine training exercise, something goes horribly wrong. Two sailors arrive on the scene to pick up a paratrooper, only to find that he's missing. One of them dives into the water to try and rescue the fallen paratrooper, but he too disappears. The final sailor on the boat, soon finds himself standing in the shadow of something and screams as the picture fades to black. Next we meet Lt. John Twillinger (played by Timothy Holt who had an illustrious acting career in both westerns and b-movies!). From the first moment he's introduced, we learn that Twillinger is a complete hard ass who plays strictly by the rules. Once he learns that radio contact was lost with the aforementioned seamen, he and two other officers go out to investigate.

They discover one dead man in the boat, some white, sticky slime (eww... get your mind out of the gutter!), and the dead body of the paratrooper (portrayed by a very unconvincing dummy!). Twillinger takes a sample of the white slime to Dr. Jess Rogers for analysis. Tired of Twillinger's constant nagging, Dr. Rogers tells the lieutenant to wait outside. This is where Twill meets Sandy, the daughter of his future love interest, Gail MacKenzie. She shows him her freshly caught ladybug and lets him hold it. Moments later, Dr. Rogers exits his office and tells Twill that the white slime is some kind of marine secretion (insert joke concerning a U.S. Marine's self gratification here). Dismayed with the results, Twillinger heads toward the door until Sandy stops him. This is when Twill realizes that he lost the youngster's pet insect. After a brief search on the floor, Twillinger reassures Sandy that he will find and return her missing ladybug.

Twill manages to return the ladybug to Sandy moments later (though I have my doubts about that ladybug's identity). This scene is purely in the movie to show the softer side of our tough-as-nails hero. Later that day, Lt. Twillinger and Sheriff Josh Peters visit a local coroner's office to get a report on the two recovered bodies from the Salton Sea. One of the bodies has a puncture wound and is completely drained of blood. The other sailor managed to escape a horrible death by having a stroke (which is a stroke of luck in my opinion!). After the coroner finishes his diagnosis, Twillinger and Sheriff Peters depart and quarantine all the beaches surrounding the Salton Sea. Needless to say, the locals and tourists are not pleased.

In the meantime, Twillinger calls up Dr. Rogers to see if he's learned anything new about the marine secretion and proceeds to annoy the good doctor (again). This is where a seemingly crucial discovery is made. After hanging up the phone, Dr. Rogers walks by one of his colleagues who just so happens to have a Geiger counter. The counter starts clicking like mad and the two scientists exchange puzzled glances. Later that night, Sheriff Peters visits Mrs. Simms to tell her to close her beach to all swimmers. Before he delivers his message though, Mrs. Simms has an argument with her daughter Jody, concerning her relationship with Morty, a sailor from the Salton Sea naval base. Jody wins the argument and runs off to meet with her boytoy on the beach. The two of them frolic in the surf (after Jody strips down to her bathing suit. The 50's equivalent of a striptease I guess.).

It's not long before the starcrossed lovers are dragged beneath the waves to their doom. The next morning, Twillinger and Sheriff Peters discover the clothing of the two missing teens along with some more white slime. This is when the military finally decides to investigate. Two divers are sent down to explore the bottom of the Salton Sea for the bodies of Jody and Mort. Everything seems fine until the men discover a cavern where they find giant air-filled garbage bags (which are supposed to represent eggs)! One of the eggs is pulled up to the boat with a net while a giant sea snail looks on! (GASP!) This is the first glimpse we get of the movie's titular creatures but it's not done right in my opinion. The movie is trying to do a less is more approach to the monsters (a technique that lasted right up until JAWS was made). The idea was to show brief glimpses and/or bits and pieces of the creature before we get to see it in all it's glory. Here however, we're not teased at all; we get to see the monster in it's entirety.

While that does knock the suspense down a notch, I must say that the giant killer gastropods are a marvel to behold. The large animatronic creatures look extremely cool, despite the jerkiness in their movements, but sadly they don't get much screentime. Moving on then, the two divers find Jody's body and try to take it up to the boat but alas, one of them (Dr. George Blake) gets snacked on by a sneaky snail! The other diver swims back up to the surface and tells his tale of horror before trying to leap back into the sea to kill the creature (with what? Your bare hands?!). As he argues with both Twillinger and Dr. Rogers, one of the giant gastropods rises to the surface and attacks. For such a fierce looking creature, it isn't very tough. Twill uses a splintered wooden pole and stabs out one of the creature's eyes. The monster snail then slides back into the sea from whence it came.

Immediately after the attack, the military goes into action. Dr. Rogers shows some high ranking officials the recently captured snail egg (and he stresses how safe it is. The egg won't hatch unless the temperature exceeds thirty-eight degrees. He also follows up his speech with a film reel about snails.) while the Salton Sea is saturated with depth charges. Ah yes, everything is going as planned, what could possibly go wrong? Well despite all the measures taken, Dr. Rogers believes that nearly ten of the prehistoric gastropods have escaped and may have entered the canal systems in the area. This is where Sheriff Peters and his deputies come into play and provide reconnaissance for the Navy. Things start to slow down around this point, so Lt. Twillinger turns on the charm and takes Gail out to dinner.

Again we get to see the softer side of Twillinger as he dines with Gail and buys a pen from a random Mexican youth. ("Eight pesos, good bargain senor!") Meanwhile, two off-duty deputies discover an empty car and soon find one of it's passengers who soon dies of fright. After a few more reports of other snail attacks, Dr. Rogers concludes that there must be an underground river running through the area. That explains how the snails are able to get around so easily. Now if he could just get his hands on a map that may show this underground river, Doc Rogers and company could find the snails current nesting pool and wipe them out! But where can our heroes get such a map?! Perhaps from Lewis Dobbs who runs a local museum. Unfortunately, Lewis doesn't have a map since his museum doesn't have a document room (which was asked for in Proposition 14A).

Back at the base, Sandy sneaks into Dr. Roger's lab and tampers with the temperature control on the giant snail's tank. This is why parents don't bring their children to work! Meanwhile, the military and local police are still scouring the All American canal system for the creatures. Things seem hopeless as the snails keep outsmarting their pursuers (<-- How stupid does that sound?). Luckily Lewis Dobbs rides in on a white horse and armed with a map that clearly shows the underground river. With the aid of said map, the military finds the pond that the creatures are hiding in. Oh yes, victory is almost certain now! Twill and some other fellow (Dr. Tad Johns) dive into the pond and set explosives around the now dormant monster snails. Despite a minor problem with one of the charges, both men finish their task and escape. The snails however aren't so lucky.

Commander Twillinger and company are in high spirits as they make their way back to the base. But things aren't so happy go lucky for Gail and her daughter. Because of Sandy's tampering, the snail hatched and is now lumbering about in Dr. Rogers' lab. Sandy and Gail barricade themselves into a small storage room and hope for a miracle while the snail starts chewing slowly through the door. Luckily, Twill arrives on the scene to save the day. Now, there are two things on the wall behind Lt. Twillinger: a fire axe and a fire extinguisher. Now you or I probably would've grabbed the axe and started hacking, but not Twillinger. His weapon of choice is a CO2 fire extinguisher! Twill quickly uses up the icy cold CO2 and is desperate for a weapon (ahem.... THE AXE IS STILL ON THE WALL!). Despite his best efforts, Twill gets cornered by the slow moving creature. In a moment of sheer desperation, Twill rips up a hose from the floor and blasts the prehistoric menace with boiling hot steam! (I guess the filmmakers didn't want to ruin their mechanical monster?) He holds off the creature until Dr. Rogers arrives with armed soldiers. A few gunshots later, the giant snail is dead and everyone pretty much lives happily ever after.

It's interesting to note that The Monster That Challenged the World was inspired by a true story about prehistoric shrimp eggs that were reconstituted after millions of years. Dr. Rogers even alludes to an article about said shrimp eggs while giving a presentation about the Salton Sea Snail Menace! This movie is one of the best monster flicks that the 1950's had to offer. As I said earlier, the monsters themselves are nothing short of amazing, especially when you consider the time this movie was made. The acting overall is very good and everyone turns in at least a decent performance. The character that really stood out was Lewis Clark Dobbs (played by Milton Parsons). His quirky behavior won me over immediately; I just wish he had a larger part in the film. Another fairly interesting aspect of this movie is the music.

For b-movie buffs like myself, you might've noticed that a good chunk of the music for this movie can be found in the Americanized release of King Kong vs. Godzilla (which also contains snippets of music from It Came From Beneath the Sea and Creature from the Black Lagoon). Along with director Arnold Laven's tongue-in-cheek approach, this movie is a lot of fun to watch! If you're a major fan of classic b-movie fare and you haven't seen this movie yet, I highly suggest that you pick up a copy! You'll love it! (DVD Note: The DVD release of this movie is in my opinion, a blemish on MGM's nearly perfect record. First off, the movie is in Full Screen format. While some may debate that the movie was originally shot in pan-scan, I can assure you that it wasn't. The giveaway was this following message: "This film has been modified from its original version. It has been formatted to fit your TV." On top of that, we don't even get a theatrical trailer for this film! What gives MGM?!)