Gorgon (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Gorgon |
| Original title | Gorgon |
| Country of production | UK |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1961 |
| length | 78 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Eugène Lourié |
| script |
Robert L. Richards Daniel James |
| production | Wilfred Eades |
| music | Angelo Francesco Lavagnino |
| camera | Freddie Young |
| cut | Eric Boyd-Perkins |
| occupation | |
| |
Gorgo is a British science fiction film from 1961 and one of the few "giant monster film productions" that do not come from the USA or Japan. The film was directed by Eugène Lourié in the UK in 1961 . The film was also broadcast on German television under the title Gorgo - The Deadly Threat .
action
At the center of the story is the young dinosaur Gorgon, who is caught by treasure divers off the Irish coast with a diving bell as bait and brought to London on their motor ship MV Triton to be presented as an attraction in a circus . The mother animal Ogra, on the trail of Gorgos, surprises people with his appearance. It sunk a destroyer of the Royal Navy and eventually turns up in London. Although the British Army and Air Force attempt to kill Ogra with rockets, tanks and, most recently, a gigantic electric fence, all attacks fail. Ogra finds Gorgon and returns with him to the sea.
background
The execution of the special effects was based on the Japanese Godzilla films, by moving a person in costume through a miniature backdrop. Gorgo is one of the first monster films to be photographed in Technicolor and its film story was used as a template for the film Gappa . Director Lourié made other monster films, including Panic in New York (1953) and The Loch Ness Monster (1958).
The German premiere was on June 1, 1961.
Much of the action scenes in which the military is used consists of stock footage of British and American origins. There is a (fictional) British aircraft carrier HMS Royal Oak , from which aircraft with US national badges take off and land.
Reviews
- "[...] acceptable special effects." (Rating: 2 stars = average) - Adolf Heinzlmeier and Berndt Schulz
- "A tricky science fiction film with clear references to the Japanese" Godzilla "series." - " Lexicon of international film "
- ... Gorgo was England's answer to Inoshiro Honda's monster spectacle "Godzilla". There is no question that the strip, like all others of its kind, was panned by West German criticism: While the (Protestant) FILM OBSERVER asked himself, completely without motivation, whether "the fighting power of modern weapons is being played down" or the army should be "ridiculed" ("You never get the idea of poisoning the animal"), criticized the Catholic film service for the little bit of human touch that director Lourie added to his product ... "Gorgo" is an exciting thriller for twelve year olds during his actions At least in 1960 you could sink into a cinema seat and munch on peanuts.
Hahn / Jansen, Lexikon des Science Fiction Films , Vol. 1, pp. 388f.
literature
- Ronald M. Hahn / Volker Jansen: Lexicon of Science Fiction Films , 2 vols., 7th edition. Munich (Wilhelm Heyne) 1997. ISBN 3-453-11860-X
Web links
- Gorgo in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Complete original version at youtube.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKjO5GXstVw ( Memento from October 22, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Adolf Heinzlmeier and Berndt Schulz: in: Lexicon "Films on TV" (extended new edition). Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-89136-392-3 , p. 316.
- ↑ Gorgon. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .