The Magnetic Monster (1953)
The Office of Scientific Investigations tracks down the source of increased magnetism and radioactivity in Los Angeles, and discovers that a man-made isotope is consuming available energy from nearby mass every few hours, doubling its size in the process. Although microscopic, it will soon become big enough to destroy Earth; and how to stop it is yet to be determined. The film's Deltatron special effects footage is taken from the 1934 German sci-fi film GOLD.
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Very best movie i ever watch
Too much of everything
Load of rubbish!!
It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
A routine but kind of amusing entry in the science-fiction series of the early 1950s. I missed the first half hour or so, so I'm filling it in from sequelae of the early events.Some ancient experimental physicist invents a new element with lethal powers. Like the man-eating plant in "The Little Shop of Horrors," it must be fed a certain amount of energy on a regular schedule, or it turns magnetic, attracts every metal in sight, and destroys life. So far, so good. Only the thing, which started off as hardly more than a pinpoint of matter, gets bigger with every meal. Soon it will be so big and so dense, it will throw the earth out of orbit and you know what happens next.And, man, this element is heavy. The movie is loaded with all kinds of scientific jargon. Most of it got by me. But I did catch the fact that the molecular weight of this thing is somewhere above one thousand. This brought me to instant alert, Darwinian points quivering. A cloud of half-remembered concepts drifted back into my ken from high school -- molar mass, molecular weight, Avogadro's number, isotopes -- but somewhere along the way they'd lost much of their semantic luggage. I think I can feel a molar mass right now with the tip of my tongue. It's right back there, see? It's been bothering me for a week, doctor.Anyway, I get the impression that this thing is pretty "heavy". There is also a suggestion that when the original physicist discovered this element, he pulled off a kind of slow-motion replica of the Big Bang, the instant when the universe was created out of nothing. The result of the Big Bang was a couple of "forces" like gravity and a horde of hydrogen atoms. That's okay, as far as it goes. But if the universe is everything that now exists, and if it's expanding, what the hell is it expanding INTO? Well, never mind that. The attempt to stop this thing from growing becomes frantic, along the lines of "The Andromeda Strain." The only way to stop it is to bombard it with more electrical energy than it can possibly absorb, so it chokes to death. The computer arrives at a minimum of 900,000,000 volts, which is an awful high figure. I mean, your brain only generates a measurable 10 microvolts. Well, that's about the average; I can't speak for any particular brain.The US has no such generator but Canada does, buried beneath the ocean depths in Nova Scotia. Canada reluctantly agrees to its use. The underground control room is about the size of a large living room and is filled with curious knobs, buttons, levers, and winches. Richard Carlson and his buddy, King Donovan, place the entirety of the dangerous mass in the death chamber and begin activating the Super Duper Generator. Does the plan work? Well, we're still here, aren't we?
What a nice walk down memory lane! No saggy drawers or F bombs. If you like your sci-fi a little cheesy with some belly laughs, this film is perfect! The only thing that comes to mind that would have made this better would have been a cameo by Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi! This is NOT Oscar stuff here but it is enjoyable!!! There's lots of lightning and scientific jargon that makes you go Huh????? You also have the pretty young lady and all the crazy Doc Brown like scientists running around. This almost has a Frankenstein feeling to it. I watched this on TCM. It's nice there are still opportunities to see these movies made during the atomic/radiation scare days of the 50's. Pop the popcorn and sit back and relax and enjoy the corny special effects!
Magnetic Monster, The (1953) * 1/2 (out of 4) Far-fetched sci-fi has a wacky scientist coming up with an artificial radioactive material that takes up so much energy around it that it could possibly knock the entire planet Earth off its axis. Richard Carlson plays the doctor preparing for his first child but first he must try and find a way to destroy the isotope before the world comes to an end. During the 1950s there's no doubt that people were paranoid over various science experiments that could possibly go wrong and destroy the world and this here led to producers coming up with all sorts of stories to try and get on the big screen. I've seen dozens of such science fiction movies and this one here is without question one of the most frustrating to watch. It doesn't help that we get some pretty bland narration that tries to explain what's going on but there were several times where the story just goes off into directions where you can't help become confused. There are scenes that appear to be happening for no apparent reason and the eventual twist that happens towards the end just isn't all that believable. I think it was a pretty dangerous thing to have a "monster" that really isn't a monster at all. After all, people were expecting giant lizards, giant ants or some sort of radioactive creature but instead this film just delivers a magnetic force. This "force" isn't the greatest killer out there but I give the film credit for trying something different but the problem is that the screenplay wants to go for childish matinée thrills that the "brains" that the story might hold are never allowed to grow or develop into something more interesting. Carlson is a fan favorite and he delivers a fine performance here as do the supporting players including King Donovan, Harry Ellerbe and Jean Bryon as the wife. The finale contains some amazing special effects but THE MAGNETIC MONSTER can't really take credit for them since they were lifted from the 1934 German film GOLD and one can't help but want to track it down after seeing the work edited into this picture.
Most science fiction from the 1950s are very artistic, well directed, and entertaining.This one flails a bit more, but it does so in an effort to be low key. They don't look to use a big budget for effects, but still manage to show their story reasonably well.The story is the problem here, however. It never really is clear just what the scientists are talking about. They seem to want to make some very deep philosophical point, but that is where the flailing comes in. Each time they begin to try to explain what the microscopic magnetic atomic monster is doing, they digress into a confusing ideology that no one understands.The idea of the microscopic monster, the unseen force left to the imagination, works well enough. The characters do, too. It just fails on the story level enough to make merely a mediocre film, not nearly as good as most monster films from the fifties.