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The Monster That Challenged the World

The Monster That Challenged the World
Monsterchallengedtheworld.jpg
Directed by Arnold Laven
Produced by Arthur Gardner
Jules V. Levy
Screenplay by Pat Fielder
Story by David Duncan
Starring Tim Holt
Audrey Dalton
Music by Heinz Eric Roemheld
Cinematography John D. Faure
Edited by Lester White
Production
company
Gramercy Pictures, Inc.
Distributed by United Artists
Release date
June 1957
Running time
83 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $200,000

The Monster That Challenged the World (also called The Jagged Edge and The Kraken) is a 1957 science-fiction monster movie, about an army of giant mollusks that emerge from California's Salton Sea. Directed by Arnold Laven, the film starred Tim Holt and Audrey Dalton.

The Monster That Challenged the World was produced by Gramercy Pictures (not related to the former PolyGram division) and was theatrically released by United Artists on a double bill with The Vampire.

In the Salton Sea, an underwater earthquake causes a crevice to open, releasing prehistoric giant mollusks. A rescue training parachute jump is conducted, but the patrol boat sent to pick up the jumper finds only a floating parachute. One sailor dives in but disappears. The other sailor screams in terror as something rises from the water.

When the patrol boat does not answer radio calls, Lt. Cmdr. John "Twill" Twillinger (Tim Holt) takes a rescue party on a second patrol boat to investigate. They find the deserted patrol boat with a strange slime on it, then the jumper's body floats to the surface, blackened and drained of bodily fluids. Twill takes the slime to the base lab for analysis, where he teams up with recently widowed Gail MacKenzie (Audrey Dalton) and Dr. Jess Rogers (Hans Conried).

A young couple disappear after swimming. U.S. Navy divers investigate and discover a giant egg and the body of one of the victims. The divers are attacked by a giant mollusk, which kills one of the divers. The mollusk attacks the boat but Twill stabs it in the eye with a grappling hook. The egg is taken to the U.S. Navy lab for study and kept under temperature control to prevent it from hatching.

The mollusks escape into the irrigation canal system, attacking livestock, a lock keeper, a trysting couple and others. Navy divers locate the group of mollusks in the canal system, and use explosives to destroy them.


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