Top billed is Mamie van Doren because noithing sats Navy like Mamie.
Strange trees in Antarctica? It could happen, I suppose. And when these trees are discovered, they are shipped oput for scientic study. Somehow they land on a Pacific island where the U.S. Navy has a base, also where Mamie van Doren (Untamed Youth, The Private Lives of Adam and Eve, Sex Kittens Go to College) hangs her 38DD bra. We all know that strange things found in frozen wastes can be dangerous (cf. The Thing from Another World) so it is no wonder that these trees morph into carniverous, mobile creatures at night.
Vying for Mamie's attention (she plays Navy nurse Nora Hall) are Lt. Charles (was someone a Peanuts fan?) Brown (Anthony Eisley, The Young Philadelphians, Journey to the Center of Time, television's Hawaiin Eye) and Ensign Rutherford Chandler (Bobbie Van, The Affairs of Dobie Gillis, Small Town Girl, Kiss Me Kate). Also in the cast are one-time child actor Billie Gray (The Day the Earth Stood Still, On Moonlight Bay, television's Father Knows Best), Pamela Mason (Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, Charade, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraind to Ask --apropos of nothing, I've always wanted to read her 1943 novel A Lady Possessed), character actor Walter Sande (274 credits on IMDb, including The Blue Dahlia, A Place in the Sun, and television's The Adventures of Tugboat Annie), Philip Terry (The Lost Weekend, Seven Keys to Baldpate, The Leech Woman), Russ Bender (War of the Colossal Beast, Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow, It Conquered the World) and one-time Mike Hammer Biff Elliot (I, the Jury, PT-109, The True Story of Jesse James). A pretty impressive cast for such a lower than low budget movie shot in ten days. Interestingly, the cast threatened to walk off the set when they found out what the title of the film would be.
Straining credibility was Mamie van Doren's acting chops here, which were pretty good. What really strained things was the too-mall, tight blouses she wore. (More tha one pundit pointed out what the real "monsters" in this movie were. The actress got roped into this movie because she owed producer Roger Corman a movie. (She never hesitated to pan the film afterwards.) Overall, the acting is pretty good and the film rises well above the average B-movie horror flick. One may certainly not go out one's way to see, but one would be missing out to deliberately avoid it -- just gloss over the fact that the Triffid-like monster look pretty cheesy on film.
Directed by Michael A. Hoey, with uncredited assists from Jon (Ramar of the Jungle) Hall and SF schlockmeiset Arthur C, Pierce. Scripted by Hoey, with (again) an uncredired assist from
Pierce, The film was based on Murray Leinster's paperback original, The Monster from Earth's End. (I have to assume the book's title came from the publisher and not the author -- the novel is pretty good and was dumbed down for the film.)
There are a lot of flaws to the movie, and (**cough, cough**) a couple of good points. Ot's not as cheesy as one may think. in fact, it'spretty entertaining.
Judge for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbx9bbT_ce0
the kindest review of this one I've seen...early (and late?) editions of Leonard Maltin's guides had as probably their funniest entry the capsule review of this one. I've often wondered how much it amused A. C. Pierce to sign himself thus in probably hope of confusing those whose memory of pleasant reading of one or another Arthur C. Clarke story might make them look forward to a Pierce offering...
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