The Hideous Sun Demon - 1958

The Hideous Sun Demon - 1958 - Low budget monster effort starring Robert Clarke. He is a tormented nuclear scientist who discovers after a lab accident involving isotopes that he alters into a violent lizard-man when exposed to sun light. Needless to say, this is problematic for he and his would-be girlfriend (Patricia Manning). Consequently, a good portion of this tale takes place at a night, conveniently at a night club where the scientist watches a pretty lounge singer (played by Nan Peterson) and the pair take off to swim and sleep overnight at the local beach, which turns into a disaster when the sun comes up.

Star Robert Clarke also directed this film and he keeps it moving as the lizard-man/scientist struggles to keep his sanity and to defeat the gangster boyfriend who keeps a proprietary eye on the lounge singer.

While The Hideous Sun Demon seems to mimic the usual 1950s science-gone-wrong films that had come before, it also throws in a piece of King Kong for a poetic finis, and contains a certain energetic get-up-and-go that helps compensate for the thin budget.

Page December 2018

What's Recent

• Beauty and the Beast - 1946
• Barricade - 1950
• The Disembodied - 1957
• The Frisco Kid - 1935
• The Twonky - 1953
• Meet John Doe - 1941
• Day of Anger - 1967
• Central Park - 1932 - Joan Blondell has trouble on her hands when she gets suckered into helping a gangster to rob a charity event. Though this film stars Joan and Wallace Ford, it also features the American Great Depression which is the background for the hunger and desperation that flavors the film.

Amazon: Harlow in Hollywood: The Blonde Bombshell in the Glamour Capital, 1928-1937