Scott and Ramos switch positions three times while driving in the Jeep.
The shadow of the boom mic is visible against the back wall in the scene at Dr.
De La Cruz' laboratory.
When the scorpions attack the passenger train, the words "Lionel Lines", trademark name for the famous toy train company, are clearly visible on the engine's coal tender.
The tender is also backwards during several cuts, with the coal bunker facing the passenger cars.
Most likely due to budgetary issues, the voices of the opening sequence's narrator, the police radio dispatcher, the radio newscaster, and the public address announcer are all the same.
Specifically, it belongs to 'Bob Johnson (I)' (qv), best remembered for being heard in the opening sequence of most episodes of _"MissionImpossible" (1966)_ (qv) ("Good morning, Mr.
Phelps.
When the giant scorpions appear as totally black silhouettes, it is because the money ran out when only the black backing for those composites (to prevent "bleed-through") had been accomplished.
The entire film is shot in Mexico, but the radio announcer, the PA announcer and the police dispatcher are all speaking perfect English with an American dialect instead of native Spanish.
In the final scene, when the soldier is shooting an electrified dart at the scorpion, the scientist mentions that it's connected to a generator supplying 600,000 volts.
Very high voltage can travel through air; in other words, there is potential to create a 60 inch long spark.
Anyone or anything standing on the ground within 5 feet of the dart or the live wire would have instantly created and attracted this spark.
It would have been impossible for the soldier to even touch the live wire to pull the dart back to the truck.
When the train is being attacked, the "passengers" are just black silhouettes painted on the train windows.
As mentioned in another goof, this is a small scale model train made by 'Lionel Linden'.
I agree with most of the folks who wrote about this pic. In the '50s cheesy, but sort-of entertaining sci-flicks abounded.
A scientist (Richard Denning) just happens to be in Mexico to study volcanoes when disaster strikes--an enormous nasty scorpion attacks and starts killing folks. That's bad--especially since this takes him away from a hot señorita (Mara Corday).
Hugely underrated and often ignored fifties' monster flick. In Mexico, giant scorpions are freed from their subterranean imprisonment by volcanic activity and ravage the countryside, after which an American geologist (Richard Denning, a favorite actor in the genre of fifties' creature features) must work with the Mexican armed forces to destroy them before they rampage through Mexico City.
Edward Ludwig directed this science fiction horror thriller that stars Richard Denning as American geologist Hank Scott, who is recruited by the Mexican authorities when an earthquake unleashes a horde of giant scorpions upon the Mexican countryside, causing havoc and destruction as they threaten to overrun the nearby city, then the world. Good model F/X on display, with some harrowing attack scenes(including a vivid cavern sequence), but there is no story or character involvement at all, with the plot being overly familiar and uninspired.
I don't know what I would fear more, flowing volcanic lava or large drooling scorpions with giant stingers. How the imprint of a scorpion on volcanic rock would tell Richard Denning and Mara Corday that there was alive scorpion inside the rock is beyond me, but when they split it in half, sure enough, a small scorpion crawls out.
I don't know why the haters bother to watch flicks like this, you've got to know going in that it'll be pure Velveeta. With an explosive intro before any opening credits, the picture sets up the viewer for a veritable smorgasbord of creepy, crawly creatures that are enough to satisfy any fan of Fifties schlock horror.
While his protege Ray Harryhausen was busy at Columbia Pictures contributing some great visual effects creatures in the studio's various movies, Willis O'Brien along with the other protege from Mighty Joe Young-Pete Peterson-did their own awesome stop-motion monsters for this U.S.
A textbook, cut-and-paste example of a '50s monster movie, with all the typical ingredients including strange isolated deaths, a rampage through a city. Really, you could swap the scorpions in this film for a group of giant ants, or a scaly lizard, and it would still make sense.
I can't say I'm an expert (or a fan) of the fifties 'big bug' movies, but apparently they were quite popular. We had ants in 1954 (Them!
