Curucu, Beast of the Amazon

Curucu, Beast of the Amazon_720p(480P)

Rock Dean (John Bromfield) travels to the Amazon jungles to see why plantation workers are running away from their jobs. On this same dangerous trip is the pretty Dr. Andrea Romar (Beverly Garland); she is in search of medicinal herbs used in the process of shrinking heads. The doctor thinks those same herbs may contain an ingredient that could treat terminal cancers. Their guide, Tupanico (Tom Payne), warns the two that they are wanting to travel way too far up the river where no white man has shown his face before. Plus it is said to be the home of the frightening monster Curucu that has been terrorizing the plantation workers. This feature is directed and written by Curt Siodmak and uses tons of stock footage of jungle creatures. Other players: Harvey Chalk, Wilson Viana, Sergio de Oliveira and dancer Larri Thomas.

This is one of the best examples of what grade B pictures can provide from time to time, an excellent time waster, where nothing is believable but so cool and amusing. The story seems to never end, as if the director could not finish the movie, or as if he hesitated. Good scenes, even ankward, such as the snake sequence, with Beverly Garland. The last image is of course the best example of what I say. A petty cult movie for moviegoers. Old fashioned ones. The perfume of a lost period.

Ah, the fifties! Films featured things that are impossible to understand these days. For example, the simple fact that the lead hero undergoes a medical exam in the doctor's cabinet with a cigarette in his mouth. Doctors and scientists even happily smoked along! It's an absurd sight nowadays, but sixty-five years ago it was the most normal thing in the world. Unfortunately, however, other behaviors were also typical for the era, like the belittling and the (not-so-) subtle discrimination of women. Beverly Garland, in the female lead, superficially may seem like a tough and eloquent gal, but the men in front and behind the cameras clearly just wanted her to be the cute little lady who shrieks and seeks shelter into the strong masculine arms of her savior Rock Dean. It's really infuriating to see how Garland's character is forced into kissing John Bromfeld, or how she must produce lines like "Of course I'm afraid! I'm a woman". 65 years later, we sadly still can't say discrimination and racism have been entirely extinct, but at least the women became a lot more forceful. Oh yeah, apart from all that, "Curucu Beast of the Amazon" is also a miserable and utmost annoying piece of low-budget junk! Luckily for his descendants, the name of Curt Siodmak is usually linked to being the writer of masterful horror genre classics, like "The Wolf Man" or "I Walked with a Zombie". Few people know that he also directed a handful of utterly cheap flicks like this one or "Bride of the Gorilla". I own two versions of the film (one in color and the other in black & white) but they are both dull and dumb. The entire crew treated themselves to a trip to Brazil, but I'm guessing the screenplay only got written on the plane. There's drivel about places hidden deep in the Amazon jungle "where no white man ever set foot before" and much ado about a bird-like creature that supposedly hunts down plantation workers. The denouement is beyond pathetic and all the jungle padding footage nearly puts you to sleep. The only astounding moment in the film is when Rock Dean uses a shotgun (!) to kill a tarantula! He shoots the poor thing at close range and there isn't even a hole in the tent; - all hail the spider of steel!

I have not seen this film for quite some years, but remember -- the 1940-50's HORROR/SCI-FI films were mostly targeted for the juvenile audience and were intended as FUN and "Saturday Matinee" ESCAPISM. I actually have quite a fond rememberance of this film and it was not really a bad film at all. Produced by UNIVERSAL [in my opinion, one of the studio "leaders" of classic "B-Films" from that period [Adventure, Horror, Westerns] and starring the wonderful "1950'S scream-queen" BEVERLY GARLAND and strong, veteran B-stock actor JOHN BROMFIELD [the workable squre-chinned, buff hero]. WARNING - SPOILER: This film's "Monster" was the typical "red-herring" [only ever seen briefly throughout] and was not revealed until the finale. The beast was actually quite intriguing - attacking through the foliage with a large visible slashing claw, and offering an occasional glimpse of it's savage partially seen face [with strange feather-like features protruding from its head]. It was an elaborate hoax staged by an Amazonian local as a territorial offensive maneuver. Lots of great CINE-COLOR with lush, jungle scenery, a piranah attack, and the film plays more like a "DIME-MYSTERY PULP" adventure than a true actual HORROR film. Overall, I enjoyed it - pure, clean, non-offensive FUN!

I spend a lot of time trying to add lesser known 50's sci-fi titles to my ever growing collection. Unfortunately I came to this title. Cool title and stars Beverly Garland made by Universal - how could I miss? Although the poster looks great on this flick, find the strength to resist. The Brazilian locations are great and acting was acceptable but whoever wrote the script was a loser. This played out more like an episode of Scooby Doo(old man Smithers and all). The part that really killed me was that after they ruin the whole movie after 45 minutes, it goes on for another 35 minutes!! Seriously, for lesser known movies, check out Giant from the Unknown or Monster from Green Hell before you ever touch this garbage.

"Can't get a man, so she gets a career." So says male chauvinist John Bromfield about the female doctor behind a screen, and flabbergasted when Beverly Garland opens it up, giving the death stare of all death stares. But she's a tough chick, able to withstand huge snakes, spiders and other jungle creatures as she heads into the Amazon with Bromfield to determine what kind of monster or beast...or worse...is attacking the local tribes people. Once the secret is revealed, it should be all over, but unfortunately, there are several more reels to get through. I'll give this credit in the sense that they did their best to find the best color stock footage to match the new footage, blending it in almost convincingly. The jungle settings are pretty but there's really little mystery in this cartoonish adventure. Once again, Garland is a sight to behold, but the creature is nowhere the campy sight of the vegetable monster she came up against in "It Conquered the World". The scantily clad natives are a muscular erotic sight, but unfortunately, this is the type of schlock that turned movie audiences away and put them in front of their newly bought television screens where, when something was bad, at least you didn't have to pay for it.

1956's "Curucu, Beast of the Amazon" (pronounced CUR-Uh-Sue, working title simply "Beast of the Amazon"), Universal's most notorious genre effort of this decade, its misleading advertising earning brickbats from monster kids issued on a double bill with "The Mole People," a fall from grace for writer-director Curt Siodmak, shot on location in Brazil a year before a follow up called "Love Slaves of the Amazon." Color adds nothing but a travelogue feel to both items, John Bromfield boasting the hilarious moniker 'Rock Dean' (continuing his beefcake ways from "Revenge of the Creature" and Lon Chaney's "Manfish"), joined by pretty nurse Beverly Garland on a treacherous journey upriver along the Amazon in search of a legendary monster that frequents Curucu Falls, claiming the lives of several natives before leaving tracks back into the water. Caimans, pythons, piranha, tarantulas, jaguars, wild buffalo, headhunters, a witch doctor, and one fortuitous patient await during the endless slog through the jungle, only three brief scenes depicting the titular Beast, its rampage explained thusly: "descends from the falls to punish the people who deserted the lands of their fathers." Just after the opening credits we catch a glimpse of a manlike creature with toucan beak, feathers, tusks, fangs, and huge talons, emitting what sounds like the wail of a wild boar (or is that bore?) before clawing a woman to death; the second comes at the half hour mark, shorter and far less intriguing than the first. The final third kicks off with a shimmering glimpse of something below the water's surface, possibly 'luminous fish' (obvious optical special effects here), then Beverly gets kidnapped by the Beast, only to see it finally be revealed as...something not very beastly, nor even interesting. With nearly another 30 minutes to go this definitely comes as a devastating anticlimax, the remainder a repeat of the first half.

This film is so bad it is good. Beverly Garland is the only recognizable actor and she is good - but she should have asked the studio to burn all the prints. The script makes little sense, the special effects such as they are are hokey and what little action occurs is not even interesting. I did note, however, that John Bromfield spent a significant amount of time in the film swinging a machete, hacking his way into and then back out of the Amazon rain forest - if you watch closely you will see that when he is moving deeper into the rain forest he is hacking right to left with the machete and when he is retreating out of the forest he chops left to right - so the audience wouldn't be confused. I recommend the film for late night viewing when nothing else is on except infomercials - and then leave it to the viewer's discretion as to which could be more interesting.

Universal, which brought us massive hits like E.T. and the Jurassic Park movies, were responsible for this. It is the worst of the Universal monster movies of the 1950's, but I loved it. It is one of the better so-bad-it's-good movies and the thing that surprised me the most was that it was shot in colour, despite the low budget. The 'monster' has to be seen to be believed. The main female lead in this, Beverly Garland, is used to fighting out of this world monsters as she fought the 'carrot' in It Conquered the World. See this if you get the chance. It is worth watching just to see the 'monster'. Rating: 3 stars out of 5.