| The Trollenberg Terror | |
|---|---|
1958 American movie poster |
|
| Directed by | Quentin Lawrence |
| Produced by | Robert S. Baker Monty Berman |
| Written by | Peter Key (story) Jimmy Sangster |
| Starring | Forrest Tucker Laurence Payne Jennifer Jayne Janet Munro |
| Music by | Stanley Black |
| Cinematography | Monty Berman |
| Editing by | Henry Richardson |
| Studio | Southall Studios |
| Distributed by | Eros Films Ltd. (UK) Distributors Corporation of America (US) |
| Release date(s) | 7 October 1958 (UK) December 31, 1958 (US) |
| Running time | 84 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
The Trollenberg Terror is the title of both a 1956 "Saturday Serial" ITV UK television programme and a better-known 1958 black and white science fiction film. The latter is also known as The Crawling Eye, Creature from Another World, The Creeping Eye, and The Flying Eye. Both versions are directed by Quentin Lawrence and feature Laurence Payne as journalist Philip Truscott, who investigates unusual accidents occurring at a Swiss resort. The film also stars Forrest Tucker as United Nations troubleshooter Alan Brooks. Peter Key wrote the story for the serial, and Jimmy Sangster scripted the film version based on Keys's story. It was the final film to be produced by Southall Studios, one of the earliest pioneer film studios in the UK.
Contents |
One of three student climbers is mysteriously killed on a mountain, his head ripped off. Two sisters are on a train to Geneva. Anne faints as they pass a mountain and on waking, she now knows all about the town and that there is something wrong with the mountain. She decides they should get off at the next stop, Trollenberg. She was part of a mind reading act in London.
Alan who was on the train with them goes to an Observatory a little way up the mountain (Prof Crevett asked for his help). He is told that despite many accidents, dead bodies are never found on the mountain and a radioactive mist cloud is always on its south side. Similar happened in the Andes three years earlier before suddenly vanishing without trace. It is thought the monsters come from a very cold planet and make their own atmosphere, as a rarefied mist.
Anne is giving mind reading exhibition at hotel when she sees the two men in a hut on the mountain. Dewhurst is asleep when the other under a mental compulsion walks out. She faints again. Alan phones the hut and finds out Brett has gone out. The cloud has moved down to where the hut is and the other man hears a noise outside. Something horrible and unseen kills him. Cloud moves back up mountain.
Expedition from town goes to look for two men. Anne back in town is uneasy and says men should stay away from hut. Hut is locked on inside and everything frozen. Body found under the bed with its head torn off. Anne decides to investigate herself by cable car as a spotter plane arrives to search the mountain area. A man is spotted in the mountain but when the first rescuer gets there, all there is, is a rucksack. When he looks inside, he sees the man’s severed head. He is then attacked by a mad man (Brett) with a mountain axe who also kills the second rescuer.
Anne feels a compulsion to climb the mountain but they stop her going past the Observatory. Later Brett arrives back at hotel, behaving weirdly then tries to kill Anne but is knocked down. He hits his head but there is no blood from a wound. Similar to Andes where a man killed an old woman who had similar powers to Anne, where she can receive thoughts. They arrived ten minutes too late to find him dead, as in dead for 24 hours.
Brett kills a man and escapes from the room he was locked in and goes looking for Anne with a knife but is shot and killed by Alan. News is that the cloud is now coming down the mountain towards the village. They decide to retreat to the Observatory (by cable car) which is heavily fortified to withstand a possible avalanche.
The monster arrives in the mist at the hotel. A negligent mother suddenly realises her daughter is not there as the others pile in to a cable car and Alan goes to rescue the suicidal kid in the hotel, and they narrowly escape the monster. They make the cable car and head up the mountain but the delay has given the mist a chance to reach the cable car platform and the motor and cables start freezing and the car starts jerking but it manages to get them to the Observatory and four clouds now start heading towards them. They have one hour.
Hans, who tried to get out by road, turns up and they let him in but he has the symptoms of being a puppet of the monsters and goes looking for Anne. They manage to stop him from strangling her, and kill him. The monsters climb towards the Observatory, where the men are making petrol bombs as the monsters prefer intense cold. An aerial fire bomb raid has been ordered on the Observatory which it should survive, having three feet thick concrete walls.
Philip hits one with a Molotov cocktail which sets it burning but is caught by a monster on the roof. A Molotov cocktail from Alan persuades the burning monster to let Philip go. Later, Philip does the same for Alan when a monster manages to break through the thick wall to try and get at Anne. The plane arrives to begin its bombing raid and the monsters burn.
|
|
|
||||||||