I left my tentacles in San Francisco.

Good Grade B '50s sci-fi flick. An atomic size octopus from the deepest realms of the Pacific threatens the world. Seeking adequate levels of food supply, not excluding humans, the creature attacks San Francisco. The real star of this movie is the razzle-dazzle special effects of Ray Harryhausen. The quality of the stop-motion animation exceeds the constraints of the B&W photography and the modest budget. The first part of the film tells of the mysterious ship sinking and other unexplained marine mayhem caused by the great sea beast. Navy Captain Pete Mathews (Kenneth Tobey) and two expert marine-biologists, John Carter (Donald Curtis) and Lesley Joyce (Faith Domergue), work around the clock tracking down clues to identify the source of the mysterious events at sea. The simple plot moves right along and doesn't waste time. As seems obligatory in many '50s sci-fi flicks, the heroes endure the "I'm telling you, there's a monster!" phase followed by the "Yeah, right!" response from the authorities. Happily, that particular cliche is kept to a minimum. Things really start to go snap, crackle, and pop as the monstrous octopus tries to pull itself up on the Golden Gate Bridge. And check out the giant eye that opens as the submarine approaches the submerged creature in the San Francisco harbor. This is solid Saturday afternoon at the movies fun for 12 year-olds of all ages. They really don't make them like this anymore.

Godzilla did it better......

This is actually a pretty disapointing turn out by Ray.
The lower budget and B-Level acting are pretty evident through out this whole picture. This might have explained why later on, Ray did his effects work movies by going to Europe, where the budgets were bigger. There were better production values there, and he turned his attention away from Atomic age monsters, to the creatures of classical mythology, where he would do his best work.
In the early 1950;s, they turned out so many B-atomic age monster pictures, but the only one that has really endured as well as it as, was a creature that came from movie studios in Japan, a creature we know as Godzilla.

Ray Harryhausen Is The Man

This is just another in a long line of Ray Harryhausen special effects movies. Like most of the sci-fi/horror,fantasy movies he was involved with it's truly his special effects that is the true star of the movie. More so than any actor that ever appeared in any of these films. A true debt is owed to this man who gave us great effects in a time when special effects were almost non-existant. His effects were what spurred movies into the effects of today. Without Ray there would be no Star Wars or Independence Day type movies to be sure.So do yourself a favor and get a Ray Harryhausen movie today. You wont regret a minute of movie watching. Ken Frazier