"There’s only two kinds of people. Those that get rich and the suckers that furnish the money."
Bruce Barton (Duncan Parkin) has been missing for three years. His fiancée, Susan Winter (Gloria Talbott) organizes a search party to a remote area in Mexico. With her is scientist Russ Bradford (James Craig), mining expert Martin "Marty" Melville (Lon Chaney Jr.) (who is extremely annoying) and pilot Lee Brand (Tom Drake). The area is suspected to have uranium. That’s why Marty came along. Plus he paid for the trip.
While searching the area they uncover giant mutated animals. Among them a big mouse being eaten by a big hawk and the standard iguana and lizard fight. Bruce suspects that it’s not uranium that Marty found with his fancy equipment but something else that is highly radioactive. Something that has mutated regular animals into giants. Marty and Russ want to leave before something happens to them. Susan doesn’t want to go. Bruce decides they will leave the next day.
Susan gets up early and starts searching on her own. She finds part of Bruce’s plane. Then something comes toward her. She screams. The others come running. They find Susan hiding in a cave. Someone had been their before. Someone had been living there. Then they see it. A 25 foot tall man with a deformed face and just one eye.
"The Cyclops" was released in 1957 and was directed by Bert I Gordon. Three of the giant man movies done during the 50’s were done by Bert. “The Amazing Colossal Man”, “War of the Colossal Beast”, and “The Cyclops”. Large people, and small in comparison to regular people, is Bert’s stock and trade. At least 10 of his movies have had giant something or others in them. Shooting people and creatures in forced perspective using back screen projection is one of the cheaper special effects you can do. Bert never met a back screen image he didn’t like. Although in this movie it appears that he was still learning how to do the effect. It wasn’t blended in very well.
As for “The Cyclops” there isn’t all that much to it. Which is just as well since it’s only 75 minutes long. It takes them a long time to figure out that the monster running around the valley is Bruce and he has grown to monstrous size just like every other creature there.
I know that there is a following out there for “The Cyclops”. And that’s fine. I just can’t go there with you. There are many that love this movie from their childhood and I understand. I have my favorites too. And my favorites are just a lame as yours. I like big creature movies too. It may have something to do with the Cyclops’ voice. That loud snarl that sounds more like garbled gargle than a voice. It was almost as annoying as Lon Chaney Jr. Regardless, if you like big creatures and or big bald giants then you’ve come to the right movie.