Directed by Nathan Juran (who started as an art director before making this and movies like 20 Million Miles to Earth, The Brain from Planet Arous, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and so many more) from a screenplay by Martin Berkeley (Tarantula!, Revenge of the Creature) based on a story by producer William Alland, The Deadly Mantis was made with a monstrous papier mâché model of the mantis that measured 200 feet long and 40 feet high with a wingspan of 150 feet. There are some smaller models and actual footage of a praying mantis.

As for the mantis, it escapes from “melting ice in the frozen north” because of the explosions of several volcanos. The creature starts flying toward Washington, D.C. Nothing can seem to stop this thing, not machine guns or flamethrowers. Col. Joe Parkman (Craig Stevens) and his men are on trying to stop it and they’re joined by Marge Blaine (Alix Talton), a magazine reporter who every army guy wants to get with.

How do you kill a gigantic mantis? You throw a “gas bomb” in its face. Good old fashioned U.S. ingenuity wins the day, as always. Of course, at the end, the creature is still moving but that’s just an autonomic reflex. Or maybe it was a planned sequel.

This played double features with The Girl In the Kremlin, which starred Zs Zsa Gabor.

In order to get in all of the various airplanes in this movie, stock footage of military aircraft was used. That’s usually how low budget films got planes but in this one, they are never really consistent and often, a plane can look like more than one different plane throughout the film. Air Force buffs will be driven mad, including the idea that Andrews Air Force Base is in Anacostia, D.C. instead of Prince George’s County, Maryland.

to add realism, but they were never consistent about the type of plane they showed – even showing pictures of drastically different planes that are supposed to be the same plane.

Thanks to Bernard Roy Chandler who provided several revisions to this for me. I appreciate it and also am thankful for you correcting me.