EDITOR’S NOTE: The Monster of Pedras Blancas was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, October 23, 1965 at 1:00 a.m.; Saturday, September 23, 1967 at 11:30 p.m. and Saturday, June 8, 1968 at 11:20 p.m.
Irvin Berwick and Jack Kevan were nobodies at Universal. Kevan hated working for makeup department boss Bud Westmore, who took all the publicity ahead of the people who actually did the work. They formed Vanwick Productions and became independent producers, and since Kevan had overseen the manufacture of the costumes for Creature from the Black Lagoon, why not make their own version? Using the feet of the mutant from This Island Earth and the hands of The Mole People, the diplovertebron was born.
Universal helped out, believe it or not. Feeling bad about laying off so many of their technical people, they let them work on this film and gave the production equipment discounts.
Sturges (John Harmon), the lighthouse keeper, is convinced that his daughter Lucille (Jeanne Carmen, who started dancing at the age of 13 before becoming a trick-shot golfer, left her husband and hooked up with alleged mobster Johnny Rosselli, who introduced her to Sinatra, who in turn took her to Hollywood. She appeared in The Three Outlaws, with Neville Brand as Butch Cassidy and Alan Hale Jr. as the Sundance Kid. She also appeared in Untamed Youth and was the reason Eddie Cochran covered “Jeannie, Jeannie, Jeannie.” While working as a pin-up, she met Roselli again, who told her to leave Hollywood because of her friendship with the Kennedys and Marilyn Monroe, so she dyed her hair, got married and had kids in Scottsdale) is a bad girl, so he keeps losing his mind at everything she does.
He’s a weird dude who leaves food for the monster and keeps telling people that there’s such a thing, which drives the cops nuts. Well, there is a monster —a long-extinct prehistoric man-creature that rips off people’s heads.
How many people does it kill? Enough that diner owner Kochek (Frank Arvidson) has to open up his freezer to Constable George Matson (Forrest Lewis) and let him hang the headless bodies there. As for the town doctor, well, that’s voiceover actor Les Tremayne.
Berwick also did Strange Compulsion, The Street Is My Beat, The 7th Commandment, Hitch Hike to Hell, the Christian movie Suddenly the Light, and Malibu High. As Darcia, he made the softcore film Ready for Anything! and also served as associate producer on Larry Buchanan’s The Loch Ness Horror. This is the only movie Kevan ever produced, but he would write The Street Is My Beat and The 7th Commandment. Screenwriter H. Haile Chace later directed and wrote the sexploitation movie Paradisio and the horror film V.D.
You can watch this on Fawesome.
