The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1966)

The first time I ever watched The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1966) I realized two things: One, it was pretty terrible; and yet, I kinda dug it. And two, I was struck stupid by a sense that there were two wildly different films, smashed together, locked in a desperate fight for tonal supremacy as the film transpired.

Well, turns out I wasn't too far north of the truth. And to fully understand and appreciate the true dichotomy of Navy vs. the Night Monsters, one must first journey back to 1960, where, on his way home from the hospital after the birth of his son, Michael Hoey stopped at a drugstore for some sundries; and while waiting in line to checkout, a certain pulp paperback caught his eye, authored by Murray Leinster, which he cracked opened and started reading.

A prolific author who had been writing pulp since the 1920s for the likes of Argosy, Weird Tales, and Amazing Stories, Leinster (1896-1975) covered nearly all genres but specialized mostly in speculative science fiction. He was the first to publish the notion of home computers and the internet (A Logic Named Joe, 1946), universal translators (First Contact, 1945), and parallel universes (Sidewise in Time, 1935).

Leinster was so good and innovative he even managed to survive the John W. Campbell revolution, which put more stress on the ‘science’ than the ‘fiction' in genre-writing. In fact, he not only survived but thrived, producing more than 50 novels, 1,500 short stories and articles, 14 movie scripts, and hundreds of radio and television plays, prompting TIME magazine to appoint him the Dean of Modern Science-Fiction in 1949.

First published a decade later in 1959, The Monster from Earth's End echoed Campbell's own masterpiece of sci-fi, isolation, and suspense, Who Goes There? (1938), as it opens with a frantic radio transmission between a cargo plane inbound from Antarctica and a Naval refueling depot nestled-in on a remote island. Shots are fired, and in-between garbled messages are the sounds of a violent struggle, blind panic, and a desperate effort to get “something" off the plane.

Now, we only hear these actions through the radio receiver on the ground; and then this mystery deepens when all communications suddenly cease as the errant plane erratically circles the island before finally coming in for a crash landing, destroying the radio tower and blocking the runway indefinitely in the process, effectively cutting the island off from the outside world completely. From there, things get even more cryptic, creepy, and downright sinister when they finally get the fires under control and make their way inside the wreck: 

"When they examined the rest of the plane they found eight bullet holes in the flooring and sides," read Hoey. "This included one bullet that had smashed the radio transmitter. But they found nothing else. There was nobody in the plane but the dead pilot. The other two crewmen and seven passengers had vanished while the ship was in flight. There had been ten men on the plane when it took off from the scientific base at Gissell Bay. There had been nothing wrong until the plane was within 100 miles of Gow Island. But after screams and shooting the pilot had landed downwind, with his wheels up ... Also, after landing, the pilot had blown out his brains..."

After that rousing set-up, the novel settles into a nice groove, mystery-wise, as efforts are made to clear the runway and salvage what cargo they can from the wrecked plane -- mostly native Antarctic specimens, including a knot of penguins and several bales of a newly discovered vegetation from the peculiar ice-free warm lakes region near Bunger Oasis. From there, basically, all they can do is mark time until someone comes to investigate the sudden radio silence from the Naval depot. But "each new day brought with it another bloody death, another mysterious disappearance,” with the only clue being a strange corrosive residue that burns and scars at the touch.

Also of note, aside from a massive bird sanctuary there is no other wildlife on Gow Island, so there is no answer there, deepening this mystery even further as something prowls around in the dark, picking people off at random, one by one.

Needless to say, Hoey was hooked and wound up purchasing a copy of The Monster from Earth's End that fateful night -- and while plowing through it, he felt it would make for one crackerjack movie. It reminded him of The Thing from Another World (1951), a fantastic -- though admittedly loose adaptation of Campbell's aforementioned story by Christian Nyby and Charles Lederer with an assist from Howard Hawks, where a group of people stuck at an isolated arctic location must fend off a "Killer Carrot from Outer Space."

But as things unfolded and Leinster’s mystery is finally resolved, the reader eventually discovers the author also owed a huge debt to John Wyndam's The Day of the Triffids (1951), which was also adapted to the big screen by Bernard Gordon, Philip Yordan, and Steve Sekely in 1963. 

See, turns out the killer wasn't hiding in the vegetation but WAS the vegetation all along; omnivorous creatures nearly seven feet tall, who move around only at night (or a darkened cargo hold) by the roots, baiting, engulfing, dissolving and absorbing anyone or anything unlucky enough to cross its path. 

Of course, unaware of this, and in an effort to save them, these harvested plants were re-seeded near a hot-spring during their dormant daylight hours, have since multiplied, and now threaten to overrun the entire island as Hoey reached the climax of Leinster's novel.

Now, Michael A. Hoey was born in London, England, and was the son of character actor Dennis Hoey, who had played Inspector Lestrade in all those Basil Rathbone-fueled Sherlock Holmes movies for Universal -- The Pearl of Death (1944), The House of Fear (1945), Terror by Night (1946).

 Michael Hoey, Michele Carey & Elvis Presley

When the family moved to Beverly Hills, Hoey decided he wanted to follow the old man into the business. But after washing out as an actor, he caught on as an assistant editor and dialogue coach before serving a brief producing stint at Warner Bros., where he oversaw the production of Palm Springs Weekend (1963), which started a long working relationship with director Norman Taurog. And this eventually found Hoey collaborating with Taurog on several vehicles for Elvis Presley, too, including writing credits for Stay Away, Joe (1968) and Live a Little, Love a Little (1968). Before all of that, however, Hoey was trying to get his own horror movie made independently.

Seems after finishing Leinster's novel, Hoey contacted the author and negotiated a two-year option on it for $1000, and then set to work adapting it into a screenplay called The Nightcrawlers, which stuck pretty close to the source material with the notable exception that in his version the pilot doesn’t commit suicide but slipped into a mute state of shock -- who was also prone to violent outbursts, to throw a suitable red-herring into the mix. When it was finished, Hoey shopped his script to several studios and independent producers but found no takers for several years -- and then he got a call from producer George Edwards.

Meantime, Jack Broder had decided he wanted to get back into the picture-making business. Back in 1946, when William Goetz rechristened Universal as Universal International in a (misguided) effort to add more prestige to his brand, he terminated the studio’s fabled B-unit, nixing all those supporting comedies, musicals, westerns, creature features, and serials. Goetz also had no real interest in the studio’s massive back catalog, opening the door for Broder, who negotiated a 10-year deal on the reissue rights for his Realart Pictures, which re-released a ton of films as double-features from 1946-1956; most notably Universal's classic monster movies and Abbott and Costello comedies, which, ironically enough, outdrew Goetz's newer product in most cases.

However, theaters would not pay premium prices for reruns, so Broder pushed his assistant, Herman Cohen, into making a batch of new features for Realart, netting him the somewhat embarrassing Bride of the Gorilla (1951) and Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952) -- both of which deserve their own write-ups because the making-of tales for those two films are far more entertaining than the finished product ever could be; but the LAST thing this review needs is another side-tangent because I also wanted to talk about how Realart and Ed Wood inadvertently spawned American International Pictures and, and, and *eyegitty* *eyegitty* *eyegitty* *ahem* Anyhoo...

By 1965, the era of double-features Broder used to provide was in the natal stages of its death throes, but the frugal producer was determined and had managed to scrape together enough cash for two flicks to fit the bill. One was already set to film, Women of the Prehistoric Planet (1966), which was the brainchild of writer and director Arthur Pierce, whose plot was a little more ambitious than that title would imply but executed to fit it perfectly. (Another film that is technically terrible but I still dig. Yes. I have a problem.)

Now, a lot of sources claim Roger Corman was an uncredited financier for this endeavor. And besides money, Corman also provided a line-producer, George Edwards, and a star, finagling a trade of commitments, which netted the ‘to be determined’ second feature Mamie Van Doren and, I'm sure, saved the always frugal-minded Corman a little cash.

Mamie Van Doren

This would turn out to be a rare film for Van Doren as, for once, her character did not require her to be Mamie Van Wowsers, allowing her to play the character straight and narrow. (And she tried hard. A lot. And in her defense, she kinda succeeds.) As I mentioned before, it was Edwards who dusted off the script for The Nightcrawlers and gave Hoey a call. And though he didn't have a lot of money to offer, he finished the pitch with these magic words: Would you like to direct it?

The plan was to shoot both pictures back-to-back with the same crew and sets; with Women of the Prehistoric Planet slotted to go first. It was Broder who came up with the new, more exploitative title for Hoey's movie, much to the director and casts' mortification, and whose fantastic poster art kinda gave the whole game away. But, admit it. That poster art is what brought us all here in the first place, right?

Yeah, Broder was a hands-on executive producer, taking a page from the Sam Katzman playbook. (He even had a toadie: second-unit director Wyott Ordung, to spy for him.) The only problem was, by all evidence, unlike Katzman, Broder had no idea what he was doing -- and he was far, far, far from being done interfering with this production yet.

Meanwhile, to fill out his cast, Hoey looked to some old friends. He knew Anthony Eisley from his days at Warner Bros., where the actor had just been unceremoniously dumped from the TV-series Hawaiian Eye (1959-1963) -- which was too bad because he was pretty great as detective Tracy Steele, and cast him as the lead character, Lt. Charles “Charlie” Brown, the X-O, who is suddenly thrust into a leadership role, facing life or death choices, because his commanding officer was off-island when the plane crashed; and all the while romancing Van Doren’s nurse Nora Hall -- and in-over-his-head on both counts.

Hoey's work with Presley on Tickle Me (1965) netted him Ed Faulkner for Bob Spaulding -- the über-paranoid meteorologist and the never-had-a-chance third corner of a fairly forced love triangle, and Memphis Mafiasos Sonny and Red West as some mobile plant-kibble. Throw in Bobby Van as the comedy relief, and Walter Sande and Pamela Mason as the fuddy scientists to explain everything, and Hoey was ready to film. He had ten days.

Behind the camera, the production scored a coup with Stanley Cortez as the cinematographer. In a career that included working with Orson Welles on The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), he was now shooting things like The Angry Red Planet (1959), The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966), and The Navy vs the Night Monsters. The director and the cameraman hit it off rather quickly, overcompensating for the lack of budget and cheap sets by keeping the lights down low, with plenty of contrasting shadows; and kept what little light there was covered in colored gels, making things nice and murky and moody, bringing to mind the minimalist and surreal beauty of William Cameron Menzies's Invaders from Mars (1953) in some instances.

To bring the "nightcrawlers" to life, Hoey had requested Gene Warren's Projects Unlimited. Warren was a protégé of George Pal, who had won an Academy Award for his work on The Time Machine (1960). But what Hoey got was Edwin Tillman, who I'm sure did the best he could with the pittance Broder gave him. 

And what he delivered was an anthropomorphized and rubbery stump, which was topped off with a Rastafarian leaf-toupee -- complete with a few stubborn dreadlock-cowlicks, which also required a lot of 'help' from the actors whenever the monster 'attacked' by obligingly running right into them, giving them a hug, and wrapping themselves up in the branches and vines to be dry-humped to death. 

When they first wheeled them out on set, Hoey refused to film them but eventually just turned the lights down even lower. To his credit, some of the attack scenes are quite effective. I especially dug the instance where the berserk pilot flings himself at one and then slowly dissolves away.

Pitching in on the make-up effects, and faring much better, was Harry Thomas, who had worked with everyone from Cecil B. DeMille to Edward D. Wood Jr.. Thomas provided the grue for all those acid burns, the charred body of the jettisoned plane passenger (-- a great shock moment), and the bloody stump when one unlucky sailor (Billy Gray) gets his arm torn off in the film's best executed sequence -- it's genuinely creepy and effective. Honest.

When the production wrapped, Hoey turned over a tight and snappy, and a little clumsy, and a little goofy, and a little nasty (-- I appreciated the fact that he not only killed off the comedy relief but he also killed off the comedy relief's dog), 78-minute no-budget thriller to Broder, and then moved on to his next gig: scouting locations for the forthcoming Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965) for American International. But things ... went a little awry from there. 

From the very beginning, Broder had demanded a 90-minute picture. But like with every other asinine suggestion he'd made during filming, Edwards and Hoey had ignored this edict. Thus and so, unknown to Hoey or Edwards, Broder commissioned Pierce to write some additional material, reassemble the cast, shoot new footage, and re-cut the picture to make the magic 90-minute mark so the producer could sell it to TV. And we've all seen how that turned out. And if you haven't, well, you're in for a real treat. And when I say 'treat,' I mean one big sloppy turd-burger of a movie.

 A printing error swapped LC images from the double-feature.

Now, if you could take a giant enough step back and look at the whole picture of Navy vs the Night Monsters from beginning to end, it's easy to pick out Pierce's additional scenes. All the blatant comedy bits are his. (The weather balloons. Oh, god, the weather balloons.) And the entire opening sequence on the plane with the pilot and crew were also his; and everything they added there was redundant as Dr. Beechum (Sande) gives the exact same plot-dump on what the plane was carrying two scenes later.

However, these additions did give us the scene where the airman investigates the hold and is so immediately frightened by what he sees, he makes a beeline for the cargo door and jumps out of the plane sans parachute. (All that was missing was a rousing chorus of "Yakety Sax" to play him off the plane) Also, all of those inserts of the Navy brass off-island, repeating everything that just happened, every, single, time, they, show, up, were shoehorned in by Pierce as well. 

This is the greatest tragedy as these additional scenes add nothing and totally torpedoes Hoey's intended film completely. See, Pierce redid the crash sequence so the radio was no longer knocked out, giving the island a lifeline to the mainland, which makes most of Lt. Brown's otherwise harrowing decisions a lot less crucial and decisive as things played out, and his angst over the same a lot more idiotic.

Broder also ordered a complete overhaul of the ending, too, which had ended rather ambiguously, demanding the insertion of a stock-footage jet attack (-- including a nonsensical flyby by the Blue Angels); the same stock-footage shot used over and over and over and over again, and then commissioned Jon Hall to create some miniatures for those planes to shoot at again and again and again and again. The results were pretty abysmal, and pathetic, with some actual cacti doused in kerosene subbing in for the creature's final demise by the look of it. Kinda sad, really.

Circling back to that first encounter with The Navy vs. the Night Monsters, this severe tonal shift at the climax had me giggling, thinking the production had simply run out of money, threw up its hands, and said, “Bring in the napalm to play us out, Johnny, and we'll call it a day.” Again, I wasn't too far from the truth.

Both filmed endings are kind of a mess but, in truth, Leinster's ending in the novel was even worse and even more stupid than those two combined, which is too bad because the rest of that book is fan-damn-tastic. And these conflicting premises should not work, at all, and yet they kinda do. I'd still be anxious to see a 'phantom edit' of the film with all of Pierce's inserts removed, but I'd settle for a decent print of the film period.

Sadly, when Image Entertainment and Wade Williams were releasing a ton of B-Pictures on VHS and DVD back in the late 90s and early aughts, they recorded a commentary track with Hoey moderated by Tom Weaver, but they couldn't find a decent enough print for the release to attach it to and just scrapped the extras and went with the dog-eared and washed out copy that's still floating around to this day. *pfeaugh*

Look. This film is terrible. I totally get that. I just dig it. And I dig it a whole lot. And if there is any bright side to all of this, unlike, say, Top Gun (1986), I doubt The Navy vs. the Night Monsters ever deluded any audience members into signing up to be a naval aviator only to wind up scraping bird-shit off a runway in Guam for four years. So, there's that. And there ya go.

Sources: Elvis, Sherlock and Me by Michael Hoey (2007); Return of the B Science Fiction and Horror Heroes by Tom Weaver (2000); I Was a Monster Movie Maker: Conversations with 22 SF and Horror Filmmakers by Tom Weaver (2011).

Originally poster on May 13, 2015, at Micro-Brewed Reviews. 

The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1966) Standard Club of California Productions :: Realart Pictures Inc. / EP: Jack Broder / P: George Edwards, Roger Corman / AP: Madelynn Broder / D: Michael A. Hoey, Arthur C. Pierce / W: Michael A. Hoey, Arthur C. Pierce, Murray Leinster (novel) / C: Stanley Cortez / E: George White / M: Igo Kantor, Gordon Zahler / S: Mamie Van Doren, Anthony Eisley, Walter Sande, Bobby Van, Pamela Mason, Edward Faulkner, Kaye Elhardt, Billy Gray