The Magnetic Monster is an earnest, but essentially below average science fiction film from the paranoid Fifties. In fact it's not a living creature at all.
It is in fact a new atomic element, we started getting a few them as a result of the Manhattan Project back in the day. And here was the problem I had with the film. What kind of a nuclear scientist walks off with a piece of some radioactive stuff with apparently no security precautions. Yet this is what we're asked to believe that Leonard Mudie went and did. They locate him on a flight with a leadlined briefcase with the stuff.
What to do with it? In sober documentary fashion scientists Richard Carlson and King Donovan try to stop this thing from growing. When it's on a feeding cycle it feasts on all things metallic, magnetizing them in the process. Carlson has an additional problem, wife Jean Byron is expecting and the world may get destroyed before Carlson and Byron contribute to the population.
It's a sincere film and the idea of a monster that's not animal or vegetable, but radioactive mineral is appealing to science fiction intellect. But I could not wrap myself around the concept of Leonard Mudie just walking off with the stuff to do some homework with.
It is in fact a new atomic element, we started getting a few them as a result of the Manhattan Project back in the day. And here was the problem I had with the film. What kind of a nuclear scientist walks off with a piece of some radioactive stuff with apparently no security precautions. Yet this is what we're asked to believe that Leonard Mudie went and did. They locate him on a flight with a leadlined briefcase with the stuff.
What to do with it? In sober documentary fashion scientists Richard Carlson and King Donovan try to stop this thing from growing. When it's on a feeding cycle it feasts on all things metallic, magnetizing them in the process. Carlson has an additional problem, wife Jean Byron is expecting and the world may get destroyed before Carlson and Byron contribute to the population.
It's a sincere film and the idea of a monster that's not animal or vegetable, but radioactive mineral is appealing to science fiction intellect. But I could not wrap myself around the concept of Leonard Mudie just walking off with the stuff to do some homework with.