I’ve done seen ’bout everything when I seen REPTILICUS fly!


scientist Dr. Martens (Asbjorn Andersen)—which goes on a ram­ page of the Danish countryside, levelling houses and disgorging a corrosive, phlegm-like “acid slime” from its elongated, armor- plated throat. An American Briga­ dier General, Mark Grayson (Carl Ottosen), is summoned to save the day by conceiving of a plan that won’t involve blowing Rep- tilicus to bits—which, of course, would result in the regeneration of many more of its kind! Produced and directed by


Sidney Pink, and based on a screenplay co-written by Pink and the capable lb J. Melchior (who wrote and directed Pink’s 1960 production THE ANGRY RED PLANET), this is one of the genre’s legendary, laughable misfires. As legend has it, when James Nicholson and Sam Arkoff first screened it, they took


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one look at its decrepit special effects and one listen at its Dan­ ish-accented Brigadier General and decreed REPTILICUS “un-releasable.” (There is also a ton of travelogue footage, culmi­ nating in nightclub entertainer Birthe Wilke’s enchanting cha- cha song, “Tivoli Nights” !) The film was ultimately salvaged by cutting the creature’s inept fly­ ing scenes—which were then sold to stock footage libraries (which subsequently leased it to TV sitcoms like THE MONKEES and a number of TV commer­ cials)—and by hiring American actors to redub it from top-to- bottom (an unmistakable Rob­ert Cornthwaite supplies the voice of Martens). Additional costs were presumably covered when AIP licensed the title to Monarch Books, who released an adult paperback novelization,


in which Martens’ daughter Karen (played in the film by Mimi Heinrich) says things like, “Would you like to see me with­ out my clothes?” (The author, Dean Owen, also hammered out spicy novelizations of KONGA and THE BRIDES OF DRACULA!) Melchior, who envisioned bet­


ter things, calls REPTILICUS “the worst dinosaur movie ever made,” but far worse ones have been made since, and there is evi­ dence that it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek anyway, given the comic relief of cloddish handy­ man Dirch Passer, and hoot-wor­ thy dialogue like “Heese gone back into the sea—sounding like a vounded vhale!” That said, there are early sequences in which Pink builds tension with very little means at his disposal—the high angle shots as a sleepy Dr. Dalby

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