The Giant Gila Monster

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The Giant Gila Monster is 1959 giant monster movie directed by Ray Kellogg (who also did The Killer Shrews).

In the backwoods of northern Texas, in a car overlooking a ravine, a young local couple may be scheming to elope and marry when a claw pushes their car over the edge to their deaths. Back in town, at the teen hangout, the couple's friends wonder where they are, and hot rod enthusiast Chase Winstead (Don Sullivan) teams up with the sheriff to go and find them. Sure enough, it transpires that the eponymous beastie is lurking about, and is gradually making its way towards the town.

This movie had the potential to be a campy Narm-fest, alas; too little is seen of the big lizard wreaking destruction. It's seen on-screen for only about eight minutes of the film's 74 minute running time. All the rest is seemingly taken up with characters talking about where the couple might have disappeared, hot rods, and Chase playing/teens dancing to cheesy guitar music.

For the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode see here.

Tropes used in The Giant Gila Monster include:

• Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever
• Attack of the Killer Whatever
• B-Movie
• Captain Morgan Pose: And lots of it.
• Chekhov's Gun: Earlier on in the film, Chase stores some vials of nitroglycerin. Guess what is eventually used to defeat the monster?
• Developing Doomed Characters: It takes about fifty minutes before the lizard finally smashes a train, and sixty before it crashes a teen party.
• Infant Immortality: The lizard isn't particularly scary to begin with, but it gets a lot less so when it completely fails to catch and eat a crippled nine-year old.
• Nitro Express: How Chase destroys the Gila Monster after bullets fail.
• No More for Me: Some guy drinking while driving after he sees the lizard cross the road.
• Notable Original Music: The "Mushroom Song" (a.k.a. "Laugh, Children, Laugh"), and "My Baby, She Rocks"
• The Danza: Lisa Simone as Lisa.