Classic Horrors Club

My hopes of tiny Mel Hunter (Marshall Thompson) riding on the back of a pigeon in flight were dashed in episode seven of World of Giants (WOG), ‘Feathered Foe.’ After riding a zip line from the top of a telephone pole to the roof of the bad guy’s lair, it’s only to release the birds, not take one for a joyride. 

The monster of the week is a rooster that takes a liking to Mel. They can’t kill it (thankfully) because its silence at the crack of dawn might tip off the bad guys that something is amiss. Don’t say sci-fi TV of the fifties isn’t educational. We learn that if you hold a rooster’s beak on the ground and draw a line in the dirt in front of it, it will stay transfixed on it when you release it.

This week’s VIPs are two actors with small parts in ‘Feathered Foe.’ The “driver” was played by Brett Halsey, seen in Return of the Fly earlier in 1959. Later that year, he’d be seen in The Atomic Submarine. He was also uncredited as Pete in Revenge of the Creature (1955), which is interesting because the man who played Raddick was played by…

Nestor Paiva, who played Captain Lucas in both Revenge of the Creature and its predecessor, Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954.) He was a prolific character actor also featured in 317 other films, including Mighty Joe Young (1949), Tarantula (1955), The Mole People (1956), and his final film, They Saved Hitler’s Brain (1968.)

The fact that these two actors are in this episode is more exciting than the “wraparound” of the adventure. It’s Bill’s (Arthur Franz) birthday and there’s a long opening in which Dorothy (Marcia Henderson, who is, for the first time, I think, given a main credit after the two male actors) sneaks a cake into their office. He’s late and she’s mad.

We get the definite vibe of a romantic relationship between the two. The morning after the adventure, Bill gets his cake and the episode ends more like a 50’s sitcom than an espionage thriller. We do get the quintessential scene for a show about a 6” tall agent, though. Dorothy gives him “just a drop” of coffee from an eyedropper into a tiny coffee cup.