Classic Horrors Club

All good things must come to an end. World of Giants (WOG) wasn’t always a great series, but it was a fun one. Too little, too late, the final episode, ‘Panic in 3-B’ demonstrates just how fun it could be. Producer William Alland is joined by director Jack Arnold to inject some energy that was sometimes lacking.

Writers Irwin Winehouse and A. Sanford Wolfe return to the show for their second episode. It’s interesting that their first, ‘Rainbow of Fire,’ was my least favorite, and ‘Panic in 3-B’ is my favorite. Together, the creative team teases what might have been during a second season: what if the bad guys learned about Mel Hunter?

Here, Carla Alexandra (Maria Palmer) poses as Miss Brown’s (Marcia Henderson) neighbor and lures her away, so that her partner in crime, Foreign Agent (Edgar Barrier) can help her search for our pint-sized hero. They know about the rocket fuel accident and the disappearance of Mel and have put two and two together.

The situation creates real suspense as Mel scampers around the apartment to avoid detection. It also provides a reminder of how good the special effects are in the show. The oversized props are realistically detailed and the effect that Mel is only 6” tall is entirely believable. 

Jack Arnold is, of course, known as one of the great sci-fi directors of the 1950s. Born on October 14, 1912, in New Haven, Connecticut, he started his career as an actor. While on duty during World War II, he was an apprentice to documentary filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty.

After the war, he began making short films and documentaries on his own. One of them, With These Hands (1950), was nominated for an Oscar. His first theatrical production was Girls in the Night (1953), which he followed the same year with his first genre film, It Came from Outer Space.

The list goes on and on:

• Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
• Revenge of the Creature (1955)
• This Island Earth (1955)
• Tarantula (1955)
• The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
• The Space Children (1958)
• Monster on the Campus (1958)

I love science fiction. As a youngster, I used to buy all the pulp magazines. I loved them. I was very pleased when I was assigned to direct my first SF film because I was still an avid fan. The more I did this type of film the better I liked it, because the studio left me alone. Fortunately, no one at that time at the studio was an expert at directing SF films, so I claimed to be one. I wasn’t, of course, but the studio didn’t know that. So they never argued with me.

World of Giants was his first television series and he followed it with many more, including episodes of Peter Gunn, Dr. Kildare, Rawhide, Perry Mason, and Gilligan’s Island in the 1960s, then well into the 1970s. Name a hit television show and he probably directed an episode.

Arnold’s daughter, Susan, was also in show business for about 30 years. She started as a casting director for such films as Piranha (1978), The Howling (1981), and Gremlins (1984), then produced nine films, including Grosse Pointe Blank (1997). The Haunting (1999), and 13 Going on 30 (2004.)

Jack Arnold died on March 17, 1992, in Woodland Hills, California, leaving a legacy of four writing credits (including The Monolith Monsters in 1957), 22 producing credits, and 86 directing credits. The Oscar eluded him, but in 1967, he directed the Emmy-winning TV special, The Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris Special.