Movies - The Beast of Yucca Flats

Home > Listing Index > Movies > The Beast of Yucca Flats

	Movies - The Beast of Yucca Flats

The Beast of Yucca Flats is a horror film released in 1961. The film starred Swedish former wrestler Tor Johnson and was both written and directed by Coleman Francis. The film is widely considered a B-movie. This film was featured on the television series Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Plot summary

A brilliant Soviet scientist by the name of Joseph Javorsky (played by Tor Johnson) defects to the United States. As he flees from a group of assassins, he stumbles into range of a nuclear test. The radiation transforms Javorsky into a mindless beast. After the beast kills a couple in their car on a nearby road, two police officers named Jim and Joe pursue the killer, thinking him to be a normal human. Meanwhile, a vacationing family stops along the same road. The family's two young sons wander off into the wastelands where the eventually encounter and escape from the beast. Their father searches for them, and is mistaken for the killer by one of the police officers, searching for the murder from the air in a small plane. The officer (whose law enforcment philosophy appears to be "shoot first; ask questions later") opens fire on the innocent man, who escapes unharmed.

Eventually the family is reunited and the police shoot and kill the Beast. A wild rabbit appears and nuzzles the Beast's lifeless body.

Goofs and mistakes

The film opens with the murder by strangling of a woman who has just gotten out of the shower and is thus topless. The identity of the murderer is never revealed and the murder is never discussed after that scene. Javorsky is unlikey to be the killer because if the scene takes place before the movie, he is not the Beast yet and thus has no know motivation to kill a woman who he presumably hasn't met; if it is set during the movie, Javorsky still could not be the killer as the Beast never leaves the wastelands.

The entire film is shot without sound. Narration and voices were added in post production. To avoid having to synchronize the audio to the video, characters only speak when their faces are either off-screen or not clearly visible due to darkness or distance.

The narrative voice-over constantly makes reference to "progress" as though it were the cause of the characters' problems.

Notable quotes

Narrator: "Jim Archer, Joe's partner, another man caught in the frantic race for the betterment of mankind. Progress."
Narrator: "Touch a button, things happen. A scientist becomes a beast."
Narrator: "Boys from the city, not yet caught in the whirlwind of progress, feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs."
Narrator: "Joseph Javorsky, respected scientist. Now a fiend prowling the wastelands, a prehistoric beast in a nuclear age. Kill, kill just to be killing."
Narrator: "A man runs, someone shoots at him."
Narrator: "Flag on the moon, how did it get there?"

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Beast of Yucca Flats ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article The Beast of Yucca Flats; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay