The Trollenberg Terror
Encyclopedia
The Trollenberg Terror is the title of both a 1956 "Saturday Serial" ITV
UK television programme and a better-known 1958 black and white science fiction
film. The latter is also known as The Crawling Eye, Creature from Another World, The Creeping Eye, and The Flying Eye. Both versions are directed by Quentin Lawrence
and feature Laurence Payne
as journalist Philip Truscott, who investigates unusual accidents occurring at a Swiss resort. The film also stars Forrest Tucker
as United Nations
troubleshooter Alan Brooks. Peter Key wrote the story for the serial, and Jimmy Sangster
scripted the film version based on Keys's story. It was the final film to be produced by Southall Studios
, one of the earliest pioneer film studios in the UK.
Alan who was on the train with them goes to an Observatory a little way up the mountain (Prof Crevett asked for his help). He is told that despite many accidents, dead bodies are never found on the mountain and a radioactive mist cloud is always on its south side. Similar happened in the Andes three years earlier before suddenly vanishing without trace. It is thought the monsters come from a very cold planet and make their own atmosphere, as a rarefied mist.
Anne is giving mind reading exhibition at hotel when she sees the two men in a hut on the mountain. Dewhurst is asleep when the other under a mental compulsion walks out. She faints again. Alan phones the hut and finds out Brett has gone out. The cloud has moved down to where the hut is and the other man hears a noise outside. Something horrible and unseen kills him. Cloud moves back up mountain.
Expedition from town goes to look for two men. Anne back in town is uneasy and says men should stay away from hut. Hut is locked on inside and everything frozen. Body found under the bed with its head torn off. Anne decides to investigate herself by cable car as a spotter plane arrives to search the mountain area. A man is spotted in the mountain but when the first rescuer gets there, all there is, is a rucksack. When he looks inside, he sees the man’s severed head. He is then attacked by a mad man (Brett) with a mountain axe who also kills the second rescuer.
Anne feels a compulsion to climb the mountain but they stop her going past the Observatory. Later Brett arrives back at hotel, behaving weirdly then tries to kill Anne but is knocked down. He hits his head but there is no blood from a wound. Similar to Andes where a man killed an old woman who had similar powers to Anne, where she can receive thoughts. They arrived ten minutes too late to find him dead, as in dead for 24 hours.
Brett kills a man and escapes from the room he was locked in and goes looking for Anne with a knife but is shot and killed by Alan. News is that the cloud is now coming down the mountain towards the village. They decide to retreat to the Observatory (by cable car) which is heavily fortified to withstand a possible avalanche.
The monster arrives in the mist at the hotel. A negligent mother suddenly realises her daughter is not there as the others pile in to a cable car and Alan goes to rescue the suicidal kid in the hotel, and they narrowly escape the monster. They make the cable car and head up the mountain but the delay has given the mist a chance to reach the cable car platform and the motor and cables start freezing and the car starts jerking but it manages to get them to the Observatory and four clouds now start heading towards them. They have one hour.
Hans, who tried to get out by road, turns up and they let him in but he has the symptoms of being a puppet of the monsters and goes looking for Anne. They manage to stop him from strangling her, and kill him. The monsters climb towards the Observatory, where the men are making petrol bombs as the monsters prefer intense cold. An aerial fire bomb raid has been ordered on the Observatory which it should survive, having three feet thick concrete walls.
Philip hits one with a Molotov cocktail which sets it burning but is caught by a monster on the roof. A Molotov cocktail from Alan persuades the burning monster to let Philip go. Later, Philip does the same for Alan when a monster manages to break through the thick wall to try and get at Anne. The plane arrives to begin its bombing raid and the monsters burn.
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
UK television programme and a better-known 1958 black and white science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
film. The latter is also known as The Crawling Eye, Creature from Another World, The Creeping Eye, and The Flying Eye. Both versions are directed by Quentin Lawrence
Quentin Lawrence
-Selected filmography:* The Trollenberg Terror * Cash on Demand * The Man Who Finally Died * We Shall See * The Secret of Blood Island...
and feature Laurence Payne
Laurence Payne
Laurence Payne was an English actor and novelist.-Early life:Laurence Stanley Payne was born in London. His father died when he was three years old, and he and his elder brother and sister were brought up in by their mother, a Wesleyan Methodist in Wood Green, London...
as journalist Philip Truscott, who investigates unusual accidents occurring at a Swiss resort. The film also stars Forrest Tucker
Forrest Tucker
Forrest Tucker was an American actor in both movies and television from the 1940s to the 1980s. Tucker, who stood 190 cm tall and weighed 93 kg , appeared in nearly 100 action films in the 1940s and 1950s.-Early life:Forrest Meredith Tucker was born in Plainfield, Indiana, a son of...
as United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
troubleshooter Alan Brooks. Peter Key wrote the story for the serial, and Jimmy Sangster
Jimmy Sangster
James Henry Kinmel Sangster was an English screenwriter and director, known for his work for horror film producers Hammer Film Productions, including scripts for The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula .Sangster originally worked as a production assistant at...
scripted the film version based on Keys's story. It was the final film to be produced by Southall Studios
Southall Studios
Southall Studios was a film studio located in Southall, Middlesex in West London which operated between 1924 and 1958.The studio was constructed on the site of a former air hanger by the silent film director and producer G.B. Samuelson. The original buildings were destroyed in a fire in 1936, but...
, one of the earliest pioneer film studios in the UK.
Plot
One of three student climbers is mysteriously killed on a mountain, his head ripped off. Two sisters are on a train to Geneva. Anne faints as they pass a mountain and on waking, she now knows all about the town and that there is something wrong with the mountain. She decides they should get off at the next stop, Trollenberg. She was part of a mind reading act in London.Alan who was on the train with them goes to an Observatory a little way up the mountain (Prof Crevett asked for his help). He is told that despite many accidents, dead bodies are never found on the mountain and a radioactive mist cloud is always on its south side. Similar happened in the Andes three years earlier before suddenly vanishing without trace. It is thought the monsters come from a very cold planet and make their own atmosphere, as a rarefied mist.
Anne is giving mind reading exhibition at hotel when she sees the two men in a hut on the mountain. Dewhurst is asleep when the other under a mental compulsion walks out. She faints again. Alan phones the hut and finds out Brett has gone out. The cloud has moved down to where the hut is and the other man hears a noise outside. Something horrible and unseen kills him. Cloud moves back up mountain.
Expedition from town goes to look for two men. Anne back in town is uneasy and says men should stay away from hut. Hut is locked on inside and everything frozen. Body found under the bed with its head torn off. Anne decides to investigate herself by cable car as a spotter plane arrives to search the mountain area. A man is spotted in the mountain but when the first rescuer gets there, all there is, is a rucksack. When he looks inside, he sees the man’s severed head. He is then attacked by a mad man (Brett) with a mountain axe who also kills the second rescuer.
Anne feels a compulsion to climb the mountain but they stop her going past the Observatory. Later Brett arrives back at hotel, behaving weirdly then tries to kill Anne but is knocked down. He hits his head but there is no blood from a wound. Similar to Andes where a man killed an old woman who had similar powers to Anne, where she can receive thoughts. They arrived ten minutes too late to find him dead, as in dead for 24 hours.
Brett kills a man and escapes from the room he was locked in and goes looking for Anne with a knife but is shot and killed by Alan. News is that the cloud is now coming down the mountain towards the village. They decide to retreat to the Observatory (by cable car) which is heavily fortified to withstand a possible avalanche.
The monster arrives in the mist at the hotel. A negligent mother suddenly realises her daughter is not there as the others pile in to a cable car and Alan goes to rescue the suicidal kid in the hotel, and they narrowly escape the monster. They make the cable car and head up the mountain but the delay has given the mist a chance to reach the cable car platform and the motor and cables start freezing and the car starts jerking but it manages to get them to the Observatory and four clouds now start heading towards them. They have one hour.
Hans, who tried to get out by road, turns up and they let him in but he has the symptoms of being a puppet of the monsters and goes looking for Anne. They manage to stop him from strangling her, and kill him. The monsters climb towards the Observatory, where the men are making petrol bombs as the monsters prefer intense cold. An aerial fire bomb raid has been ordered on the Observatory which it should survive, having three feet thick concrete walls.
Philip hits one with a Molotov cocktail which sets it burning but is caught by a monster on the roof. A Molotov cocktail from Alan persuades the burning monster to let Philip go. Later, Philip does the same for Alan when a monster manages to break through the thick wall to try and get at Anne. The plane arrives to begin its bombing raid and the monsters burn.
Cast
- Forrest TuckerForrest TuckerForrest Tucker was an American actor in both movies and television from the 1940s to the 1980s. Tucker, who stood 190 cm tall and weighed 93 kg , appeared in nearly 100 action films in the 1940s and 1950s.-Early life:Forrest Meredith Tucker was born in Plainfield, Indiana, a son of...
as Alan Brooks - Laurence PayneLaurence PayneLaurence Payne was an English actor and novelist.-Early life:Laurence Stanley Payne was born in London. His father died when he was three years old, and he and his elder brother and sister were brought up in by their mother, a Wesleyan Methodist in Wood Green, London...
as Philip Truscott - Jennifer JayneJennifer JayneJennifer Jayne was an English film and television actress.Her name at birth was Jennifer Jones, which she altered in order to avoid confusion with Jennifer Jones, the Hollywood actress...
as Sarah Pilgrim - Janet MunroJanet Munro-Career:Munro starred in three Disney motion picture releases, Darby O'Gill and the Little People , Third Man on the Mountain and Swiss Family Robinson , as well as The Horsemasters , which aired on Disney's weekly television series...
as Anne Pilgrim - Warren MitchellWarren MitchellWarren Mitchell is an English actor who rose to initial prominence in the role of bigoted cockney Alf Garnett in the BBC television sitcom Till Death Us Do Part , and its sequels Till Death... and In Sickness and in Health , all of which were written by Johnny Speight...
as Professor Crevett - Frederick Schiller as Klein
- Andrew FauldsAndrew FauldsAndrew Matthew William Faulds was a British actor and politician.Born in Isoko, Tanganyika , to missionary parents, Faulds married Bunty Whitfield in 1945...
as Brett - Stuart Saunders as Dewhurst
- Colin DouglasColin Douglas (actor)Colin Douglas was an English actor. Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, Douglas was educated at the Farm School in Cumberland...
as Hans - Derek Sydney as Wilde
- Richard Golding as First Villager
- George Herbert as Second Villager
- Anne Sharp as German Woman
- Leslie Heritage as Carl
- Jeremy Longhurst as First Student Climber
- Anthony Parker as Second Student Climber
- Theodore Wilhelm as Fritz
- Garard GreenGarard GreenGarard Green was a British actor and commentator.Green was born in Madras, India in 1924 where his father was superintendent of the government press. When his father died in 1933 the family returned to the United Kingdom and Green finished his education at Watford Grammar School...
as Pilot - Caroline Claser as Little Girl
In popular culture
- Under the title The Crawling Eye, the film was among the first of many movies to be mocked on the TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000Mystery Science Theater 3000Mystery Science Theater 3000 is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999....
. It was also briefly mentioned at the end of the final episodeDanger: DiabolikDanger: Diabolik is a 1968 feature film from Italian filmmaker Mario Bava based on the Italian comic character Diabolik.- About the film :...
of the show. - An episode of Freakazoid spoofs the opening credits of the film, as well as key elements of the plot (though with victims being turned into clowns instead of being killed). The film is mentioned in Stephen KingStephen KingStephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
's 1986 horror novel ItIt (novel)It is a 1986 horror novel by American author Stephen King. The story follows the exploits of seven children as they are terrorized by the eponymous inter-dimensional predatory life-form that exploits the fears and phobias of its victims in order to disguise itself while hunting its prey. "It"...
as having been watched by one of its protagonists, and the Crawling Eye itself later appears as a manifestation of the novel's title monster. - A song called "Crawling Eye" is featured on American horror punkHorror punkHorror punk is a music genre that mixes Gothic and punk rock sounds with morbid imagery and lyrics, which are often influenced by horror films...
band The Misfits' 1999 album, Famous MonstersFamous Monsters-Chart positions:- Credits :* Michale Graves - vocals* Jerry Only - bass* Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein - guitar* Dr. Chud - drums...
. The song's lyrics directly reference the plot of the film.