Development The film was inspired by the box office success of
Day the World Ended, also directed by Corman. It was written by
Lou Rusoff (Sam Arkoff's brother-in-law), but before being completed, Rusoff's brother died and he had to leave for Canada. Corman then called in Charles Griffith to do a final rewrite, two days before filming began. Griffith does have a small part as a scientist. Griffith said Rusoff's script "was incomprehensible which was strange because he was quite meticulous. Lou's brother was dying at the time which most likely had something to do with it." Griffith said he "wrote streams of dialogue. The picture was terrible." Peter Graves' casting was announced in March 1956. Beverly Garland's casting was announced shortly afterwards.
Shooting Filming began on April 3, 1956. The design of the creature was Paul Blaisdell's idea, and he thought that coming from a big planet,
It would have evolved to deal with heavy gravity and would therefore be low to the ground. Corman later admitted this was a mistake, saying the creature would have been more frightening had
It been larger or taller. When
Beverly Garland first saw the creature, she commented "
That conquered the world?" and claimed she kicked
It over (unlikely, since Blaisdell said in an interview that it took three men to turn the prop onto its side for the film's death scene finale).
Paul Blaisdell, who made the creature, researched Venus and "came to the conclusion that if it would have any life — it would be vegetable. In trying to make it look as far removed from anything resembling animal-like, I whipped up a nightmarish creation resembling a pear-shaped, cucumber- like creature, with two mobile, branch- like arms." He created the monster with rubber skin over a wooden frame, latex antenna and carved pine teeth. Flashlights were used to make the eyes glow. Originally the claws worked, but they were damaged on the first day of shooting. When Blaisdell unveiled the costume to the film's producer James Nicholson, Nicholson happily exclaimed "Paul, you've done it again!" The creature was mounted on wheels. Blaisdell would crouch inside to enable the creature to move. "Originally, the creature was supposed to be in a dark cave all the time so an air of mystery would surround it," said Blaisdell. "But Roger decided it would be more effective if the creature would make a defiant appearance outside its hiding place and be destroyed by a charge of bayonet-armed soldiers. He also wanted the creature to appear dead in the film's finale by having it lying on its side!" Griffith said he called the creature prop "Denny Dimwit and somebody else called It an ice-cream cone. I was around when Paul Blaisdell was building it, and he thought the camera would make it look bigger." Blaisdell himself referred to it as "Beulah" during production. A good portion of Beulah disintegrated due to the shoddy care taken to store it, and whatever was left of it was destroyed in the fire-scene finale of AIP's 1958 film
How to Make a Monster. ==Release history==