The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956)

Guy Madison is Jimmy Ryan, an American cattleman who’s trying to carve out a piece of the beef market south of the border with his partner Felipe Sanchez.

That effort isn’t appreciated by fellow rancher Enrique Rios. Nor does Rios appreciate Ryan’s sudden interest in his fiancée, Sarita (Patricia Medina).

So Rios plots against Ryan. And when cattle start to go missing, Ryan suspects Rios and his henchmen.

Ryan’s ranch hands aren’t so certain. The area is in the middle of a drought. And legend has it, that when a drought strikes, men and animals start to go missing in a swampy area that surrounds a supposedly hollow mountain.

The curse is so feared, those ranch hands quit, leaving Ryan and Felipe with an aging drunk named Pancho and his young son as the only employees on their new ranch.

In spite of his growing fondness for Sarita, Ryan plans to leave the area when the real reason for his trouble emerges from those swamps.

Review:

How often do you have a Western in which the good guy’s cattle aren’t being rustled, they’re being eaten by a prehistoric dinosaur? Or in which the final showdown between the good rancher and the evil rancher is interrupted by that same dinosaur?

This was supposedly the first film to feature cowboys and dinosaurs. The dinosaur, who doesn’t make his debut until an hour into the film, was the product of stop-motion animation methods Ray Harryhausen would later make so famous. Oh, and in reality, it was about two feet tall.

The film marked quite a step down for Madison, who at one point was one of the biggest box office stars in Hollywood. He and Medina are the only cast members who would have been well known in the U.S. A Spanish-language version of the film was made back to back with this one.

Directed by:
Edward Nassour

Cast:
Guy Madison … Jimmy Ryan
Patricia Medina … Sarita
Carlos Rivas … Felipe Sanchez
Pascual Garcia Pena … Pancho
Mario Navarro … Panchito
Eduardo Noriega … Enrique Rios
Julio Villarreal … Don Pedro
Lupe Marriles … Margarita

Runtime: 81 min.

Memorable lines:

Jimmy Ryan, to one of his hands: “You’re too superstitious. You’re afraid of your own shadow.”
The ranchhand: “Not my shadow, senor. It’s the shadow of that cursed mountain.” (Cue ominous music.)

Filipe to Jimmy, as the partners consider an offer to sell out their ranch: “You have a better eye for business than I have. You decide.”
Jimmy, nursing a black eye from a fight with Enrique Rios: “The eye isn’t in any too good a condition at the present moment.”

Sarita, greeting Jimmy in a cemetery: “You did come. You did get my message.”
Jimmy: “I got it alright, but I wasn’t sure it was from you.”
Sarita: “Why not?”
Jimmy: “I thought someone had a hole all dug for me and wanted to save themselves the trouble of carting me over. A date in a graveyard makes a guy wonder.”

The beast emerging from the mountain surrounded by swamps in The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956)

Patricia Medina as Sarita and Mario Navarro as Panchito, catching sight of the approach beast in The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956)