The Beast of Yucca Flats is not a film I would want on my resume. Though I won’t judge anyone who does; one takes one’s chances as they come, and Tor Johnson, as the film’s title character, was probably doing just that. Yes, it’s deservedly considered one of the worst movies of all time: Scott Weinberg over at Rotten Tomatoes warns “Beware of any Z-grade schlock that contains the phrase “yuck” in the title”; while a TV Guide critic was said to have awarded the film 1.5 stars. That .5 makes me wonder—was the reviewer, perhaps moved by an embarrassed compassion, reluctant to slice it down to the bare minimum of 1?
The film was a low-low-budget enterprise (costs were around $34,000), apparently made in 1959 but not premiered until 1961 That uncertainty about release dates seems a feature of schlock cinema—as if distributors were mercifully hesitant to release such product on an unsuspecting world. Its story also begins hesitantly, as a half-hearted Cold-War thriller, with defecting Soviet scientist Tor wandering into the nuclear-test site Yucca Flat—notorious for being “the most irradiated, nuclear-blasted spot on the face of the earth”—just as a test goes off. Thereafter an irradiated Tor, his vast physical bulk draped in the shreds of his tent-like suit, aimlessly clumps through an equally half-hearted Monster-on-the-Rampage plot, shredding any unsuspecting human who wanders by. This goes on for 54 minutes before petering out, the film’s short running time the most merciful thing about it.
Not to beat about the yucky flat, Beast truly is dreadful—notorious for its lack of dialogue, its weirdly terse voiceover narration (“Touch a Button. Things Happen. A Scientist Becomes a Beast”), and a dull, if shocking sequence of a rifle-wielding cop in a biplane repeatedly shooting at an innocent pedestrian below (“A Man Runs. Somebody Shoots At Him”). Yet Tor and his Beast have achieved a footling kind of fame. I refer to that famous Tor Johnson mask, said to have been the best-selling Halloween mask of the 1960s-1970s. “Sculpted from life,” the visage is mean-looking, all right—droopingly ovoid in shape, its jowls sag like sacks of wet oatmeal, while its eyes bulge as if from a terrifying inward pressure. It’s like Mr. Potato Head as conceived by Lon Chaney Sr.—maybe one left in the root cellar too long, which has now, disturbingly, begun to sprout…
Clearly the mask’s direct inspiration is Tor’s titular Yuccan Beast, who slouches o’er that film’s eponymous desert wastes as if, like Yeats’s rough beast, it’s dimly aware of its rebirth to come as a cult bad-movie icon. As bad as Beast is—and it plenty is—it’s achieved that strange cinematic immortality as one of those Bad Movies We Love (But Won’t Admit We Do, Unless Plenty Plastered). But it’s to Tor Johnson himself, I would argue, that the film owes its peculiar celluloid Afterlife. As with Joan Crawford in the dreck classic Trog (which I wrote about here), Tor’s lumbering, 400-pound presence, along with his penchant for laughably scary faces, is what gives this film its appalling, yet oddly appealing lure. Without Tor, Beast is a lousy movie with some So-Bad-It’s-Hilarious moments. With Tor, it’s…Bad-But-We-Love-It-Because-of-Him. Which we might admit to even when sober.
But why Tor? Who, after all, was no actor. A former wrestler (billed as The Super Swedish Angel), he’s not known for any real film parts (“Torturer, Uncredited” is typical). Instead, he’s one of those minor non-actor oddities found lurking at the deep, dark fringes of Hollywood. At least Crawford, whatever you think of her, was a true Movie Star, with that true Movie Star power of being able to drag a film, no matter how crummy, up to her megawatt level. Whereas niche types like Tor were used and discarded by the Dream Factory whenever an unconventional Body Type was called for—one that could pose, however fleetingly, as a Shorthand Symbol for an Image or Essence or a Thing itself—its meaning conveyed instantly, within a devouring visual medium, to short attention spans.
This is especially true of fringe Horror—the kind of horror film made before Horror became in the late 20th-century big box-office (even winning Oscars), when it was still a cheap product geared to excitable youngsters, with no budgets for make-up or special effects. Take such now-cult icons as Rondo Hatton, who achieved a sad, twilight celebrity as ‘The Monster Without Makeup’; or Angelo Rossitto, who was usually cast, and billed, as the Dwarf or the Pygmy. If he was billed at all. Nostalgia may coat their reputations with a fond, cultish aura; but in reality such performers were merely product, used to sell other product. When Hatton died, from the disfiguring disease that made him film-castable, an embarrassed Universal sold his last film to crap studio PRC—with all Universal references removed. And throughout his long movie career, Rossitto never made enough money to live on but had to run a newspaper stand on the side. Such can be a film icon’s fate.
Similarly, for half his career, Tor Johnson was usually bit-cast as what he was—a huge, hulking wrestler (“The Mauler,” “The Mug,” “The Strong Man”). But then, as Chance would have it, he drifted into the orbit of cult director extraordinaire Ed Wood. Today Wood is perhaps the auteur (I use that word advisedly) of schlock, his films infamously hilarious for their, to put it politely, eccentricities, as well as ineptitude. Yet within Wood’s wacky oeuvre Tor found his niche, usually playing massive, mute, fur-fondling (no doubt angora) monsters, exploited by Ed, per his TCM bio, for “his physical presence and abilities to stare uncomprehendingly and lumber about menacingly.” Tor doesn’t do much besides stagger like a plastered panda through Wood’s incomprehensible plots. But despite the big, bald head, those frowning brows and flaccid mouth, that blimp-like body bowling over terrain like Sisyphus’s boulder—he’s about as menacing as a toy teddy bear. True, a very large toy teddy bear, but that just makes him extra-cuddly. Watching him, we’re never fooled. As one of Tor’s co-stars once put it, he really was just “a big sugar bun.”
And in his last credited film the Big Sugar Bun steps up to play the foul, fiendish, Flat-prowling Beast. No doubt, Tor saw his Chance and took it. For which he was paid all of $300.
Maybe it’s not surprising Tor’s last hurrah was as another mute monster. I’m guessing Coleman Francis, Beast‘s Wood-like, auteurish director-writer, cast Tor based on his iconic Wood(en) performances—perhaps figuring Tor could do it again and then some. And maybe the Beast was, for Tor, an acting stretch. After all, a role that starts out as a serious scientist and ends up as a mauling mutant might require some range, acting-wise. And I’ll hand it to Tor—he does give the film a bit of the And Then Some. He lurches, he totters, he sways, he spreads his arms and flaps his mouth, he bulges his eyes and roars at the sky, like a panda now suffering from a hangover. And then some. But no matter. He’s still our sugar bun, our sweet, adorable, cuddlesome Tor. We’re still not fooled.
Perhaps no scene sums up Tor Johnson on film like the sorta-famous final one of Beast, in which the dying monster, prone on the desert sands, caresses a tiny rabbit, stroking its fur (yes, it would be fur). The scene is unsettlingly sweet, even a touch sad—as if the expiring Beast has reached out towards one last moment of mercy. Per the film’s producer, Anthony Cardozo, the scene was accidental; the baby bunny—maybe sensing the need for a socko clincher—snuggled up to Tor of its own volition while the camera rolled. And Tor, bless him, seized the moment. When you get your Chance, you Take it. And thus earn your niche, however small, of Cinematic Immortality. Scary Mask included.
Happy Halloween.
Bonus Clip: Here’s the original trailer (yes, there really was a trailer) for The Beast of Yucca Flats, with a bongo-drum music score and narration by Coleman Francis himself. “See one of the most exciting movies ever made!” And then some:
Click here to watch The Beast itself rampage on YouTube, all 54 minutes of it. Completely, utterly, and positively total public domain.
Click here to watch MST3K’s own commentary on The Beast and its antics. Try to keep your sanity as you watch.
And click here to get Joe Dante’s take on The Beast at Trailers From Hell. As Joe says, it’s really quite a consternation.
Grand Old Movies 
Brian Schuck
/ November 9, 2023This is a great tribute to the inimitable Tor. Beast is one of those movies where the production lore and backstory are far more fun than the movie itself (and backstory knowledge is a requirement to get through the thing, which makes 54 minutes seem like 54 hours).
I like your take that Tor doesn’t make that effective a monster, but instead his screen appeal comes from audiences recognizing that beneath the hulking exterior is a “big sugar bun.” Even desert wildlife can sense it! 😄
I vaguely remember the original Tor mask, but back then I was more interested in the Don Post Universal monster masks, and lusted after them. The current iteration of the mask looks awesome!
Grand Old Movies
/ November 9, 2023Thanks so much for commenting, Brian, as always! I love that mask, how it droops and sags! I agree, Beast’s backstory is more interesting than the film; you have to wonder why such schlock filmmakers as Coleman Francis and Ed Wood seemed….driven to make such stuff. And why they always make what’s essentially a monster movie! Discussing Beast as a cultural-cinematic artifact, or even a psychological one, would be more interesting than discussing the film itself!