Monday, March 8, 2021

The Monster of Highgate Ponds (1961)

A delightful and silly children's film. Uncle Dick (Ronald Howard) has bought back some eggs and other specimens from Malaya. One huge egg is not labelled so naturally and he doesn't know what it is... so naturally he gives the egg to his nephews to look after! 

David (Michael Wade) takes the egg to school where it hatches a small reptile which resembles a dragon. As the creature is growing very quickly, David and his friends Sophie (Rachel Clay) and Chris (Terry Raven) are forced to release the creature into the lake on Hamstead Heath. Trouble comes when a couple of crooks try and steal it...

A fun little film with some decent stop motion animation. Scientifically implausible maybe but certainly a novel 1960s monster film, one that doesn't involve crowds of people running in terror from a rampaging beast for a change.