When you look up The Magnetic Monster (1953) on Amazon Prime, it will tell you next to the title that it is one of the greatest science fiction movies of the 1950s.  In the description, it also says, “For many, this cheesy film succeeds on all levels.  For some, it’s considered schlock!”  I will let my review tell you on which side of this strange divide I stand.  For now, all I will point out is its inherent contradiction.  How can something be said to be so great and so bad in consecutive thoughts?  Whatever it is, the one thing that is apparent from seeing it is that it is a low-budget production.  You will have to forgive me, in a general sense, for watching a few of these kinds of films lately.  I think they are fun, but this one has an invisible foe, and another I recently watched, The Angry Red Planet (1959), basically colored negatives red in order to make it look like they are on Mars.  I enjoy seeing these cheap cinematic tricks, but some might find the result boring.  Again, I will leave it to you to decide which of these best describes The Magnetic Monster.

Before we get The Magnetic Monster (which is a pretty silly appellation), we are treated to Dr. Jeffrey Stewart (Richard Carlson) narrating about new dangers facing humanity.  This is done in order to contextualize why the government created the branch of it for which he works, the Office of Scientific Investigation (OSI).  I guess I will point out that this does not exist outside of this film.  Anyway, its assorted researchers are tasked with looking into new developments that could pose a threat, and doing something about them.  We soon meet Dr. Stewart in the flesh as he is dropped off at work by his pregnant wife, Connie Stewart (Jean Byron).  As an aside, since I will not be returning to this subject, but Dr. Stewart is inordinately (one could say insultingly) worried that Connie is not “fat enough” to be four months into her pregnancy.  At any rate, it is time to begin his day alongside his partner, Dr. Dan Forbes (King Donovan).  Not long into their shift, they receive a phone call from a department store complaining of all their goods being magnetized.  Drs. Forbes and Stewart are sent to look into the matter.  Their Geiger counters detect a large amount of radiation coming from the attic above, which also is a laboratory/living space . . . for some reason.  Donning hazmat suits, up there they find a dead man, and the source of the issue: a thermos like metal container designed to hold heavy elements.  Yet, when they open it, they find it empty.  All they can do now is wait for other reports of strange magnetic occurrences to start filing into their office.  It comes from a taxi driver at the airport, who claims that his car will not turn over.  This seems innocuous until he adds that his screw driver is stuck to the engine.  This is because he had given Dr. Howard Denker (Leonard Mudie) a ride to the airport.  We see Dr. Denker on his flight exhibiting signs of radiation sickness.  Dr. Stewart gives his plane orders to turn around once they figure out the culprit.  When Dr. Stewart finally catches up with Dr. Denker, the latter explains that he has created a new element called serranium by, you know, just messing around with science, I guess.  It is serranium that is responsible for all these mishaps.  Drs. Forbes and Stewart still do not know the full extent of the element’s danger, and have it transported to a nearby university for further analysis.  The next day, as Dr. Stewart is about to head out with Connie to look into buying a new home (with a patch of grass, darn it!), he is asked to return to OSI headquarters.  The serranium had imploded, killing a few people and taking down a building.  It has been brought back to their laboratories for further analysis.  You see a series of science stuff happening, and there is a lot of such filler in this film, as our dynamic duo plum the nature of this, ahem, monster.  Actually, I should not be so flippant.  Their early discoveries, using a “computer brain” they refer to as MANIAC (I forget what this stands for), tell them it is doubling in size every eleven hours, with the magnetic events getting stronger each time.  The team of other scientists and government officials run through a series of ideas as to how to stop this from happening, all of which are dismissed.  Dr. Steward then comes up with the solution of overfeeding it with electricity (or electrons, or something?) to essentially choke it before it grows into another galaxy and destroys the planet.  The problem is that to do so would require a larger electrical current than anything in the United States can produce.  The answer to this dilemma lies with our snowy neighbors to the north: Canada.  In Nova Scotia they have what is referred to as a Deltatron, which could do the job.  Still, when Drs. Forbes and Stewart get to the site, Dr. Benton (Leo Britt), the engineer in charge, says that the power needed to pull off the feat will lead to the destruction of the facility.  A few phone calls quell these objections for a moment, but Dr. Benton gets antsy again when he sees his lifelong project in peril.  Indeed, he tries to stop the large doors to this deep underground bunker, and succeeds momentarily.  With everything about to blow up, Dr. Stewart is able to get the large steel gates moving once more.  Sea water floods the room, but the element is stopped.  Our final scene is of Dr. Stewart pulling up to the new house that Connie has purchased while he was away.

The Magnetic Monster has many of the traits one would expect from a 1950s science fiction movie, though I do not know if I would say it is “one of the best.”  It has a Cold War tone to it, with the scientists and the dangers of the destructive powers they can unleash.  There is also the obedient housewife to give you a sense of the culture at that time.  As for evidence of the low-budget approach, this is best seen with the so-called “monster.”  It looks like a close-up shot of a burning sparkler.  But, hey, I suppose anything can look like legitimate science when filmed at the correct angle.  In short, it is all pretty standard as these productions go.  The one interesting point made throughout the entire film, though, leads me nicely to my Catholic analysis.  It comes at the end, as the Stewarts are about to enter their new home and Dr. Stewart is ruminating about the ordeal he just endured.  He connects it to Connie’s pregnancy, calling it the “secret of multiplication.”  When that last word comes up in a Christian context, it is usually in connection to Jesus feeding the multitude by multiplying the fishes and loaves of bread.  I hope you see, too, the theme with the prefixes.  Dr. Stewart explains that it is love that determines the utility of these events.  The lack of it leads to serranium, while its inclusion means the growth of a family.  Put differently, its absence is destructive and its presence is constructive.  Since we know that, as 1 John 4:16 tells us, “God is love,” it can be said that it is also evidence that He is with us.  One can go off a philosophical cliff here talking about examples that bear this out, but there is truth in the statement from the movie.  I could not tell you whether an element is evil by itself.  At the same time, I am not sure Dr. Denker’s invention is guided by anything other than mere abstract curiosity.

If what I have said about The Magnetic Monster has not clarified whether I think it is good or cheesy, I will now say it definitively: it is cheesy.  It has a decent cast, but what is essentially an invisible monster.  There are better things to do with your time.