Appetite For Destruction

Yes, Indeed!
That sums your humble scribe up in three words.  It may explain why I like war films and nuclear we - ahem! - er, foofoodillies, yeah, foofoodillies.  It would also explain why I enjoyed the end of "The Beast From 20,000 fathoms", with the flames and general mayhem as - SPOILER AHEAD! - the monster dies amidst the flaming wreckage of an amusement park.  

The Beast, tanting because he's too big to get on a ride

This film began the trope for giant monsters terrorising humanity, and apparently helped to greenlight Toho Studio's Godzilla.  I am about to start watching another Giant Monster On The Rampage, this being the rather less critically acclaimed "Beginning of the End".  Actually that ought to be "monsters", plural, since the villains of this particular piece are - SPOILER AHEAD! - giant grasshoppers.
     What's that?  You thought I was referring to the classic rock album by Guns 'n' Roses?  Sorry, not a fan of the band and know nothing about their discography.  If they happen to have an album with just that title - which I find rather doubtful, frankly - then it is pure coincidence.*

Look!  An evil grasshopper
(yes I am changing the subject)

     There is, reassuringly, a long list of Goofs over on IMDB, so some people have already done some of the heavy lifting for me.  Conrad rather doubts that this film will manage to scale the heights of "Them", which came out a couple of years earlier, with a considerably larger budget.  We shall see.
     Now, time to douse the motley with honey and throw it into the piranha pool!**

"Invasion" (1966)
This is a little-known British sci-fi thriller from the mid-Sixties, which I caught most of on the Talking Pictures channel yesterday.  Interestingly enough, it is derived from a script by Robert Holmes, one of the staple writers who adapted raw material into dramamentary screenplays for "Doctor Who".  The budget is pretty obviously minute, but, unlike BOTE, it is well-realised on screen.  

Dodgy advertising - it's in black and white

     The main setting is an isolated rural hospital, which is surrounded by a forcefield, either keeping the invaders out - or an escapee in.  Edward Judd makes a splendidly gruff doctor-as-hero, and the sweaty claustrophobia evokes an air of tension that bigger budgeted films would struggle to master.  There isn't that much destruction, which I suppose we'll just have to put up with.
     I mention it here as it's the first time I've seen it since it was shown on television back in the  early Seventies, when your humble scribe soaked it up with relish.

Speaking Of Invasions -
Yes!  We are back to comparisons of Operation Sealion, the abortive Teuton plan to invade the Allotment of Eden, and Operation Overlord, the Allied plan to invade Europe, which most definitely did go ahead.  Google "D-Day" if you don't believe me.***
     One unpleasant innovation that the Teutons would have faced if they ever got ashore in numbers was the Auxiliary Unit.  These were small, secret teams that would have hidden in underground bases after the invaders moved inland, coming out to blow things up and kill people.  They were always locals, with excellent knowledge of their patch of the woods, able to live off the land, and with an <ahem> appetite for destruction.  They were not expected to survive for more than a fortnight, by which time the invasion would either have succeeded (booh!) or been utterly defeated (hoorah!).  Well, what else do you expect from Perfidious Albion?

Getting ready to make life interesting for some invaders ...

     Come D-Day, the Allies had the opposite experience.  The resistance organisations in occupied Europe were thirsting for an Allied arrival, providing a ton of information about the Teuton army in the field, and carrying out sabotage to undermine it.  Once the invasion occurred they were able to provide local information, guides and prisoner escorts - Teuton prisoners under resistance escort were very, very well-behaved.

Finally -
Say hello to the B-36 bomber, which is a post-Second Unpleasantness bomber from the South Canadians.  I think one of these is referred to in BOTE, except they display a B-29 instead -

With humans for scale

     Ha!  What a novice mistake to make, eh?


*  But I do have my fingers crossed.
**  Honey.  Well-known piranha repellent.  Or was it fuming nitric acid?
***  But - I have an honest face!