(1961) *1/2Okay, so this guy isn't really a prinicipal character, certainly not one of the protagonists. His name is Petersen and he's played by Danish comedian Dirch Passer. When you first meet him, it seems like a slam dunk that this is the guy whose idiot screw-up is going to be the pivotal moment in the film. To illustrate the point, here's a picture of Petersen sticking his hand into a fishtank containing an electric eel and, unsurprisingly, getting electrocuted.
Oddly, when the time comes for Petersen to come through for the good guys, he totally comes through. Really all he's doing is delivering to the cops the news that Reptilicus is loose -- not the most complicated task, and it takes him a couple minutes before he manages to convince the police chief to look up from his chess game and pay attention. But I mean, go back to that eel picture. See the sort of handicaps this man is fighting through to get people to take him seriously?
By the way, Saga Studios, who produced the film, were considering calling this movie Dirch and the Dragon. They actually wanted so badly for people to know Dirch Passer was in this, they were planning on titling the movie with his real name. That's like the makers of Spider-Man deciding to call it Bruce Campbell and the Green Goblin instead. Actually, that's kind of a great name. That's what they should have called it.
Here's the guy that actually makes the pivotal screw-up.
He's the second in command at a research lab that's studying a giant reptile tail dug up by some miners. It's supposed to be in deep freeze, but one night he leaves the latch open to the freeze-storage. He dozes off at his desk, the tail starts to thaw, and a day later -- after some pretty lax scientific method -- the tail regenerates into the giant reptile, Reptilicus. Reptilicus slithers off to terrorize the city by spitting goopy slime on everything, and also knocking some buildings over by drunkenly smacking his head into them.
It's a good one to watch if you're with someone particularly funny. But while so far, it's my number one contender for the So Bad It's Good Award, I'm holding out for something with more unintentional hilarity. By the way, this is what the monster looks like.
