It had one of the grandest titles in science fiction history. Its monster turned out to be a giant snail.

THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD (1957) sends a swarm of prehistoric mollusks crawling out of California's Salton Sea after an earthquake splits the seabed. The creatures drain their human victims dry. The title comes from the fear that they will reach the canals and spread across the planet.

The snail - actually one of the best monsters of the decade - was a life-size machine, twelve feet tall, built over hydraulics that several men had to operate. The man who made it had just built the white whale for John Huston's Moby Dick. Because it was full-size and not a miniature, the actors could touch it, lending the film an unnerving tangibility.

The hero is played by Tim Holt. Orson Welles had cast him as the doomed heir in The Magnificent Ambersons and called him one of the most interesting actors ever to work in American movies. Holt had also hunted for gold beside Humphrey Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre before leaving the screen for five years.

A giant snail is what brought him back.

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THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD (1957) was produced by Gramercy Pictures, Inc., an independent production company completely unrelated to the 1990s arthouse studio of the same name.