LMPC/LMPC/Getty ImagesBy 1961, the infamous Ed Wood had abandoned any ambitions to crack Hollywood, the failure of his Psycho knock-off The Sinister Urge the year previously inspiring a pivot into an exploitation scene far more befitting of his unique talents. Perhaps sensing a gap in the market for crudely made genre pictures with a willful disregard for logic, jobbing actor Coleman Francis made the leap to director for a monstrous mash of Cold War espionage, boogeyman horror, and nuclear protest movie that made Wood appear the height of competence.Indeed, it doesn’t take long for The Beast of Yucca Flats, named after the very real irradiated area, to leave audiences utterly perplexed. In the opening scene proper, we learn the Soviet Union, a nation not exactly renowned for its shy and retiring nature, have kept the fact they’ve beaten the United States to the first moon landing entirely under wraps. And having just jumped ship to their fiercest rivals, their top ‘noted scientist’ Joseph Javorsky (Tor Johnson) is now being hunted by the KGB before he can spill this unfathomable secret.Cue an interminably long chase sequence which starts at his airfield touchdown and ends up in the middle of the Nevada desert which, despite a worrying lack of signage or security measures, just happens to be the site of a nuclear facility. And in a staggering case of bad luck, Javorsky arrives at the exact moment their latest test goes up in radiation-filled smoke. The Beast of Yucca Flats is subsequently born.You may notice that by this point, none of the characters have spoken. In fact, it takes roughly a third into the 54-minute tale for one of them to do so. Even then it’s off screen. Francis apparently shot the film like a silent movie — although there is a rumor he simply lost the original soundtrack — but didn’t have the capability or desire to match the dubbing with the faces. As a result, the entirety of the dialogue is uttered either out of view or from afar.That’s not to say The Beast of Yucca Flats is a quiet experience. There’s an invasive orchestral score which rarely correlates with the action unfolding on screen. The same can be said of the portentous narrator who continually pops up to provide exposition, but whose stilted riddles — delivered as they’ve been fed into Google Translate and back again — leaves you more baffled than ever before. “Boys from the city not yet caught by the whirlwind of progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs,” is just one of the unhinged non-sequiturs. “Flag on the moon. How did it get there?,” is another.Joseph Javorsky in beastly mode. | Cinema AssociatesOf course, the general tone of audio-visual disorientation is set during the cold open. Here, an intrusive ticking clock plays as an unknown, scantily-clad woman is strangled in her motel room by a mysterious assailant. Remarkably, the murder (and implied necrophilia) has no relation to the rest of the film and is never referenced again. In a brazen example of Tinseltown’s tendency to marginalize and exploit women, Francis simply wanted an attention-grabbing scene which allowed for the sight of bare breasts.The other female representation isn’t much better. The wife of Jim (Bing Stafford), one of two hapless trigger-happy police officers tasked with capturing the mutant, doesn’t get a name or a line yet does get a lingering close-up of her getting out of bed in some revealing nightwear (and in a blatant case of misleading advertising, the most prominent space on the film’s poster). And while the man killed by The Beast is left to rot on the roadside, the body of his barely alive wife is carried up the mountains for God knows what.On the rare occasions Francis isn’t sexualizing women, he’s depicting them as useless. The mom who loses her two kids at a gas station spends most of her screen time motionlessly weeping instead of, you know, actually looking for them. Still, at least she avoids getting nearly killed, unlike her more active husband, forced to run for his life after being mistaken for The Beast by the region’s gun-toting answer to the Keystone Cops. “Shoot first, ask questions later,” comes one of the few bits of narration that makes sense.The Beast with one of the film’s many poorly represented women. | Cinema AssociatesThankfully, after almost shooting down an innocent father in cold blood, the police realize the giant hulk of a man resembling a budget version of Fantastic Four’s The Thing is more likely to be the radioactive culprit and aim fire in the right direction. The Beast slowly succumbs to his injuries but not before cradling a wandering-into-shot jackrabbit, an inspired bit of improv from Johnson which ties into the description of Javorsky as a “kind man.” Yes, the film’s one true poetic moment was entirely accidental.Johnson, a former professional wrestler from Sweden who featured in several Ed Wood ‘classics’ (Plan 9 from Outer Space, Bride of the Monster), is the best thing about the film, simply for the fact all he’s required to do is grunt (silently) and look vaguely menacing. But while the proto-The Rock decided this would be his cinematic swansong, Francis and his producer partner in crime Anthony Mendoza plowed on with two equally nonsensical capers (The Skydivers, Red Zone Cuba) to form the early ‘60s most maligned trilogy. The Beast of Yucca Flats, however, undoubtedly remains their ultimate stinker.The Beast of Yucca Flats is available to stream on Tubi.