Jack Arnold’s Spiders in the Films “Tarantula” and “The Incredible Shrinking Man”

Which is scarier: a giant spider threatening an entire city, or an ordinary spider attacking a man shrunk to the size of a thimble? The proper person to ask would be the director Jack Arnold (1916-1992), who, after all, had to conjure up both of these afflictions. It must be said that he handled arachnophobia in first-class style. First in Tarantula of 1955, where a spider grown enormous through experiments menaced mankind with its leg; then in The Incredible Shrinking Man of 1957, in which a hero diminished by a radioactive mist does battle with a monstrous spider in his own cellar.

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

In the finale of the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic, the Golden Ball is told: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to offend nobody, but the digest really does come free of charge. So, here is the main business of the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

Jack Arnold’s Spiders in the Films “Tarantula” and “The Incredible Shrinking Man”

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s