The Flying Serpent
The beast inThe Flying Serpentis Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent god of  the Aztecs. Evil archaeologist George Zucco keeps this half-bird,  half-reptile creature caged in a secret chamber within some New Mexico ruins,  the better to guard a cache of Montezuma's hidden gold. The professor has  obviously cracked under the strain of his studies, leading his stepdaughter  to deliver the immortal line, "I wish there was never any such thing as Aztec  Indians." (They probably feel the same way about you, honey.) The Q-monster's  killings are investigated by a radio sleuth, adding a weird wrinkle to the  scenario; important revelations in the story have a funny way of happening  while the sleuth's show is live on the air. Two reasons for seeing this  58-minute cheapie from rock-bottom PRC studio: George Zucco, the tireless, beetle-browed villain of countless '40s B movies (with the occasional  goodie, such as Moriarty inThe Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, thrown in),  and the campy Quetzalcoatl, a forerunner of Japanese horror-movie monsters. In this film, the Aztec deity generally resembles a poorly crafted piñata  flung across a wire--he flaps his wings with that weird,  aerodynamically suspect motion familiar to Rodan-watchers. For more on the  adventures of Quetzalcoatl, see Larry Cohen's 1983 thrillerQ: The Winged Serpent, a nutty variation on the same creature.--Robert Horton