Bert I. Gordon was certainly a figure that loomed large in cinema; he was one of the few directors who gained the title and still had the talent to back it up.

According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, Gordon earned a rather impressive nickname due to his penchant for featuring enlarged insects in many of his films.

“They called him ‘Mr. Big,’” said entomologist May Berenbaum of Gordon. “Not only because of his initials, but because at least three quarters of the movies he made involved oversized animals, mostly insects.”

Gordon was typically classified as a horror director, having created films like The Cyclops (1957) and Earth vs. the Spider (1958). Gordon admitted that during his career beginnings in Minneapolis, he felt “frustrated.” The dissatisfaction prompted a move to California, where Gordon was able to pursue more creative projects.

“I was a frustrated feature film producer,” said Gordon during an interview with the St. Louis Dispatch. “We went to California on a vacation. When we came back to Minneapolis, I sold my business and went to California, determined to be a producer. I didn’t know a soul in Hollywood.”

However, Gordon also created movies for children, including The Boy and the Pirates (1960).

“I have been producing fantasy science-fiction pictures,” Gordon said. “My pictures really aren’t the horror pictures of the type the P.T.A.s condemn. My pictures don’t have the shock element that many people think isn’t good for kids.”