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Lizards in Movies   The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)   Spoiler Alert ! Some of these pictures and descriptions may give away plot details that you might not want to know before watching the film.       The very first shot of this Western is of a large lizard sitting on rock in full sun in the desert. (top left) (Not a likely thing to see.) It looks like a dead Mexican Beaded Lizard that is painted to look like a Gila Monster and rigged to raise up on all four legs and open its mouth. We hear hissing sounds when it opens its mouth, which is no surprise since lizards and snakes are always hissing in movies, but Gila Monsters really do hiss. Cable Hogue says "Sorry old timer, but you're only part poison and I'm hungry for meat." He starts to pull his knife to kill it for food when the lizard is suddenly blased off the rock by rifle fire. Actually, the first frame (top center) shows a very dead stitched-together lizard with tape on the side painted very badly to match the rest of the body paint. (They didn't expect that anyone would ever freeze that frame and put it up on a web site. But here we are.) Then that bad patch job is exploded with a blood squib. We actually see it explode twice for full effect.