Attack of the 50 Foot Woman

 

 

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"Attack of the 50 Foot Woman," the 1958 cult classic, is everything that the 1957 science fiction film "The Incredible Shrinking Man" is not. It is about a woman instead of a man, growing bigger instead of shrinking, vengeance instead of philosophy, and bad instead of good. However, I come down on the side of those that think this film is gloriously bad and therefore an enjoyable camp romp.

Heiress Nancy Archer (Allison Hayes) is driving around in the California desert on Route 66 when a satellite crashes to earth and she has an encounter with a giant. Nancy heads back to town and tells everyone what happened, but the police just think she has been off on one of her drinking binges again (Nancy has been institutionalized in the past, you see). As for her husband, Harry (William Hudson), he is too busy paying attention to that cheap tramp Honey Parker (Yvette Vickers). Only now Harry sees his big chance to have Nancy declared mentally incompetent so he can get her $50 million inheritance and that big diamond she wears on the cheap chain around her neck. Fortunately, Nancy is again abducted by the giant alien and when she comes back to town she is 50-feet tall and ready to go on the attack with Harry her prime target.

The sequence as Nancy slowly but surely trashes the town as she tracks down Harry redeems the rest of the film, even if the same shot shows up repeatedly (albeit sometimes backwards). The sight of Allison Hayes in her cloth bikini is as memorable an image as you will find in science fiction films from the Fifties, right up there with Gort's appearance in "The Day the Earth Stood Still." Up to that point the film belongs to Yvette Vickers, who attains a level of performance as a bad girl usually reserved for your more traditional exploitation films from this period.

"Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" can be read as a proto-feminist film, with Nancy's crashing through the roof of her house being viewed as a metaphor for breaking the boundaries of repression which limited the growth of women in the real world. But where is the fun in that? Harry done Nancy wrong and fate has given Nancy the opportunity to engage in payback. This movie was made in 1993 with Darryl Hannah and while the special effects were vastly improved, the net gain was just not as enjoyable as the original romp in the desert, which remains a touchstone for fans of bad science fiction films.

When I was a little boy living in the Woodside Housing Projects in the early 1960s, a status symbol amongst the kids was how many times one had seen "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" on TV. It seemed like it was on TV every week, on the Zacherley-hosted "Chiller Theater". Clips from it were even featured on the opening intro of "Chiller Theater", along with clips from "Plan 9 From Outer Space", "The Ape Man", "Killers From Space", "The Cyclops", and "Frankenstein's Daughter". Kids were easy to please back then.
This soon-to-be 45 year old kid STILL loves this film. "Attack" is essentially a trashy soap opera, featuring a philandering husband, an alcoholic heiress, a sexy "other woman", and, to top it off, a 30 foot giant who, in the words of artist Frank Dietz, looks like a gigantic Fred Mertz in a Roman costume!
Alcoholic heiress Nancy Archer (played by the voluptuous Allison Hayes, who died WAY too young), sees a flying saucer, which looks like the bubble Glinda travels in in "The Wizard of Oz". The 30 foot Fred Mertz lookalike emerges from the craft, and covets Nancy's fabulous diamond, "The Star of India". He wants it to power his spacecraft, or maybe for his own personal jewelry collection. Of course, everyone thinks that Nancy is just seeing pink elephants, including her two-timing, fortune-hunting husband Harry. Harry and his sexy girlfriend Honey Parker, (played by red-headed vixen Yvette Vickers) want Nancy committed, so they can get their greedy, sweaty little hands on her millions. What they don't bargain for is that Nancy has become contaminated by radiation from her encounter with Fred Mertz. Nancy then grows to a statuesque 50 feet, her hair turns honey blonde in the process, and she goes on a rampage, determined to wreak her vengeance on the slimy Harry and the sluttish Honey. The image of Ms. Hayes, in her matching bedsheet bra and half-slip, is an unforgettable icon. The film is a little slow going, and the "Attack" doesn't come til the last 10 minutes of the film, but it is fascinately, entertainingly awful to watch. The women's clothes look like they came straight out of a 1958 Frederick's of Hollywood catalogue, the dialogue is atrocious, and the special effects are cheesy-you can see through the Fred Mertz giant and the titular character (yes, it's a pun). The film also has that crazy 1950s iconography. The "desert community" home of the Archers (I like to think that they didn't live far from Las Vegas), the big cars with tailfins, and, of course, the sexy "broads". One can imagine what Russ Meyer would have done with this film! My favorite line occurs in the film after Nancy's first encounter with the jewelry-snatching giant, and Nancy says to Harry, "I think he was after my diamond!" I may also add, on a personal note, that two of my dearest friends, a married couple, are named Nancy and Harry. We all get a big laugh out of it! One final anecdote: I'm pretty sure Federico Fellini saw this film and was impressed. The hilarious Italian comedy "Boccaccio 70", comprises of 3 stories directed by different directors. The Fellini-directed story, "The Seduction of Dr. Antonio", deals with a straightlaced, uptight moralist and his encounter with a 50-foot tall Anita Ekberg. WOW!

attack of the 50 foot woman was the best monster movie ever she turns into a giant from marshines and then she becames the queen of giant womans and then she takes over the hole city and destroy it i loved this movie

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3.0 out of 5 stars B grade movie but who cares its all about fun
I wanted this movie for my 50s collection and I am glad I finally got it. Delivery was about 3 days late.

Published 4 months ago by Joche

5.0 out of 5 stars trois excellents classics.
trois excellents classics sortie en 1958 .bon a visionner pour la premiere fois ou a revoir bien des années plus tard comme ce fut le cas pour moi. 5*

Published 13 months ago by Redmopar

5.0 out of 5 stars fun cinema stuff
This movie was great fun, terrific acting, amusingly poor special effects but a camp 1950s scary movie classic that would definitely would be worth the purchase if it had been... Read more

Published on July 1 2003 by Algernon Wentworth

4.0 out of 5 stars Dumb Fun
This is a good Saturday night popcorn movie...and Allison Hayes is a wow!

Published on Dec 20 2002 by Gerald Miller

4.0 out of 5 stars A big hand for the big lady
Preposterous, yet oddly watchable, bargain basement sci-fi, easily one of the worst flicks of the genre. Read more

Published on April 17 2002 by Kevin Cook

3.0 out of 5 stars A Tall Tale & a Tall Date?
Allison Hayes has a close encounter with an outer space visitor and soon she really starts to grow. One could only wonder if she was on a Scarsdale type of diet. Read more

Published on Oct 15 2001 by charles pope

5.0 out of 5 stars THE VILLAGE OF THE GIANTS
I love movies like this with giants in them,I wish that they would show,and make more movies with giant movies in them.

Published on Aug 22 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars GIVE IT A BREAK
The majority of the reviewers bash this one. My only complaint is I wish the producer and director would of had more vision to have the 50 ft. Read more

Published on April 2 2001 by Avalon Don

5.0 out of 5 stars A bad movie at its best!
Even though this film may have been nominated as the worst movie of all time, it's an all time B-Movie classic!

I'm sure you know aht the movie's all about. Read more

Published on Jan 14 2001

2.0 out of 5 stars Attack of the 50ft Woman...er...for 15 minutes anyway
Although a weak movie in it's own right, it is actually a B-Movie classic. Allison Hayes is perfect for the towering Nancy Archer on the rampage in search for her cheating... Read more

Published on Sep 2 2000

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