Attack of the 50 Foot Woman

What happens when a wealthy woman meets a giant opaque alien and his satellite in the desert. Why she ends up becoming a 50 foot woman bent on fixing her marriage with her adulterous husband! Great 50's hokum here! Lovely Allison Hayes plays a woman who has recently been checked out of a sanitorium and has major drinking/marriage problems. Her husband Harry is the scum of the earth as he flirts(and beyond) with beautiful Honey(Vickers). Both of them want Allison's money, all 50 million of it. The story is pretty ambiguous, and we really never do know just who or what that alien was all about. The best part is seeing just how low and sleazy Harry is, so we can wait to see him get his. The acting is pretty good, nothing great. The direction by Nathan Juran is adequate(nothing like what you would see in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad!). The special effects are fairly standard as we really never see Allison Hayes as a fully-materialized giant. She always seems to be a bit transparent for some reason except when we see her giant hand. Hayes looks great as a giant though in her skimpy shorts and bikini top, giving at least two great reasons to see the film...or is that three? Great 50's sci-fi fun!

This film has to be one of my all time favorite bad movies. I used to watch it often as kid on New York City's WPIX Channel 11's Chiller Theater. The special effects(ha!) are dreadful, the dialog laughable, the acting non-existent, but I still loved it! Sultry knockout Allison Hayes wasn't a terrific actress, but she sure looked good! As a kid I remember thinking that her husband HARRY! was a big dope. Why would he want that pinch-faced blonde, when he had gorgeous, sexy and stacked Nancy to come home to every night? What a moron. Finally available on DVD after many years (Warner Bros. has distributed it but I was hoping for a better restoration--oh well)....it's still a pleasure to watch.

How can you NOT like this film? It's very absurdity makes it an instant classic. What absurdity you ask? Well how about the fact that when the sheriff (George Douglas) and Jess the butler (Ken Terrell) enter the giant's space ship everything is scaled to our size? How about the fact that when the giant (Mike Ross) picks up the sheriff's car it's a station wagon, when he throws it to the ground it's a sedan, and when the sheriff checks the wreckage it's a station wagon again? Or maybe the fact that Alison Hayes height seems to vary from scene to scene; sometimes she's a mere 18 feet tall and in others she is much larger. Did I, or should I?, mention that you can see right through both giants in almost every scene?

And when she reaches through the roof of the bar to pick up her philandering husband (William Hudson, who also went face-to-ankle with THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN a year earlier) why didn't they cut the scene before you saw the doll Alison was picking up had no legs? Should I even mention the fact that this movie is set in California and the deputy (Frank Chase) has a Boston accent ("Hi ya Mistah Ahhhhcha!")?

You can spot Ken Terrell doing stunts in most of the Republic serials during the 40's. Roy Gordon (Dr. Cushing) appeared in THE WASP WOMAN in 1959, Yvette Vickers (Honey Parker) had a run-in with giant bloodsuckers in ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES. And Alison Hayes . . .ah, she was my dream girl when I was growing up.

Let the sourpusses deride this film, I think it's great fun. Don't waste your time with the remake, THIS is the one to catch.

"Haaaarrrryyy!"

The amplified, dispassionate female voice could have been Leona Helmseley in heat but, no, it belongs to Allison Hayes as Nancy Archer, the 50-Foot Woman of the title. In the most infamous role of her film career, Allison's performance literally rips off the roof. In fact, make that a couple of roofs.

Jaw-droppingly tacky, "Aot50FW" is the tale of Nancy, a neurotic, boozy heiress and her loveless Lothario husband, Harry (William Hudson, who also co-starred opposite The Amazing Colossal Man). Nancy has a close encounter of the third kind, in the desert, with a bald giant from outer space who wears a mini-skirt and gladiator sandals, and who has a thing for Nancy's jewelry. What he does to her once he's carried her off is probably best left a mystery, but soon Nancy starts to grow.

Treading into the center of town on tranquilizers, tightly wrapped in nothing but the bed sheets, the buxom giantess heads toward the low-rent saloon where Harry is having a few laughs with a floozy named Honey (Yvette Vickers). The confrontation turns ugly.

The Poverty Row f/x make the alien giant and Nancy appear to be transparent due to incompetently transposed images. You'll understand why director Nathan Juran changed his name to Nathan Hertz on the credits. Juran was no stranger to directing giant creatures, human and non, having also directed "The Deadly Mantis," "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad," "Jack, the Giant Killer" plus several episodes of TV's "World of Giants" and "Land of the Giants."

A lot of laughs for all the wrong reasons.

Surprisingly this late 50's Sci-Fi feature isn't all that bad. Decent acting and filming make it one of those Black and White science fiction numbers that's entertaining and fun to watch. The last line in this motion picture is an underrated classic among closing lines. Superior to the 90 something remake.