Customer Reviews

Cult Camp Classics 1: Sci-Fi Thrillers (Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman 1958 / Giant Behemoth / Queen of Outer Space)

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

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!

If you enjoy 1950s campy B movies, then I don't see you going wrong here with this first set. For details just search each of the movie titles and you see each movie alone runs almost as much as this set and you will see from the reviews they are all kind of legends as far as the genre goes. They actually are some of the best of that period of B movies. I know I like all three of these in this set. I can say I compare the "50 ft Woman" to the "War of the Colossal Beast" and "The Giant Behemoth" to "Beast from 20,000 Fathoms". The last one with Zsa Zsa Gabor on the planet of women is not to be missed if nothing more than to see how far we had plunged into skimpily clad women with bad lines in B class SciFi moviedom. Hmmm does B stand for bad? Well even if it does these movies are entertaining for most fans of science fiction.

The first two movies in the set are black and white movies but they look like they have been gone over and cleaned up. "Queen of Outer Space" is in color and very clear and sharp. I got my set a few days ago so my wife and I watched the first two in the set a couple nights ago and the third last night. All the DVDs are sharp and clear. Each had a commentary available by someone in the movie. "Does anyone know if the costumes, sets, and music for "Queen of Outer Space" was done by people that later worked on "Star Trek"? The mens uniforms and radios definitely looked like they came from the "Forbidden Planet" wardrobe. I'm definitely glad I got this set.

Prints for these films look fine, and it's good to see such modest movies cleaned up and given the DVD treatment, though some purists will question the minor letterboxing on "50 ft. Woman" and "Behemoth". Yvette Vickers commentary on "50 ft. Woman" is a treat. She remembers the film well and speaks fondly of it and of her time spent making the movie. Be aware though: the advertisements say the trailer for "Woman" is on the DVD, but for some reason it isn't. Strange: probably an oversight. "Behemoth" looks sharp and clear, but Dennis Muren and Phil Tippet's commentary does a great disservice. They clearly don't respect the film at all, and spend much of their time insulting it, even mocking it, before wrapping up with "well, I guess now we know why they never made a sequel to this movie." Wish they'd had some affection for the film, or had at least familiarized themselves with it before offering such caustic feedback. By the ninth or tenth time they say, "Ray Harryhausen would have done this SO MUCH better" the novelty wears thin, and one wonders what Harryhausen himself might have said about the movie. "Queen of Outer Space" has the novelty of color, and the surprising pedigree of a Ben Hecht screen story. Kudos to Warner Bros. for putting these films out, and yes, the "Behemoth" disc has the often cut ferryboat scene, for those who are interested. Too bad about the shoddy "Behemoth" commentary, but fans should enjoy thoroughly these long-awaited B movies.

If you like 50's sci-fi, this set is a must have. Nice widescreen, anamorphic prints of all 3 films--50 Foot Woman and Giant Behemoth are b& w, Queen of Outer Space is in glorious Cinemascope color!

The Giant Behemoth is another solid 50's stop-motion effect giant monster movie, in the vein of Beast from 20,0000 Fathoms, The Black Scorpion and others. Very enjoyable.

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is actually not as campily bad as it's usually hyped. The special effects are occasionally lackluster and do add a comedy element, but the acting, dialogue, cinematography and score are all decent. Pretty standard, fun 50's sci-fi.

Queen of Outer Space--now this is the camp classic! From this movie, I learned that the only women who don't welcome overt sexual harassment from leering, agressive men are the ones who are too hideously disfigured to be the object of said advances! Imagine Forbidden Planet, with all the cool special effects and engaging plot themes removed and replaced with lots of scantily-clad alien beauties and 50's era "battle of the sexes" dialogue--on the planet Venus, of course! Botchino! Botchino!

All in all, a very fun set for fans of 50's sci-fi.

This three-pack is an interesting collection of B features that are typical of what was churned out pretty regularly by some of the lesser studios that were capitalizing on the sci-fi films that were popular during the 1950's. These B pictures often came out campy, and these three are a best-of-breed collection that make for great fun. Like Dr. Johnny Fever whose DJ career took a plunge after he said the word "booger" on the air until he eventually landed at low-rent WKRP, you have to wonder how some of the talent involved in these productions wound up in this position. You've got bad directors gone worse, special effects artists going the way of Ed Wood, and girls gone wild - all the makings of some great cheesy fun. What is so great about this pack is that Warner Home Video cleaned up the video and audio on these films quite nicely, and even put commentary tracks on these films. Not even James Cagney merited a commentary track in his Signature Collection! The films and their features are as follows:

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)
A great case of camp and sci-fi meeting a love triangle. Poor little rich girl Nancy Archer has been drinking heavily since she found out her husband has been cheating on her, and it has recently caused her to do a stretch in an asylum - there was no such thing as substance abuse clinics back then. When Nancy drives off angrily into the desert one night she has an encounter with a very big alien who infects her with his largesse. Now we have a very big girl with one bad attitude on our hands intent on taking the nearby town apart to find her husband. I used to see this one on the UHF channels late at night back in the early 70's when I was babysitting. Great fun.
DVD Special Features:
Commentary by Yvette Vickers and film historian Tom Weaver
Subtitles: English & French (feature film only)

The Giant Behemoth (1958)
Here's another movie where metabolism has been altered, this time by science and radioactive fallout. This was one of the later giant creature movies of the 1950's, and it hasn't been as fondly remembered as its forerunner "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms", but it is still great fun. This time a giant brachiosaurus, greatly enlarged due to improperly dumped radioactive material, emerges from the sea and is intent on destroying London. The poverty row budget shows in this one in spite of the presence of some skilled technicians that had worked on King Kong and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. Wires are often clearly visible, as is footage of one car being destroyed by the giant beast being used repeatedly in the movie as though they are different events.
DVD Special Features:
Commentary by veteran special effects creators Dennis Muren and Phil Tippett (The Academy Award winning visual effects and dinosaur supervisors of "Jurassic Park" provide insight into this ground-breaking stop-motion monster.)
Theatrical trailer
Subtitles: English & French (Feature Film Only)

Queen of Outer Space (1958)
This campy outer space movie has a captain and his crew landing on a planet where men are not allowed. However, not all of the residents of the planet are happy about this edict. Thus it comes down to the man-hating queen versus the planet's leading scientist (Zsa Zsa Gabor). To add to the suspense, like Marvin Martian, Queen Yllana wants to blow up the earth. Everyone in this film seems to know they are starring in a campy production and they are just having fun with it. This movie actually borrowed its sets, costumes, and special effects from "Flight To Mars", "Forbidden Planet", and "World Without End", and has a screenplay by the renowned Ben Hecht of all people.
DVD Special Features:
Commentary by Laurie Mitchell and film historian Tom Weaver
Theatrical Trailer
Subtitles: English & French (feature film only)

"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.

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. woman actually tear up a city and a walk over a highway like the cover of the video. She also could have been the giant about 30 minutes longer than in the film. These are 1950's special effects and the obvious poor acting is the make out scenes with her cheating husband (William Hudson) and girlfriend (Yvette Peters) in the dance club. Allison Hayes is brilliant as the 50 ft. woman. This could have been equal to "King Kong" and "Godzilla", but it's still an all-time classic.

Okay folks, I've noticed something that's been overlooked so far. The content is, naturally, 5 stars. What late '50s sci-fi/horror movie with Allison Hayes isn't 5 stars?

However, WB has blown it here, because the format of this edition of 50 Ft. Woman really is NOT - repeat NOT - widescreen. How do I know this DVD is not widescreen? I know because I have the Key Video LD release from the 1980s and it is widescreen, allowing the viewer to see a wider angle and more background of the movie. I know, I compared it last night to this new WB edition. The picture quality is great and you've got Yvette Vickers doing a commentary. BUT THIS EDITION IS NOT IN WIDESCREEN! I really think it's the full screen version and they just say it's widscreen.

This was disappointing, to say the least. All I can say is: WB, please put 50 Ft. Woman out in REAL widescreen next time!

By the way WB, where's World Without End in widescreen? Putting out Queen of Outer Space in widescreen before WWE in widescreen is, well, ridiculous!

Ah, well, who ever said life was fair?

You can see through her. She doesn't quite get to 50ft in some scenes, while in others she's taller than the title promises (a bonus there). On the cover she has auburn hair, on the back, she's a blond and in the film, its dark. She drinks too much, loves too hard, has too much money for her own good and always falls for the wrong man - she is the 50ft WOMAN and she is on the ATTACK, but only in the last few moments of the film... as for the rest... it's a tale of a woman hooked on sour mash and her man, who's looking for fresh grapes.

Love hurts. ATTACK OF THE 50FT WOMAN is a cautionary tale of what happens when aliens meddle in romance and what path of destruction a 50ft woman will leave in her wake trying to right the wrongs done to her. It's a campy, well shot, well performed, sketchy effects cocktail that is sure to leave you calling for another round, but at a mere 66 mins, closing time comes too early for this classy little film. ATTACK is a lot of fun, and more serious than you first realize, and honestly seems like two different films grafted together, yet neither completes (or compliments) the other very well. But, you don't really notice it too much as the film hurtles along from one idea to the next until the end.

Commentary is included with Tom Weaver and Yvette Vickers (HONEY PARKER), and Yvette brings much of her experience both on ATTACK and on her acting career to the table, while Weaver brings a copy of her original script (with her handwritten notes), and some solid background information on the production - but, unlike other commentaries where Weaver is alone, he does not relate the full story, instead he interviews Vickers for information and insight. It's good, it's funny, and you do learn a lot, but I did miss the rapid fire delivery and depth of backstory that Weaver has brought to other commentaries.

ATTACK is a smart film. The title and suggestive, yet inaccurate, poster art may turn some people away, but for the brave, and for the fans, ATTACK is a must have, and no collection would be complete without it.

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 restored and presented in widescreen. I've seen this film many times but now I'd like to see the complete film.