Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)

... aka: Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman
... aka: La mujer gigante (The Giant Woman)

Directed by:
Nathan "Hertz" (Juran)

Poor Nancy Archer. Sure, she's worth 50 million bucks and owns the world's largest diamond ("The Star of India"), but she's saddled with far more problems than your usual pampered California socialite. Nancy (Allison Hayes) has already spent some time in a private institution for mental issues, suffers from violent headaches and also has a bad drinking problem, all of which she's trying to overcome with help from the compassionate Dr. Isaac Cushing (Roy Gordon). Unfortunately, she has other forces conspiring against her: namely her greedy, no-good husband Harry (William Hudson), who is only with her because when they'd previously separated he "couldn't pry a nickel out of her," and his sexpot mistress Honey Parker (Yvette Vickers). The adulterous duo are first seen discussing how to finally rid themselves of his pesky wife. They decide to exacerbate her mental condition ("Once she's in the booby hatch, throw the key away!") so they can get their hands on her money. 

During a night out, a jealous Nancy storms out of the bar when she sees hubby and Honey flirting and goes for a drive. At the same time, a large, meteor-like object, previously seen hovering over the skies in Europe and Africa, finally makes it way to California and lands right on the road. Nancy almost hits it, gets out of her car in a panic and runs off into the desert when a giant floppy hand reaches out toward her.

A frantic Nancy arrives back in town but when she, the local sheriff (George Douglas) and his goofy deputy (Frank Chase) return to where she abandoned her car, there's no sign of the giant golf ball-looking spaceship or the 30-foot-tall alien being she claims she saw. Nancy returns home and tells her story to her husband, who brushes her off, gives her some sleeping pills and sends her to bed. Overjoyed she seems to be cracking up once again, Harry goes to report his discoveries to Honey. The two call Dr. Cushing, hoping he'll commit her again but the doctor recommends Harry just be nice and supportive and Nancy'll get better.

Insistent on proving she's sane, Nancy forces her husband to accompany her to the desert to look for the saucer. After driving around all day, the two finally come across it, as well as the giant. Doing what all good husbands do, Harry takes off and leaves Nancy at the whim of the alien. He gets into an altercation with Nancy's loyal servant Jess (Ken Terrell) when he returns to the home, then decides to go get Honey so the two can split town. Both, however, are apprehended by the police for questioning and forbidden to leave.

Nancy mysteriously reappears back at her home, only she's out of it, has strange scratches on her throat and is also highly radioactive. Despite being in a coma, she keeps on growing... and growing... and growing... Dr. Cushing places a special order for chains, 40 gallons of plasma and an elephant syringe to care for his newly-oversized patient. The Sheriff and Jess follow giant footprints from the home all the way to the spaceship. Once inside they discover the alien has taken possession of Nancy's Star of India necklace and is using it to operate the ship. The two barely escape from the alien, who picks up their car and throws it before taking off. Back at the Archer residence, Nancy finally awakens in hysterics. All she wants is her "miserable parasite" of a husband, but naturally he's off at the bar drunk and messing with Honey. What's a spurned giantess to do other than go to the bar and tear the roof off the place?

Boasting really awful special effects, a silly premise and a memorably schlocky title, this went on to become a favorite of bad movie devotees. While amusing at times, it's actually pretty average / ordinary for the budget / era. This is undoubtedly lead actress Hayes' most iconic role, but it's hardly her best. She spends the first 25 minutes behaving like a drunken bitch, is out of the film for the entire mid-section and then reemerges during the last 7 minutes with an echo voice pining for her beloved Harry. The 50-foot-woman's rampage involves escaping through the roof of her home, tearing down a utility pole, scaring a couple of necking teenagers, busting out a window and, finally, crushing the mistress with a board and picking up a (very poorly scaled) Harry doll, who goes down when she finally goes down. Wires holding up the spaceship can easily be seen numerous times.

Prior to this, director Nathan Juran (billed as "Nathan Hertz" here; reportedly out of embarrassment) had made several solid genre films, such as THE BLACK CASTLE (1952) with Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr. and the sci-fi favorite 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957). The screenplay was from Mark Hanna, who'd co-written (and carried many ideas over from) the similar THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN (1957). It played theatrically on a double bill with WAR OF THE SATELLITES (1958).

A made-for-cable (intentional) comedy remake directed by Christopher Guest and starring Daryl Hannah was released in 1993 and there have been numerous spin-offs, such as Fred Olen Ray's Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfold (1994) and the more recent Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader (2012). Premiere Magazine ranked this #8 on its list of "25 Best Movie Posters Ever."

★★

Undead, The (1957)

... aka: Trance of Diana Love, The

Directed by:
Roger Corman

An ultra low budget 'B' picture supposedly filmed in less than a week, this Corman quickie has a completely undeserved bad reputation, thanks in part to being featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. It's actually a fine example of what can be done with limited resources when you have an efficient crew, a colorful cast and an ambitious and imaginative screenplay (cooked up here by Charles B. Griffith and Mark Hanna). Quintus (Val Dufour) returns to the "American Institute of Psychical Research" after a seven year absense in Tibet. He's there to prove to his former teacher, Professor Olinger (Maurice Manson), who had flunked him, as well as to the world at large, that he's just made an important scientific breakthrough. Using hypnosis, he believes he can tap into information contained somewhere within all of us about our past lives. For his demonstration, Quintis needs someone weak and impressionable. Someone almost devoid of willpower. Someone like amoral streetwalker Diana Love (Pamela Duncan), who isn't in the doctor's office for five minutes before she picks his pocket. Claiming he'll experiment on Diana with or without his assistance, Olinger feels no other choice but to aid Quintis in his 48-hour experiment in regressive hypnosis.

Once under, Diana reveals she was of French royalty in a past life, but delving even further back than that to the Middle Ages, Quintus uncovers another previous identity, that of Helene. A young innocent being held in The Black Tower after falsely being labeled a witch, Helene will lose her head the following day after the eve of the Witch's Sabbath unless she can break free or prove her innocence. Interestingly, Diana is able to communicate with Helene telepathically at first, who coerces her into seducing a jailer and then hitting him with her shackles. Now on her own, Helene escapes into the forest and manages to hitch a ride in an already-occupied coffin on singing gravedigger Smolkin's (Mel Welles) coach. As it turns out, real witch / temptress named Livia (Allison Hayes) has cast a spell on Smolkin and framed Helene for doing so, in order to get to Helene's sculptor love Pendragon (Richard Garland), whom she has also fallen for. Aside from Pendragon, innkeeper Scroop (Bruno Ve Sota) and (sometimes) Smolkin, who's mad and of little real use, a good witch named Meg Maude (Dorothy Neumann), complete with warts and a pointy chin and nose, helps to combat the evil plot.

Part of the joy of The Undead is its unpredictability. The movie cuts back and forth between the modern day hypnosis session and the past life footage and several unexpected (though some may say ridiculous) events happen along the way to change the entire course of the story. When things start getting out of hand and Diana's life may be at stake, Quintus is able to transport himself back in time to Helene's world with the help of a contraption that synchronizes brain waves. Because Diana had helped Helene escape the executioner's axe by coaching her to break out of her cell and thus altered the course of history in the process, when Quintus arrives on the scene he offers Helene an ultimatum. She can either live her full life now and then cease to exist for the rest of eternity after she passes on or sacrifice her life in order to allow her other reincarnated selves to exist. The plot probably sounds confusing as hell but the film itself moves rather smoothly considering how layered the story is.

Despite what you may have read, the performances found in The Undead are uniformly good. Duncan (who'd also star in Corman's ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS - along with Garland - the following year) and Dufour are just fine in their lead roles, and receive nice support from most of the rest of the cast. One major standout here is the Hayes as the sly, seductive and hard-to-resist Livia. Best known, of course, for her iconic role in ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN (1958), Hayes' role here is actually much better suited to her talents; playing a character with a ruthless side, and a soft one. This is possibly her best-ever role in a genre film. The same can pretty much be said for Welles, who's best known as the grumpy flower shop owner in Corman's LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, but steals most of the scenes he's in here. Neumann - channeling Margaret Hamilton for sure - is great as the other real witch. Richard Devon makes for an over-the-top, somewhat flamboyant (though fittingly so) Satan; a character that bookmarks the film. Billy Barty plays Livia's mischievous, garlic-bulb-eating Imp, who can transform into a lizard (Livia herself transforms into a black cat), Paul Blaisdell (who did the fx) has an uncredited cameo as a corpse and Dick Miller has just one brief scene as a Leper who sells his soul.

With a budget of just 75,000 dollars, Corman couldn't afford elaborate sets (supposedly they constructed these inside a closed-down supermarket!) nor a cast of thousands to make the medieval village really spring to life. Instead we mostly get cardboard sets that sometimes wobble, heavy use of a fog machine and no more than about a dozen people seen on screen at the same time. To further cut costs, Blaisdell's bat-monsters-on-strings from IT CONQUERED THE WORLD (1956) were reused. Enjoyment requires an certain acceptance of these budgetary limitations. If you're a stickler for realism, someone who likes to pick apart small detail or someone who demands elaborate period detail, this may not be for you. However, if you can just go with the flow and accept this on its own terms, it's quirky, imaginative, playful, witty and ultimately even somewhat moving. It's also still completely unique after 55+ years, which says a lot in and of itself.

Filmed as The Trance of Diana Love, this was made in response to the best-selling book "The Search for Bridey Murphy" by Morey Bernstein, which sparked a lot of interest in reincarnation at the time. It played on a double-bill with VOODOO WOMAN (1957).

★★★

Unearthly, The (1957)

... aka: House of the Monsters
... aka: Night of the Monsters

Directed by:
Boris Petroff

Oft-dissed, this low-budget time-waster (which was later poked fun of on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000), managed to keep me reasonably entertained for 70 minutes. Not that it's particularly good, and it's certainly not original, but it's also not without merit. The acting is uneven, but passable, for the most part, the science is silly, there are a few (unintentionally) hilarious moments, the make-up fx work from Harry Thomas is good and the Island of Dr. Moreau-inspired shock finale is surprisingly potent after a slow build-up. I was also surprised to discover that the works of Ed Wood had actually influenced other films immediately upon their release. How else can you explain the presence of slow-witted behemoth Lobo; who was transplanted here from Wood's semi-famous 1955 mad doctor tale BRIDE OF THE MONSTER (1955) with same actor (Tor Johnson) playing the part? The poster - complete with a seal promising it was "guaranteed to frighten!" - is pretty amusing, too. Good thing that wasn't a money-back guarantee!

Emotionally troubled Grace Thomas (Allison Hayes) - who has just suffered from a nervous breakdown - checks in at a large, remote clinic run by Dr. Charles Conway (John Carradine). Well actually she's been lured there under false pretenses by her own psychologist, Dr. Wright (Roy Gordon), who apparently doesn't think much of her despite the fact she's very kind and extremely polite. Not to mention a hottie. Dr. Conway doesn't want his "patients" to have any ties to the outside world, so Dr. Wright promises to arrange it to look like Grace has killed herself. In the meantime, she's led to believe that the clinic will cure her of her bouts of fright.

We're also introduced to an array of other characters who populate the clinic. There's Conway's assistant, icy blonde Dr. Sharon Gilchrist (Marilyn Buferd), who's in love with Conway, jealous over the attention he lavishes on the beautiful Grace and serves up midnight snacks of milk and sedatives. Then there's Danny (Arthur Batanides), a loud, obnoxious, chain-smoking neurotic who wants to break someone's neck for serving him cold toast and claims "It's a lousy world!" Natalie (Sally Todd) is a lovestruck, romance novel reading nympho who needs to "co-ordinate" herself. A thief and murderer named Frank Scott (Myron Healey) shows up fresh from a prison escape with an alias ("Mark Houston") and is blackmailed into doing Conway's bidding. And then there's hulking manservant Lobo (Tor J.), who also does the doctor's bidding and is described as "an overgrown moron" who has the "strength of a Hercules and the brain of chicken."

Naturally, Carradine's mad scientist is conducting unethical experiments and all of his patients are guinea pigs unaware of what's in store for them. Dr. Conway is interested is prolonging youth and vigour and feels he can do so by surgically implanting an artificially-developed "17 gland" (?!) and then shooting his test subjects up with a blast of radiation to kick the gland into gear. Unfortunately, his procedure hasn't quite worked out and sometimes the patient ends up a little lobotomized and/or deformed. One of his failed test subjects is a zombie-like man confined to a chair in the cellar with limited, jerky movement. Another female patient ends up getting her face horribly wrinkled. And well, let's just say those aren't the only two glandular experiments that haven't worked out.

Carradine had played this same exact egomaniacal, sociopathic mad doctor role a dozen times before this one and gives a typical John Carradine egomaniacal, sociopathic mad doctor performance here. You could make a drinking game out of the amount of times his character reminds us that he's a brilliant scientist who loves his work, so every other stoic line is something like "I am a scientist, thinking is my business!" or "As a true scientist, nothing is impossible!" or "They've always called the greatest scientists crazy!" During a completely bloodless (!) organ transplant surgery, Carradine dryly barks out orders to his assistant: "scalpel, sponge, sponge, clamp, clamp, clamp, wipe my brow, clamp, sponge, number 23 scalpel, brow, sponge..." as she hurridly tries to keep up with him. The transplant is done in about 90 seconds. Durng another amusing scene, Carradine plays Bach's 'Toccata and Fugue in D Minor' on the organ after dinner to try to cover up any noise being made while a patient upstairs is being drugged and prepped for surgery.

Hayes (immortalized as the title character in ATTACK OF THE 50 FT. WOMAN) is a fine actress but stuck here playing a sometimes annoyingly naive character ("I'll do as you wish, doctor!"). Still, she commands attention in all of her scenes simply because she's so damn gorgeous to look at and is often clad in form-fitting attire that shows off her statuesque figure. Healey is a little wooden but somewhat likable as the fugitive, Buferd does OK as the loyal but frustrated assistant and both Todd and Batanides try their best to be convincing nuthouse patients, with varying degrees of success. Johnson is very, very funny here, makes hilarious facial expressions throughout and gets such side-splitting lines as "Ohhh... Pretty girl. Ohhh... Prettttty!," "FerdiNAND?" and "Time for go to bed!" So while the film is nothing spectacular, there's some definite redeeming camp value contained within.

Hey, director / producer Boris Petroff liked the end result so much that he decided to remove his name from the credits and replace it with "Brooke L. Peters!" In many ways, this film was a family affair. Petroff's wife Jane Mann wrote the original story and co-scripted, and his daughter Gloria Petroff appears in the pre-credits sequence clawing Lobo's face and screaming. Petroff also made ANATOMY OF A PSYCHO (1961), which was also written by his wife.

Unearthly is an easy title to find. It's been released multiple times to both VHS - by Rhino and WEA Corp.; including a special version available with the MST3K commentary - and on DVD. The Image Entertainment disc includes a very good quality, nice-looking print of the film, but the special features are nearly nonexistent.

★★