This is one of the many movies I got as a diversion during the weeks that I was recovering from surgery. There are times that it's more diverting to take a few more Lor-Tabs and just take a nap. The kind of drug-induced catatonia where you're not technically asleep, but you *SEE* yourself, in a submarine, FLYING over China. And yet, your eyes are open, and you can see your ceiling. Technically. The drugs (as is often the case, I assume) were much more entertaining than this movie was.

In a recent review, I extolled the virtues of "Thriller Theatre," a local program when I was a pup that showed a double feature every Saturday afternoon...usually B-movies from the 60's and 70's that were either horror or sci-fi movies...and acquainted me with a lot of older, interesting movies that you won't see on any of AFI's top lists.

"Attack of the 50-Foot Woman" wouldn't have made it on "Thriller Theater." Barely sixty-six minutes long, this felt like a three hour movie...and not in a good way. No sweeping epic like "Gone With The Wind" or even "Braveheart," this has incredibly slow pacing as we all wait for SOMETHING....ANYTHING to happen.

Nancy Archer, a wealthy drunk, is being cheated on by her husband. While driving home from a party alone, she sort of runs into a spaceship and alien. ("Again?") She is later abducted by this same alien, a giant (and not a good looking one either, but one that did make me laugh out loud) (of course, the Lor-Tab had me giggling quite a bit). Somehow the radiation...everything in the 1950's was about radiation...had the effect of also making HER a giant. Or at least, a giant papier mache arm.

Mrs. Archer, now a 50-foot giant, rampages through a town, looking for her husband, squishing his honey (and her name really IS Honey...), and wreaking havoc until she's felled by the local inept police force.

That's the plot. The problem is, we don't see Mrs. Archer as a giant until an hour into the movie. And remember, this is only a 66-minute movie. I fully understand the necessities of 1950's special effects, and the bluescreen work (or however they did the optical effects) were actually pretty good on both the alien giant and on Mrs. Archer. But the giant papier mache hand? I'm no craftsman, but I'm preeeetty sure they had sandpaper back in 1958. They needed to use some on Nancy's hand. The wrinkles in it made it look like it would be recycled as some rock backgrounds on "Star Trek" ten years down the road...and it may have been.

The movie poster and cover for the video are better than the movie itself...it has Nancy straddling a freeway, picking up a car, and snarling (either menacingly or seductively, depending on your...uh, point of view). You won't see a scene anything like this in the movie. You do see Nancy near some power lines. And outside a hotel. But she doesn't go into downtown L.A. or anything.

The acting in this movie is pretty bad as well...Allison Hayes, as the titular woman, plays one note, and that's irritated. Irritated at her husband, at his follies, at her condition, at (and how do they keep a 50-foot woman in the same bed that she was just in as a 5' 7" woman?) her having to go squish Honey....she's just irritated. Not dramatic, not sensitive, not vindictive...just a little irritated. Everyone else seems like they're refugees from "Leave it to Beaver;" TV actors who had to do a little something on hiatus.

People have talked about the camp value of this movie, but I didn't think it was campy at all...just bad. The movie title is campy (and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones" had better be a damn sight better than "The Phantom Menace," or George Lucas is going to be facing some scathing fanboy rage for the title alone!), the poster is campy, but the movie itself is just bad. If you have an hour to kill, read a book. Write an Epinion. But don't watch this movie.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: VHS