With a tagline like that, it had to be good. Or at least good enough to go to the drive-in and make out between scenes. Allison Hayes plays a rich clinging-vine of a wife whose husband is planning to have her committed so he can spend her money. Then she encounters a giant spaceman in a flying saucer, who molests her and takes her jewelry.
Next thing you know, she's growing to a height of fifty feet, finding out her hubby is at a remote diner making eyes at a waitress, and stomping out there to rip the roof off the joint - literally. Remade in 1993 with Daryl Hannah and Christi Conaway, and again in 1995.
The previous year, Bert I. Gordon had made "The Amazing Colossal Man," about a guy who grew to 60-foot size from an atom-bomb test and attacks Las Vegas. He outgrew his clothes and wore what appeared to be a giant diaper, but this movie's producers avoided censorship problems by having her clothes increase in size too. The year after, plump Lou Costello made his only movie without Bud Abbott, "The 30-Foot Bride Of Candy Rock" (1959), with Dorothy Provine as his 3-story tall girlfriend.
Joe Dante looks at Attack Of The 50' Woman
When it was released on a 1958 double bill with "War of the Satellites", no one could have predicted that this mini-budget exploitation film would become one of the most famous titles in movie history. Now here's Joe Bob Briggs to weigh in on all this sillyness:
(From Joe Bob's Ultimate B Movie Guide)
Nancy Archer is an alcoholic abused housewife, kidnapped by a monster in a flying saucer, causing her to shoot up to 50 feet, burst through the roof of her house, and become a female King Kong, taking vengeance on her floozy husband-stealing rival down at the roadhouse.
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) May 23, 1998 on TNT, scheduled for HBO in 2004
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (click to play movie trailer)
Attack of the 60 Centerfold
(1995)
(From Joe Bob's Ultimate B Movie Guide)
Erotic sci-fi epic starring J.J. North as a ditzy blonde who takes just a few too many breast-enhancement drugs and ends up stomping around Malibu like the Godzilla Illustrated swimsuit issue. Magazine publishers stick her in a freak-show tent to get the photos they need for a six-crease fold-out, but that makes the other models jealous. One steals her blue beauty vials and we end up with Duelling Bikini Behemoths, terrorizing the population in downtown Hollywood as they engage in a hair-pulling, traffic-stopping catfight. Meanwhile, the inventor of the Hugeness Chemical tries to develop an antidote by attempting to shrink his 8-foot lab rat by spraying stage smoke on him. This gives us plenty of time for scenes of the 60-foot J.J. trying to keep her halter top in place and repeatedly failing to do so. By the master who brought us DINOSAUR ISLAND, Fred Olen Ray.
Two dead bodies. Twenty-five breasts. One giant rat. Giant dart to the back. Exploding rat. Exploding supporting cast. Gratuitous chainsaw attack. With Tammy Parks as the bitchy redhead ("Have you looked in the mirror lately? How old are you--thirty? Are your breasts getting smaller?"), George Stover as the lab assistant ("Oh my God, what have we done?"), Michelle Bauer as the trigger-happy lab assistant, Jay Richardson as the sleazoid magazine publisher ("You're gonna be bigger than Elvis"), G. Gordon Baer as the beefy cigar-chomping ratskin-boot-wearing exterminator, Tim Abell as the photographer who just can't bring himself to have sex with a 60-foot woman, Ted Monte as the geeky photographer's assistant who orders 250 Fatburgers and brings them to J.J. in a wheelbarrow, Raelynn Saalman as the slinky suntanning Playmate who will do anything to be famous. J.J. North has all the best lines, including "Help me, I'm huge!" and "I'm a big girl--I can take care of myself."
At a Lamaze class for pregnant women: "Ladies, exercise is good for you. Walking is especially beneficial. And men, it wouldn't hurt you to walk with your partner." One young man raised his hand and said, "Is it alright if she carries a golfbag while we're walking?"
The Drive-In will never die!
An Italian, an Irishman and a blonde guy prepare to cross the desert on foot. In the morning, the Irishman shows up with a flask and says, "It's going to be a thirsty business, this crossing the desert, and I'll need a drop to drink." The Italian has a pot of pasta, "It's gonna be hungry work," he says. The blonde guy is carrying the left front door to a '67 Chevy. "It's going to be plenty hot out there, and I want to be able to roll down the window."
With a tagline like that, it had to be good. Or at least good enough to go to the drive-in and make out between scenes. Allison Hayes plays a rich clinging-vine of a wife whose husband is planning to have her committed so he can spend her money. Then she encounters a giant spaceman in a flying saucer, who molests her and takes her jewelry.
Next thing you know, she's growing to a height of fifty feet, finding out her hubby is at a remote diner making eyes at a waitress, and stomping out there to rip the roof off the joint - literally. Remade in 1993 with Daryl Hannah and Christi Conaway, and again in 1995.
Two dead bodies.