Attack of the 50 Foot Woman

Release: 1958
Director: Nathan Hertz
Company: Woolner Bros. Pictures

Notable Cast:

Allison Hayes as Nancy Fowler Archer
William Hudson as Harry Archer
Yvette Vickers as Honey Parker
Roy Gordon as Dr. Isaac Cushing
Ken Terrell as Jess Stout


Plot: Nancy Fowler encounters a satellite and a giant alien in the satellite. No one believes her. Meanwhile her husband has been scheming to get Nancy back to the sanatorium so that he can take over her sizable estate.

They go out to the desert to search after coming to an agreement. They encounter the alien again and Harry leaves her for dead. Nancy later turns up delirious and grows to a gigantic size while being cared for. She wakes up and goes on a rampage looking for her husband.

The Monster: Nancy Fowler grows to be 50 feet tall. Being 50 feet tall makes her stronger and harder to kill obviously. Bullets seem to have little effect as they had to kill her by shooting an electrical transformer near her,

There is also an alien who is a giant man, well he might not be an alien I guess, but he has no real seen or specified powers. Nothing special here, just some giant people.

Thoughts: The funny thing is I would have swore to you this was going to be a Roger Corman film. I was actually a little shocked that he wasn't involved with this film at all. It actually feels a lot like a Corman film minus the special effects.

This was an interesting movie. You could have told the same basic story without the alien or the reported "50 foot tall woman". It's really the tale of a damaged woman and her trying to salvage the last bits of her relationship with her husband before it ends violently. It's not an original story by any means but I like that they kept a sci fi story so grounded on the human element.

You get drawn into the story pretty quick as Nancy has her encounter with the alien quickly. We also get a quick intro to the dynamics of the characters as Harry is with his mistress and mentions her drinking. There's also a lot of great attention to detail in this movie. One of my favorite parts is when she gets the sheriff to check things out and he pretty much says "I'll believe whatever you want as long as you're paying most of the taxes around here." I love little bits of details in movies like that. It tells you a lot about what's going on in this fictional world. It tells you that Nancy is a deeply dysfunctional person but she also has a lot of money and power so there is some amount of people walking on eggshells around her.

I also think Harry Archer is a great character in this movie. He is just a total slimeball in this film. He openly and unapologetically cheats on his wife for the entire town to see, he abandons her at the first sign of danger and then tries to kill his wife later.  He's just a wonderful little spineless weasel of a man.

I guess it doesn't need to be said but this film features an excellent cast and some really great acting. Allison Hayes puts in a really good performance as Nancy Archer. You really feel for her throughout the movie. Her need to just have someone believe that she saw something horrible is a compelling piece of the plot.

I think where this movie really struggles is with the special effects. I thought they did a good job of covering their budget limitations until they got to the last parts of the movie. The giants themselves are double exposed in a lot of scenes. What this means is that they take two shots and combine them into one. The problem is it creates a transparent look on the people moving. It's really noticeable in this movie. They also really struggle with her scale during her rampage at the end of the movie. She seems to fluctuate about 10-15 feet depending on the props they have her around. It felt like she was the height they needed her to be for the scene she was in to be workable.

Also on the negative front, there are some plot holes in the film. The original giant just kind of wanders off and is forgotten. As is the giant diamond Nancy had that people made a big deal out of. Both just kind of go "poof" never to be seen again. Nancy is dead so I guess we don't need to worry about that 50 foot alien that took off into the wilds.

I thought this was overall a pretty good movie despite it's many flaws. I can see why this movie achieved the level of pop culture status that it did. There is something memorable about this film and it grabs your imagination. There have also been a stable supply of giant woman films and remakes that this film inspired.

Verdict: This is not the best movie out there by any means but it is a pretty good movie. It's well acted with really bad special effects. This is a fairly iconic B movie if you ask me. Any enthusiast for the genre of sci fi/horror B movies owe it to themselves to watch this one. It gets *** for being a must watch in the genre.

Where to Watch:
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