Filmstruck Friday: Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman (1958)

Barely stretching (no pun intended) to feature length, Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman is a fun sci-fi diversion that spends much more time on standard melodrama and relationship issues than it does on the more fantastical elements.

Allison Hayes plays Nancy Archer, a woman who is traumatised at the start of the movie when she sees something landing on the road in front of her and a large creature getting out of the craft. Viewers see this via the shot of a giant hand reaching out towards her. Nancy is keen to warn people of what she saw but few people are quick to believe her. She's known for her bouts of overindulgence when it comes to alcohol, and her emotions have been teased at and tested for a long time by her philandering husband, Harry (William Hudson). He would be delighted if his wife was declares insane and committed to a mental institution, which would leave him in control of the finances and able to give more treats to his girlfriend, Honey (Yvette Vickers).

Directed by Nathan Juran (billed as Nathan Hertz), Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman is a look at a woman turning her life around and fighting back at a manipulative and undeserving husband. It just happens to also have a space giant and that unexpected growth spurt for the main character.

Mark Hanna's script, the last in this vein from a run of these movies in the late '50s, has a bit more depth and intelligence than the outrageous title may suggest, although it's a shame that the film doesn't really deliver enough of the b-movie treats, even during the third act, which feels like it's over before it's even begun.

The cast all do okay. Nobody stands out (although Vickers easily shows enough appeal to make it believable that she would be able to keep a married man wrapped around her fingers, especially a married man as nefarious as the one played by Hudson) but they align well with the material.

Even if you end up hating Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman, the fact that it's just under 65 minutes means that you won't feel as if you have wasted too much of your time. But I doubt you will hate it.  It's almost impossible for this film to overstay its welcome, although I wish it had a few more scenes of destruction and panic.

6/10

You can buy the movie here, if you're over in America.

First Men In The Moon (1964)

Based on a story by H. G. Wells (though I'm not sure how faithful it is to the source material), First Men In The Moon is a fantastical sci-fi movie that also proves to be very family-friendly. There are one or two moments of possible tension, but they're easily offset by the character interactions and enjoyably silly plot.

Things begin with some folk landing on the moon, only to find that there have been others there before them. This news is, of course, pretty shocking and people want to know just who was on the moon previously and what happened. They end up meeting Arnold Bedford (Edward Judd), who proceeds to tell them a tale that involves himself, the lovely Kate Callender (Martha Hyer) and an inventor named Joseph Cavor (Lionel Jeffries). It turns out that, many years ago, Cavor created a substance that could be used to coat things and make them defy gravity. He then used the substance to coat a vehicle that he'd created for space travel and the three main characters ended up being the first people to land on the moon. But why didn't they tell anyone about their adventures, and what happened when they were up there?

Jan Read and Nigel Kneale are the people responsible for the script, and those familiar with Kneale's other works will find that this is much more lightweight and fantastical than his more celebrated stuff. It's very childish throughout, in a sweet way, and director Nathan Juran keeps everything simple and entertaining enough (with the first half of the movie being all about the inventor and his attempts to get things just right and the second half showing viewers the wonders to be found on the moon).

The cast all do a good enough job. Jeffries can do the amusing eccentric in his sleep and is, unsurprisingly, the highlight, while Judd steps up to the mark when required and Hyer gets to play a woman with a strong will and a good heart. There are a few other people onscreen, but most of the runtime leaves viewers with these three characters, and they are good company.

It may not be his very best work, but the special effects by Ray Harryhausen are also enjoyable enough, and also childish in a cute way (though that may just be my own mind connecting things to The Clangers). The movie is far from his best showcase, but it's also far from his worst.

You may need to get yourself into the right frame of mind to enjoy First Men In The Moon, but it's worth it for a one-time watch. Just empty your mind, reclaim a sense of innocent wonder and remember what it felt like to be carried away by the sights and adventures passing in front of your eyes.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/First-Men-Moon-Edward-Judd/dp/B00005UWUC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369605319&sr=8-1&keywords=first+men+in+the+moon

20 Million Miles To Earth (1957)

When a spaceship crash-lands off the coast of Sicily, some local men go to investigate and find two survivors. A young boy then finds a container full of some strange substance and sells it to a zoologist (Dr. Leonardo, played by Frank Puglia) living nearby. It turns out that the spaceship was an American spaceship returning from the first manned trip to venus and the substance in the container actually has a creature inside it. A creature that starts off small and cute, in a way, but soon starts to grow and grow and become more and more destructive. It's up to Dr. Leonardo, his daughter (Joan Taylor), Col. Robert Calder (one of the men rescued from the spaceship, played by William Hopper) and other official folk to make sure that the alien creature is unable to endanger the public.

While this is a standard 1950s sci-fi movie in many ways, it's also another riff on King Kong (a huge influence, of course, on Ray Harryhausen thanks to that great work from Willis H. O'Brien). The creature at the centre of events isn't some malicious alien wanting to destroy every human being that it sees. It's a big, confused animal that ends up being badly treated by people around it who, understandable, react with fear and panic.

The script by Robert Creighton Williams and Christopher Knopf is decent enough. It doesn't have to do much beyond hitting the usual beats for this kind of thing, but it's all done well enough and treats the leads better than, for example, It Came From Beneath The Sea. The direction from Nathan Juran is decent enough, keeping things moving along nicely in between moments that constantly build up the threat on the way to a typically grand finale.

Hopper and Taylor spark off each other pretty well. Although one or two moments may be a bit clumsy, they aren't often as wooden or uptight as performances from this era sometimes could be. Puglia does well, and John Zaremba, Thomas Browne Henry and Tito Vuolo all do okay, so there's nothing here to really make viewers cringe.

The work from Harryhausen is as good as ever, the main creature being one that becomes a real danger while also never really feeling like a monster. It's strange and sweet, but also something that could accidentally bring drop a building on your head.

All in all, this is a great little film. It starts with a bang and never really slows down until the end credits roll.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ray-Harryhausen-Collection-Million-Saucers/dp/B0012OTRR0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1369393261&sr=8-3&keywords=20+million+miles+to+earth

The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad (1958)

From the wonderful opening strains of the bombastic score (by Bernard Herrmann) to the immediate entry into strange adventure to the colour and vibrancy of the whole thing, The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad is a real treat for fans of fantasy films.

It tells the story, of course, of Sinbad (played here by Kerwin Mathews) at a time when he rescues a powerful magician (Torin Thatcher) from a dangerous cyclops. Unfortunately, while being rescued the magician also ends up losing his magic lamp with a genie (Richard Eyer) inside it and so is determined to return to thedangerous island. Sinbad refuses. He is too busy making preparations to marry the beautiful Princess Parisa (Kathryn Grant) to embark on such adventures. The magician then secretly casts a spell that turns the princess into a teeny tiny humanoid, thus making him the one person that Sinbad asks for help. There is a cure, but the ingredients won't be easy to get hold of. Can you guess where they have to go?

Directed by Nathan Juran, from a script by Ken Kolb, this is simply great fun from start to finish. My only complaint is that a couple of the creations (mainly the cyclops and the roc) aren't up there with the best that Ray Harryhausen could do. They are decent enough, however, and also joined by a dancing snake woman, a dragon and even another fighting skeleton (a precursor to the bony army that would prove so memorable in Jason & The Argonauts).

The acting is all fine. Mathews is decent, if rather uncharismatic, in the role of Sinbad, Thatcher is wide-eyed and entertaining enough as Sokurah the magician and Grant is lovely as the diminutive princess. Eyer isn't the most grandiose or impressive genie, being just a kid in a shiny turban, but he's not onscreen all that often and doesn't do enough to spoil the whole film, despite trying hard at the very end.

The Sinbad films are great pieces of escapist entertainment, as are most Harryhausen movies, and I recommend both this movie to people and also the boxset linked below as a bargain way to pick up three fun adventures.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sinbad-Eye-Tiger-Voyage-Golden/dp/B002JF3FU6/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1369131376&sr=8-5&keywords=the+7th+voyage+of+sinbad