Dr. Cyclops (1940)

A mad scientist (Albert Dekker) with failing eyesight requests assistance from more mainstream (less mad) scientists. Three people make the arduous trek to his remote lab in the Amazon jungle and he asks them what they see in his microscope. After which, he thanks them and tells them to leave. They refuse to go, so he shrinks them to doll size.

The first thing to notice is the vocal style, specifically with Drs. Thorkel and Bullfinch. They speak in a stilted, awkwardly formal cadence. I'm guessing they didn't want the viewers to forget they were watching a B sci-fi flick.

Thomas Coley plays substitute Bill, whose presence on the excursion and in the movie remains a mystery. My only guess is there needed to be a young man to accompany the pretty scientist lady. This was his first screen credit and last feature film appearance. He had a large number of TV appearances starting eleven years after this film’s release. I’m sure his acting improved.

The first sci-fi film shot in three-strip Technicolor, it earned an Oscar nomination for special effects. And for good reason. The oversized sets match seamlessly with the regular sized ones. My only criticism is that footage of our heroes when small was much sharper than the enlarged rear projection. Other than that, the effects were quite good.

I had never heard of Dr. Cyclops prior to recording it, but it delivered on all promises. The science element here is wonky as all hell, but it’s without a doubt the best mad-scientist-shrinks-people-to-doll-size film I’ve seen so far. AMRU 3.5.

The Giant Behemoth (1959)

In a presentation, marine biologist Karnes (Gene Evans) warns that nuclear testing in the world’s oceans will eventually lead to nature striking back. He is mostly dismissed, but lucky for him nature DOES strike back in the form of … something.

Initially the monster was to be a giant blob, but producers wanted another dinosaur. Elements more consistent with a radioactive blob remain. Willis O’Brien of King Kong (1933) fame was brought in, but budgets and deadlines were tight, and it shows.

Originally titled “Behemoth, the Sea Monster” which sounds a little like a kids show, it was later renamed to The Giant Behemoth. This I presume to distinguish it from those tiny behemoths we all know and love.

Eugene Lourie, who also directed The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), dispensed with the love interest part of the story, wanting to focus on science and monster mayhem. This decision may have contributed to the exposition heavy dialog. A young couple is introduced but disappears before the second act, despite being billed third and fourth.

The Giant Behemoth is a very by-the-numbers monster movie. Unfortunately it offers nothing new to the genre, and the stop motion effects were a half step down. The creature, unlike those created by Ray Harryhausen, lacked personality. AMRU 2.5.

Soylent Green (1973)

A cop (Charleston Heston) investigates the murder of an executive of the Soylent corporation, suppliers of much of the world’s food. Despite being told to let it go, he pushes on and discovers a disturbing secret. We all know. Go ahead, say the line …

I watched Soylent Green not long before I began the blog. It was on a library VHS tape and the quality was awful. Before the climax the video portion was completely shot. A quality copy makes an enormous difference.

Despite being set in the far off year of 2022, the filmmakers made no effort to give the world a futuristic look. The future isn’t ideal. It’s just like today except there is massive overpopulation, environmental disaster, and a worldwide food shortage.

Edward G. Robinson was dying during the production of the film, and in fact died the evening after his final scene. Early in the film is an improvised scene where Thorn and Sol (Heston and Robinson) feast on fresh food, practically non-existent in this world. It’s surprisingly impactful.

Elements of the story are a bit far fetched. The police just help themselves to items and furniture from a crime scene. Not that part. Climate change has devastated the environment and corporations control society. Not that either. We use the metric system. Seriously, what were they thinking?

Food, if you can call it that, is distributed in New York like it was a refugee camp. People sleep in hallways and staircases. Things like soap and pencils are a luxury. Soylent Green is an exceptionally prescient film. It could have been far preachier or leaned too far into levity. But it struck the right tone for 1973, and it strikes the right tone for now. AMRU 4.

The Invisible Ray (1936)

Eccentric scientist Dr. Janos Rukh (Boris Karloff) has made a great discovery. He invites the more establishment scientists to his home to present his findings. Using a telescope to zoom into the Andromeda “nebula”, he can look into the past and see the Earth millions of years ago, because science. He shows them that a great asteroid struck the early Earth, and also because reasons, it must contain an element that radiates one thousand times as powerful as Radium. He calls this element, Radium X. But first they need to go on an African safari.

The science is deliciously wonky here. I give a pass to calling Andromeda a nebula, because that was the science of the day, but much of the rest is silly and hard to follow. But say what you will about Rukh’s science, he puts on one hell of a planetarium show.

Charming Frances Drake plays Rukh’s young wife. She retired from acting after marrying into English aristocracy. Mother Rukh steals the few scenes she is in. Played by Violet Kemble Cooper, she was only 11 months older than son Boris.

This is chronologically the fourth of eight films featuring Karloff and Bela Lugosi, and it’s the fifth one I’ve seen. Left is The Raven (1935) and two silly comedies. Karloff plays the mad Hungarian scientist while Hungarian Lugosi plays against type as the rational French scientist. 

The Invisible Ray is a very early depiction of the utility and dangers of nuclear radiation. It's a lot of fun, despite or perhaps because of the science element. Perhaps I was just in the mood for this self-serious foolishness, but it really delivered on the premise. AMRU 3.5.

Black Friday (1940)

When the kindly professor Kingsley is severely injured, the good doctor Sovac (Boris Karloff) secretly transplants the brain of a gangster to save his life. Also, he wanted to prove he could transplant a human brain. But definitely not because the gangster knew the location of a half million in stolen loot.

More Sci-Fi Noir than horror, it is categorized as such because Karloff and Lugosi appear. Well, Karloff appears quite a bit but Lugosi has a rather small role as a gangster. The real star is Stanley Ridges in the dual roles as Kingsley and the dastardly gangster Red Cannon. Ridges Jekyll and Hydes between the two roles with surprisingly little makeup change. Kingsley has a little gray hair, glasses, and a bit of a milquetoast, while Cannon looks younger and very much a take-charge character. One of the best dual role transformations I've seen.

The story is told in flashback as a reporter reads Doc Sovac’s journal while he walks to the electric chair. The working title of the film was Friday the 13th, because some important thing happens on that day. The accident, the transplant, the execution, I forget what.

Despite some good performances, Black Friday isn’t much of a film. The story is a bit sloppy with the details and is rather forgettable. AMRU 2.5. This is the fourth of eight Karloff/Lugosi collaborations. Have I found another list to complete?

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)

While doing reconnaissance after nuclear testing in the arctic (what could go wrong?) Professor Nesbitt spots a giant prehistoric beast. Nobody believes him at first, but later we follow all the conventions of the genre.

Let’s get this out of the way. 20k fathoms is 120,000 feet, or over three times the depth of the Mariana Trench. I blame Jules Verne. But keep in mind, the beast didn’t come from the ocean. It came from the Arctic ice. Never let logic get in the way of a good movie title, I suppose. Looking at you, Valley of the Zombies.

Inspired by King Kong, it may have been a primary inspiration for Godzilla. This means that our Rhedosaurus beast is the first giant whatzis to be awakened by nuclear testing. While stop motion master Ray Harryhausen worked on Mighty Joe Young four years earlier, this would be his first time as head of the effects department, and he nailed it.

Cecil Kellaway plays the kindly old Paleontologist. That was his type. Most recently I saw him in Harvey. Lee Van Cleef and James Best make brief appearances and Merv Griffin does some voice work. I saw Van Cleef but I missed the others.

The Beast is a very by-the-numbers giant whatzis movie. It plays a little loose with the science but spins an effective yarn. But the important thing is that they didn’t fail with the monster. AMRU 3.5.

The Giant Claw (1957)

A civilian electronics engineer (Jeff Morrow) is flying an Air Force jet for some reason and witnesses a giant UFO. It is soon learned that the mystery object is a giant bird, as big as a battleship. Mitch and systems analyst Madam Mathematician (Mara Corday), team up to stop it.

1957 seems to be the year of the giant thing. It saw the release of Monster from Green Hell (wasps), Beginning of the End (grasshoppers), Attack of the Crab Monsters, The Monolith Monsters (rocks), The Deadly Mantis, The Black Scorpion, The Monster that Challenged the World (prehistoric mollusks), as well as two of Bert I. Gordon’s giant man movies. This trend would luckily slow down.

Longtime friends may remember Morrow as Exeter from This Island Earth, a movie I covered … holy crap, fourteen years ago! Our pretty mathematician was quite familiar with giant things that should be small, having also appeared in Tarantula and Black Scorpion.

The Giant Claw follows the convention of the genre. Threat is discovered, after initial disbelief, authorities scramble to neutralize it. A small team is assembled (including a pretty scientist), the threat appears to be invulnerable, Deus ex machina, roll credits. The acting, science, and dialog is all pretty standard, parts of it pretty good. One thing that falls short is the creature.

Filmmakers initially intended on hiring Ray Harryhausen, but budget considerations caused them to go in a different direction. That direction led them to a ridiculous looking marionette. And while it is a shame that the effects tainted what was otherwise an equal to many in the genre, it did make the film uniquely memorable. It would have otherwise been just another competent 50’s sci-fi film, not quite as good as Them!

The Giant Claw is a very watchable flick. The contrast between the seriousness of the actors and the loony puppet is quite amusing. The dialog varies between pretty good to pretty bad. It’s established that Mitch is an electronics engineer maybe a half dozen times, and characters make the battleship comparison I don’t know how many times. AMRU 3.

The Cyclops (1957)

A young woman (Gloria Talbott) hires a crew to sneak her into the mountainous forbidden zone in Mexico to search for her fiance who crashed there several years ago. Soon we learn that each crew member has their own reasons for going on the trip.

Writer/Director/Producer Bert I. Gordon made a bunch of films in the second half of the 1950s usually depicting creatures of unusual size. Here our heroes discover huge creatures and later a giant deformed man. I wonder …

Lon Chaney Jr. was squarely in the “take any job” segment of his career. Five years earlier he impressed in a small role in High Noon (1952) but would never repeat that success. Pretty Gloria Talbott had a long career in low budget genre pictures, starting when she was just four years old. Years ago I saw her interviewed for the underwhelming 100 Years of Horror (1996) and it was clear time was not good to her. She passed a couple years later at the age of 69.

Considering the humble budget, the effects for Cyclops aren’t that bad. Occasionally the monster would be transparent, but otherwise effective. Mr. BIG would again explore the giant man trope later the same year with The Amazing Colossal Man, which got a sequel the following. Oddly, the only cast member in common between the three films is Duncan 'Dean' Parkin, who played today’s Cyclops and Colonel Manning from the Colossal Man sequel.

The Cyclops almost feels like a proof of concept for Gordon’s later Giant movies. It’s the shortest of the three and while not without good story elements, the conclusion feels a little rushed. But it holds your interest and doesn’t overstay its welcome. AMRU 3.

The Wasp Woman (1959)

Frumpy Janice (pretty Susan Cabot), founder of a now floundering cosmetics company, learns that her company’s troubles are caused by the fact she is older now, and thus an uggo. As luck would have it, she is contacted by an eccentric man who claims he can reverse aging using a wasp royal jelly serum. What could possibly go wrong? Consider the film’s title.

Legendary director/producer Roger Corman recently passed and I was never a fan. I've watched ten of the 46 feature films he directed and I rated none particularly high. Over the years I’ve seldom resisted the urge to cast shade his way. While I never cared for his esthetic, I must acknowledge his importance to independent cinema. The Corman Film School trained and mentored an impressive number of people. His legacy includes the names James Cameron, Peter Bogdanovich, Francis Ford Coppola, and Joe Dante along with almost 500 producer credits.

Pretty Susan Cabot had a fair career in B movies, many with Corman. This would be her last. Later she had an affair with King Hussein of Jordan, producing a son who suffered from dwarfism. Hussein would leave her when he learned of her Jewish heritage. She would slowly become mentally unstable, possibly because she was taking her son’s growth hormones. He would bludgeon her to death in her sleep. She was 59. And you thought Susan Peter’s story was grim. 

The Wasp Woman suffers from its budget. Cabot was laughable in her wasp costume, and the action scenes were poorly shot. But there is some amusing dialog and the depiction of the pressure on a woman in charge to keep up appearances might even be a little progressive for the time. At barely an hour long, brevity is its virtue, but it earns another meh 3.0 score.

It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955)

The US Navy, with help from two scientists, fights an enormous hextopus. Will love bloom?

Released two years after “It Came from Outer Space”, it helped solidify the “It Came From” cliche for B movie titles. And say what you will, it is an accurate description of where the It came from. But one big difference between this film and the former is the budget. While From Outer Space was a B movie, From Beneath had practically no budget at all. Ray Harryhausen created his monster with only six legs to save money. Because it’s never seen in full, it is not noticeable. What is sometimes noticeable is that many scenes only got a single take. If it was good enough, it was good enough.

All the tropes of the subgenre are here. Military type partners with nerdy scientists, one being a pretty woman (Faith Domergue), to do some detective work and eventually save the day. Think of films like Them!, Cosmic Monsters, and The Monster That Challenged the World. 50’s audiences were always flabbergasted that a young, attractive woman could be an actual scientist. 50’s sexual politics rears its head again when Commander Pete pursues Domergue’s Professor Joyce a little too aggressively.

Short, watchable, and forgettable, It Came from Beneath the Sea is one of many also-rans of the era. It offers nothing new or interesting. The best think I can say is that it is inoffensive. Unless you are a woman scientist. AMRU 2.5.

Robot Monster (1953)

A family picnicking in Bronson Canyon turns out to be the last humans on Earth. The Ro-Men, an entirely indestructible race of aliens, have devastated much of the planet. But for reasons they cannot eliminate this one last family.

What an utterly bonkers film. This is the one with the guy in a gorilla suit wearing a space helmet. Notoriously bad, it takes garbage science into a realm all its own, includes elements that simply make no sense, has acting and dialog that feel intentionally bad, and goes into directions you will not expect. Seriously! But perhaps the most surprising part is how the closing scene puts it all back together. It’s rather remarkable.

Don’t get me wrong, Robot Monster is not a great film. It is low budget beyond low budget. It was filmed in four days on $16k with literally no sets, used footage from other films, yet it grossed a million. And I enjoyed it. Soak in the actor’s campy yet self-serious performances, the absurd science exposition, and the whole ridiculousness of it all. It’s not very long and a lot of fun. AMRU 3.5.

“I cannot - yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do ‘must’ and ‘cannot’ meet? Yet I must - but I cannot!”

Cosmic Monsters (1958)

Scientists are working on some sort of magnetic ray that changes the molecular structure of metals, and it might be interfering with televisions at the local pub. Funding was in danger of being cut until the military recognized the tactical benefit. A strange visitor appears to inform them of a greater danger.

Originally titled “The Strange World of Planet X”, it was renamed for American audiences. Neither title hits the mark. But it has many of the tropes of 50’s sci-fi: an obsessed scientist, unintended consequences, giant bugs, and a budding romance.

Our lead is Forrest Tucker whom people my age may remember as Sergeant O’Rourke from F-Troop. A better actor than many in this tier of film but he lacked leading man good looks. He was believable as a lab assistant only because his duties were limited to turning dials when Dr. Obsessive barked at him.

50’s gender politics are revealed when an injured lab assistant is replaced by a woman. Our hero spouts the expected misogyny but is surprised to discover she is both attractive and qualified. I don’t ding it for this because it subverts the stereotype rather than confirm it. She is played by French actress Gaby André, but her accent was deemed too thick so they dubbed her with an English actress. It was very noticeable.

Like all 50’s sci-fi B films, the science is garbage. I won’t go into it. It was, however, surprisingly gory by 1950’s standards. Not as talkie as some UK films but it does border on having too many secondary characters for a drive-in audience to follow. Dumb as it is, it's well executed, does a lot with a limited budget, and is quite engaging. All in all, it wasn’t half bad. AMRU 3.5.

"Yea, I know the type. Frustrated angular spinster. Very dedicated to her calling. Without a sense of humor, bossy, and infuriatingly right every time."

The Amazing Colossal Man (1957)

The US military is testing a new “plutonium” bomb but it fails to detonate. Soldiers are ordered to stay put but when a civilian plane crashes inside the test site Colonel Manning leaves the safety of his trench to try and rescue the pilot. The bomb detonates and Manning is caught in the blast. He is not expected to live. Miraculously, his skin grows back overnight and doctors are stumped. Things escalate when he starts to grow and his behavior becomes erratic.

One doesn’t expect a “radioactive giant attacks Las Vegas” film to be rock solid with the science, especially when the title sounds like a sideshow attraction, but that low bar may have been too high of a hurdle. The most egregious error was that Colonel Manning’s erratic behavior was blamed on the fact that his heart was growing at a slower pace than the rest of his body because the heart was “only one cell”. Every part of the problem and proposed solution made no sense.

A bigger problem is the film’s reliance on exposition. The bomb test in the opening sequence was described by a man speaking over a loudspeaker, and each time the doctor needed to describe the current situation with Manning, they used the conference room with film strip trope.

On the positive side, the movie makes good use of its tiny budget. The sparse sets made sense in the context of the film. Also, the match cut (if I can call it that) when Manning is hit by the explosion was quite effective. And the heart of the film is about Manning’s feeling of disillusionment and dissociation. We see his attitude transform from anger at his predicament to disregard of the “little people”. Not exactly Oscar worthy, but better depth than you normally expect from the genre.

I kind of liked The Amazing Colossal Man. Producer/Director Bert I. Gordon only made 24 films between 1954 and 2015, and I saw a handful of them in my childhood. This, however, is only the second one during this fourteen year journey. I’ll likely see a few more. AMRU 3.

The Valley of the Gwangi (1969)

Tuck (James Franciscus), a charming scoundrel, seeks out wild west star and old flame T.J. Breckenridge (Gila Golan) to make a deal for her trained horse. T.J. isn’t initially receptive. Tuck had broken her heart by walking out on her, but she changes her tune when she comes in possession of a tiny horse, a living ancestor of modern horses … ok, ok, it’s Cowboys vs. Dinosaurs.

Old friend Richard Carlson plays the owner of the struggling wild west show, fiercely protective of T.J. Carlson would appear in the Elvis flick Change of Habit later that year, his last feature film. Also, Elvis’. Gila Golan was quite charming as the feisty T.J. Breckenridge, but because of her thick accent, all of her dialog was dubbed. It was noticeable.

All the important elements are present. A secret valley, a blind gypsy fortune teller (in turn of the century Mexico, no less), a bumbling scientist, a spunky sidekick, a love triangle, and a proper character arc for our protagonist. Oh yea, and cowboys and dinosaurs. It’s not exactly a think piece, but for the most part it gets the science right. Because of the time crunch, Ray Harryhausen didn’t finish color testing of his creatures. As such, they were blue-purple in color.

Valley of the Gwangi parallels King Kong (1933) a bit, which tracks as it is based on an abandoned Willis H. O’Brien script. It’s not a bad film, despite itself. It’s goofy in parts but the story makes in-world sense. Having no faith, the studio didn’t promote it, and it predictably bombed. A few years earlier it might have been a sizable success on the drive-in circuit. AMRU 3.

Queen of Blood (1966)

In the futuristic world of 1990, Earth makes contact with an alien race. The aliens send an ambassador, but they crash land on Mars. Our intrepid astronauts go on a rescue mission but a “sunburst” damages their vessel and they might not have enough fuel to return to Earth. So, a second rescue mission is dispatched with the only ship available: one that doesn’t carry enough fuel to land on Mars. I didn't get it either. Instead they land on Phobos, and from there they can take their escape vehicle to Mars. Problem is they find the alien ambassador, injured, on Phobos, and she (it’s a lady ambassador!) must take one of the two seats in the escape vehicle, while one astronaut remains behind.

Long story short, she’s some kind of green skinned alien vampire creature.

John Saxon is our heroic leading man. He had a long career of B movies and television guest appearances. His menacingly strong looks served him well in lead and villain roles. I most associate him with Enter the Dragon, which I haven not covered yet for some reason. Cub astronaut Paul is played by Dennis Hopper. I hardly recognized him.

The big name is Basil Rathbone, on the final hole of his storied career. He was very much in the “read lines while on camera for money” stage of his career. He was also roped into appearing in Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, which was ripped off from Planeta bur (1962). Peter Bogdanovich would later edit Basil out and make Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women, because Mamie Van Doren.

Basil would pass a little over a year after the film’s release, but still had time to appear in the classics The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini and Hillbillys in a Haunted House. They sound dreadful. I must watch.

Long shots of the aliens and their world have a surreal appearance heightened by the trippy music. This contrasts in style and tone with the main story because those scenes were stolen from two higher budget Russian films, Mechte navstrechu (1963) and Nebo zovyot (1959). Was Roger Corman the producer? Of course he was. Much of the story comes from the first of the two, and the second was Americanized as Battle Beyond the Sun. After we meet lady ambassador monster near the midpoint, those sets are gone and we are left with the sparse Corman sets.

Queen of Blood is a watchable, if confounding film. Too convoluted for its own good (see paragraph one) and the action is facilitated by the characters being dumb. It's not without its charm, but much of that charm came from better films. AMRU 2.5.

The Magnetic Monster (1953)

Items in a store become magnetized and behave strangely. So, the shop owner does what any reasonable person would. He calls the department of power and light to speak with the chief engineer. When the engineer hears that appliances were magnetized, he wastes no time and contacts the Office of Scientific Investigation. A-Man Jeffrey Stewart (Richard Carlson) is on the case. Magnetism, it would seem, is the same as nuclear radiation.

Never before have I watched a film with more technobabble narration and exposition. Characters literally stop walking up stairs to spout this stuff. The intent was to make a film with a scientifically viable premise. Atomic energy was a serious and significant concern in post-war America, and this is a story about an experiment gone wrong. And rather than anthropomorphize the experiment as a giant insect or whatever, they anthropomorphize the element itself. It “feeds” and “murders”, and must be “killed”.

Every eleven hours the element reacts, grows larger and stronger, and more people die. Were it to continue growing it would spin the earth off its access. It’s the size of a raisin, but, you know, eventually … Much of the story follows the horror conventions of the day. They figure things out, test hypotheses, make a plan of action, then heroically carry it out. The difference is that despite the actor’s behavior, there is no conventional movie monster. Just a dangerous radioactive sample.

The low budget Magnetic Monster earns points for trying something different. It has a unique feel compared to the usual fare, and the lady in the shop jumping out of the way of a magnetized lawnmower is unintentionally hilarious. But in the end, it is a fairly unremarkable movie. AMRU 3.

“In nuclear research, there is no place for lone wolves.”

Man Beast (1956)

For purposes of the plot pretty Connie travels to the Himalayas to find her brother, Jim. She brings along her wet blanket boyfriend. It seems Jim is on an expedition to capture an abominable snowman, what the natives call the Yeti. They team up with a random hunky guy and start searching. They first meet up with Jim’s associate Dr. Erickson, then the mysterious Varga, who served as Jim’s guide. And, apparently, the only survivor of his expedition. Sorry, Jim.

Here is the lowest of low budget films and the directorial debut of schlockmeister Jerry Warren. I will not ding it for the obvious flaws. The long shots don’t match the close-ups, there is no snow on Everest much of the time, and continuity errors galore. But give him credit, this is his first go with no budget, sets, or even experienced actors, and he got a watchable film into the can. And make no mistake, it is watchable. Borderline enjoyable.

This was pretty Asa Maynor’s first screen appearance, so therefore they got her name wrong. She was once married to Vince Fontaine. Kookie. They also got hunky Lloyd Nelson’s name wrong in the credits. This was also Rock Madison’s film debut and they DID get his name right. Didn’t matter, though, because he doesn’t exist.

The Amazon Prime copy is several minutes shorter than what IMDb lists, and I suspect that explains the two abrupt jump cuts. One came at a particularly critical moment. I wonder if there were more I didn’t notice.

I don’t normally make these accommodations but I feel it’s warranted here. The budget is plain to see on every frame. I’ve seen worse. Man Beast was short and managed to hold my interest, plus had a little mystery to it. I’m curious to watch Warren’s other films. I understand they are terrible. AMRU 2.5.

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)

Or, “A Woman Scorned, 1950’s edition”

Harry Archer likes to hang around bars with floozies (Yvette Vickers) and this causes his wife Nancy to fly off in a rage. You see, despite his lecherous ways, she still loves him. Problem is, he doesn’t and because she's loaded, he can’t divorce her or he won’t get a cent. A solution presents itself when she returns hysterical with talk about seeing a thirty foot man in a “satellite”. Sanitarium-bound she is. Problem is, there actually IS a thirty foot man in a “satellite”. At some point she grows very tall, maybe fifty feet, who’s to say.

Side note: this was during the Sputnik hysteria, which the media described as a satellite. Not knowing what that meant, the screenwriter assumed it referred to all spherical spacecraft. Sci-Fi as a second language. Additionally, while the height of the man in the “satellite” is mentioned, poor Nancy’s is not. When standing next to a building, thirty appears to be a better estimate.  I don’t know this but I think the film was titled after it was in the can. I suppose Attack of the 30 Foot Woman wasn’t quite as dramatic.

But talk about following through with your promises. There is a woman, of some unnatural yet undetermined height, who (spoiler alert) does attack. Valley of the Zombies, this is not. Most of the film is personal drama. Harry and Floozie plot ways to prove poor Nancy crazy and such, and the actors (with the exception of the comic-relief deputy) take the material very seriously. This raises the level of the product somewhat and makes it a much more enjoyable watch. But make no mistake. This is not a good film.

Not having the money to do adequate special effects is one thing. Not having the money to hire someone who knows how to do special effects at all is quite another. The “satellite” and giants are translucent, proportions of both are wildly wrong, and Nancy’s oversized hand just may be the single worst prop in film history. Also, when Nancy goes large, she looks completely different. This is the film’s legacy.

Not that I think the filmmakers gave any thought to message, I do wonder what the ending meant. Nancy, now a giant, blond, and wearing a bikini she picked up somewhere, saunters into town looking for Harry. (Ok, that's another problem. Vengeful giants don't 'saunter'!) One hot take I heard painted her as the villain, but I don’t buy this. Harry was never depicted as sympathetic and his fate was retribution for his sins. My question is, however, is Nancy looking for Harry for revenge or because she wants him back? A case can be made for either conclusion. Surprisingly deep for a straight to drive-in flick.

In the end, Attack of the 50 foot Woman is amusing, well paced, interesting, and appropriately brief. I have no intention on exploring all of the many goofs this film presents. Look to YouTube for that. I say give it a watch. It's fun. AMRU 3.5.

Woman in the Moon (1929)

Crazy and disgraced college professor clings to his theory that there is gold in the mountains of the moon. One of his former students is in a position to actually go and find out. He’d bring his bestest buddy but it seems that our hero is the odd man out in a love triangle. Also, Evil Corp will stop at nothing to make sure the plan proceeds to their direction.

I started this film years ago but for reasons lost to time I did not finish it. I remember that it was pretty long but a quick check on IMDb says it was just over an hour and a half. Not too bad, so I started it. I became suspicious when I hit the hour twenty mark and had yet to see a spaceship. Apparently there are many edits of this film and TCM ran the director’s cut, reaching almost three hours. I had a three day intermission.

Silent film storytelling takes a while to get used to and I don’t know I would have been able to appreciate this film when I first attempted it. Fritz Lang is a master storyteller at the height of his abilities. But man, the pacing. He needs to communicate that the disgraced professor is poor and disgraced. The angry protagonist is angry. The evil antagonist is evil. The lovely love interest is … lovely, I guess. And he does. But once he hits his message, he needs to move on. But no, he just keeps hammering the point.

Many characters are introduced but there are five or six main people. The crazy old professor is pretty crazy and the primary comedic element. The antagonist has a very Hitler feel about him. Gerda Maurus plays the object of affection that motivates the sub-plot. She was weird looking. In real life, she was having an affair with director Fritz Lang. But before you feel too sorry for his screenwriter wife, know that when Fritz fled Germany after the Nazi’s took power, she stayed behind to make propaganda films.

Women in the Moon appears to be the first ever in the ‘saucer and spaceship’ subgenre. It was well researched and got a lot of things right. It got some wrong, but hey, a lot happened over the next four decades. It is important and well made. But man, it could use a little tightening. AMRU 3.5.

I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)

A woman marries a man who turns out to be a Monster from Outer Space. Spoiler alert.

What may have been intended as a by-the-numbers drive-in horror flick turned out to be something slightly better. Pretty Marge (pretty Gloria Talbott) is the focus of the story as she realizes she doesn’t know the man she married. This channels the fear of many newlyweds who truly don’t know their partner prior to tying the knot. But in this case it’s because, as previously mentioned, he’s a Monster from Outer Space.

Once her fears are confirmed she tries to get help, but few people are willing to take her seriously. Women, am I right? Always not being taken seriously by men. Here the plot dips slightly into Invasion of the Body Snatchers territory.

There are a few points that puzzled me. How well does the alien … sorry, the Monster from Outer Space understand human culture? How well does it understand it’s human target? Did the newlyweds … you know … do it? Their plan is pretty vague.

I Married a Monster from Outer Space is far from a good movie. The acting, cinematography, and creature effects are pretty good considering the budget and genre, but the story can be a little slow, nonsensical, and slightly lacking in horror. Also, equipment shadows are frequently noticeable. It is what it is, which isn’t altogether bad. Thanks for the recommendation, Jerome. AMRU 3.