Cardboard Science: Big Beautiful Woman

Year: 1958

Director: Nathan Hertz

Cast: Allison Hayes, William Hudson, Yvette Vickers

Run Time: 1 hour 5 minutes

It's a big day here at Popcorn Culture and our fifth annual Cardboard Science crossover with Hunter Allen of Kinemalogue. We're onto the second 50's sci-fi film he assigned for the season, and it's the first time we've ever had a repeat director! That's right, shlock auteur Nathan Juran (operating, as per usual, under the name Nathan Hertz) directed previous Cardboard Science entry The Brain from Planet Arous, another low budget gem I liked against all odds. For the first time, we're being given the opportunity to not only look at the 50's as a zany whole, but at one particular director and how his involvement in it evolved over the years.

Two things are already immediately apparent. First, his run times are deliciously brisk. Second, he certainly knows how to title a movie, because today we're here to talk about Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman!

Pictured: Me to any apartment that's watching this movie.

With a title like Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman, you'd think the plot would be pretty self-explanatory. But that's where you're wrong, because you should never assume that a movie like this has the budget for a 50 Ft. Woman. So, here we have Nancy Fowler Archer (Allison Hayes), a rich heiress who is hopelessly in love with her lecherous, money-grubbing dolt of a husband Harry (William Hudson). Harry can hardly be bothered to look at her, and he spends all his time at the local bar openly making on his mistress Honey (Yvette Vickers).

When Nancy finally blows her top and ditches him, she drives to their secluded home through that same endless stretch of Santa Clarita desert where they filmed all these movies. Wouldn't you know it, but she just so happens to come across an alien spacecraft and she runs back to town babbling about its occupant, a thirty-foot giant. Harry sees her encounter as an opportunity to have Nancy, a famous drunk, committed. He wants to inherit all her money and drive off into the sunset with Honey, but his plans - which quickly turn murderous - don't go so well when radiation turns Nancy into a jealously violent fifty-foot monster hellbent on getting her husband back.

At about the 53 minute mark of a 65 minute movie.

Now, most reviews you'll hear of Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman will lament how very little attacking of 50-ft. women there really is. But those reviewers are fools for thinking that a 50's B-movie will live up to a title or an incredible poster (and what a truly incredible poster we've been given this time). What they're completely ignoring is the delicious melodrama right before their noses. Allison Hayes enters the frame working at an 11 and she doesn't let up for a single second that she's onscreen, gnashing her teeth, bulging her eyes, and leaning dramatically against doorjambs at every opportunity.

Everything in the movie works along with her to whip the drama into a constant fit of pique, from the delightfully vile sourness Yvette Vickers gives to Honey to the transparent machinations of Harry - who literally steals a diamond straight off his wife's neck while pretending to tuck her into bed - to a news report about Nancy's alien sighting that throws so much public television shade that it's shocking you can even see the frame after the anchor completely wrecks Mrs. Archer. 

I honestly can't resist sharing his Gossip Girl quote in full, it's that f**king brutal: "From the Archers' palatial home away from home comes a report that Mrs. Archer has not only to be seeing a sociable satellite, but its inhabitant as well: a 30-foot giant. Was he pink with big ears and tusks? Well, maybe Mrs. Archer, who has recently been feuding with her husband, Handsome Harry, has finally found a man from out of this world, a man who could love her for herself. Come, come, Mrs. Archer. A man can ignore one million dollars: but, fifty million! That's too much to ask even from the man in the moon!"

OK, yeah, I'd be pissed too.

And buried beneath this scrumptious mountain of camp is a surprisingly trenchant observation of the fate of women who don't behave as they ought. Mrs. Archer is telling the truth, but nobody even gives a second thought to believing her. The men seek to discredit her as "hysterical," and she's already been institutionalized once before for being upset that her husband is a philandering bastard. Her money gives her license to be confident and speak her mind (her tax dollars are the only reason the sheriff patronizes her enough to investigate her claims in the first place), but society doesn't like that and seeks to shut her down at every opportunity. And when her claims are finally proven true, she is chained up, chased down, and shot at. The police, the medical establishment, and every other man in her life can't possibly begin to handle what she's going through.

It's actually pretty easy to draw a straight line from The Brain from Planet Arous to Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman. Both are shoddily made, loosely plotted B-pictures with surprisingly licentious male characters (especially for the time), and both have a lot more thrumming beneath the surface about the societal landscape shifting away from the clean cut 50's and the cookie cutter suburban American dream. Perhaps the most metaphorically powerful moment comes when Nancy escapes from her bonds and goes on her final (read: only) rampage, destroying her entire house in the process. She finally lets go and goes for what she wants (namely, her husband to stay by her side and not be a sleazebag loser), but the effort it takes to break the shackles of society cause the implosion of her life - the destruction of her literal home representing the death of normalcy and her domestic American dream. But for ten blissful minutes, she can't be ignored, and that's maybe worth it after all.

Now, mind you, this rampage doesn't really look very good. The effects are crummy as all get out, except for the few shots where she gets to interact with actual models. The superimposed shots of the giant looming over buildings have that dodgy 50's transparent look, and she walks with this frustratingly slow, overly careful gait that was probably required to make it look even as unconvincing as it was. At least her outfit is an impeccable bit of retro glam adventure movie fun, kudos to the costume designers out there working their butts off.

And I don't need to tell you the science fiction elements of the plot make no sense (why introduce a male giant who's stealing diamonds, only to have him wander off halfway through the movie?).

Also this shot of them discovering his diamond collection likewise parallels Arous. I guess ol' Nathan loves distorting faces through glass, and I can't say I mind.

Honestly, I kinda almost sorta loved this movie, and I would be giving it maybe the best score of the bunch if it wasn't for one thing. Nancy gets sidelined for at least twenty minutes while she's sedated and chained up in her bedroom, and the antics of the men trying to figure out how the hell she got this way just don't compare to Hayes' inimitable performance. Shunting her offscreen immediately drains the energy from the narrative, both on a subtextual level and on the level of just plain interest.

And I haven't quite decided how I feel about the wacky comic relief deputy yet, but I'm erring on the side of liking him, if only for an alarmingly well-executed in-camera stunt where he almost runs over the main characters with his police cruiser. As it stands, even with its many many (many) flaws, Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman is a shockingly socially conscious thriller that sweeps you up with its goofy machinations. Sure that title is a cheat, but it's a tremendously satisfying romp that flies right past your eyes at the speed of light. I couldn't possibly complain about that.

That which is indistinguishable from magic:

• There's a hell of a lack of anything resembling science in this movie, but I do love the faux-fancy description of space shuttles as "satellites," because of course they had no idea that that term would come to mean anything else.

The morality of the past, in the future!:

• When the news anchor tells us that the alien spacecraft was spotted in Capetown, he makes sure to mention that it was probably spotted by a Boer (a descendant of the white settlers or South Africa), for no clear reason. Because we wouldn't trust the report if it was a black person?
• The cops spot a giant footprint and attempt to investigate the source because it "sure wasn't made by a Japanese gardener." OK, maybe this movie is a little bit racist. A lot bit.
• According to the doctor, it's so easy for women to get emotional in "this supersonic age." Whatever the hell that means.

Sensawunda:

• The sheriff complains that it's already past midnight when they were clearly shooting during the daytime. Black and white movies are fun.
• "You pulled a boner tonight," is a line that is spoken without a trace of irony.

TL;DR: Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman is a delightful gem that could have been a perfect masterpiece if it embraced its feminist subtext a smidge more wholeheartedly.

Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 1597
Cardboard Science on Popcorn Culture
2014: Invaders from Mars (1953) The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) Them! (1954)
2015: The Giant Claw (1957) It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955) The Brain from Planet Arous (1957)
2016: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) Godzilla (1954) The Beginning of the End (1957)
2017: It Conquered the World (1958) I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958) Forbidden Planet (1956)
2018: The Fly (1958) Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman (1958) Fiend Without a Face (1958)
2019: Mysterious Island (1961) Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964) Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)

Census Bloodbath on Kinemalogue
2014: My Bloody Valentine (1981) Pieces (1982) The Burning (1981)
2015: Terror Train (1980) The House on Sorority Row (1983) Killer Party (1986)
2016: The Initiation (1984) Chopping Mall (1986) I, Madman  (1989)
2017: Slumber Party Massacre (1982) Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987) Happy Birthday to Me (1981)
2018: The Prowler (1981) Slumber Party Massacre II (1987) Death Spa (1989)
2019: Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge (1989) Psycho III (1986) StageFright: Aquarius (1987)

Cardboard Science: Insane In The Membrane

Year: 1957

Director: Nathan Hertz

Cast: John Agar, Joyce Meadows, Robert Fuller

Run Time: 1 hour 11 minutes

MPAA Rating: N/A

Welcome back to our second annual crossover with Hunter Allen over at Kinemalogue! It’s time for our second 50’s sci-fi flick, and either I’m building up a tolerance or Hunter picked titles with more Brennan-y appeal this time around (I’m still nursing wounds from Invaders From Mars). Our newest foray into the vast thicket of B-movies is 1957’s The Brain From Planet Arous, a schlock spectacle of otherworldly proportions.

Pun always intended.

Here’s the skinny: Steve March (John Agar) is one of America’s leading nuclear scientists, because the movie would have its 50’s sci-fi license revoked if the A-bomb wasn’t in there somewhere. When he and his sex-on-a-stick partner Dan (noted Western actor Robert Fuller) make a trip to investigate the high levels of radiation at the nearby Mystery Mountain (which was apparently named by the guys who wrote Lone Ranger radio serials), they encounter a giant floating brain named Gor (Dale Tate). Two guesses as to what planet he’s form.

Gor possesses Steve’s body via a clumsy superimposition effect that jerks the projection back and forth until it lines up properly. He’s hellbent on using his magical explodey powers and superior intelligence to take over the world and force Earthlings to build a fleet of ships to launch an attack on his home planet, the name of which slips my mind. However, once he meets Steve’s fiancée Sally (Joyce Meadows), he falls instantly in love and gets distracted attempting to tonguelessly kiss her as hard as the Hayes Code would allow.

I guess you could say he’s from Planet AROUSED.

Sally and her father John (Thomas B. Henry) investigate Steve’s sudden fit of tumescence and come across Zol (also Dale Tate), an Arousian policeman (would that be the Thought Police? Buh dum chh), who’s on a quest to capture Gor. He inhabits the body of their dog George (and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him), and together they team up to find out Gor’s plan while keeping watch on him. He can only be destroyed when he leaves his host body to gather oxygen, which he only does once every 24 hours.

i.e. About as often as the budget allows.

The plot has two modes: “Sally fretfully fakes love for ‘Steve’ while he cackles and drops hints about his evil plans,” and “Gor explodes some stuff in the Santa Clarita desert and makes demands of the UN.” This back and forth gets a tad dull but at 70 brisk minutes of content that’s about as racy as Basic Instinct for 1957 audiences, it more than makes up for its redundant repetition.

The Brain From Planet Arous boasts all the hallmarks of a cheesy 50’s crapfest. Gor immediately outlines his evil plans to Steve, so thoroughly that he would have used a PowerPoint if he could. The acting is stilted and overly indicating. And the special effects are charmingly cheap, like an action film made by the kids in your English class. Hair dryer radar guns, perfectly healthy looking “charred” corpses, and big ol’ brain models wobbling around on strings abound in the film. At least the overly simple ending lacks the absurd abstraction of the antimatter nonsense of The Giant Claw. However, depending on your outlook, this can either go in the pro or con column.

We obviously know where Hunter stands, and I’ve been trained to love DIY filmmaking by my abysmal slashers, so for me at least, I enjoy the cut of Brain’s jib. The only truly distressing element is the film’s insistence on showing every detail of the characters slowly traipsing through the desert and tripping over rocks, papering it over with blibbering string music designed to make you feel like something is actually happening.

Spoiler Alert: It’s not.

I can forgive a bit of padding if it’s in service to a film this utterly bizarre. The eerie calmness with which our protagonists accept the idea of a giant floating brain is just the tip of the iceberg. For one, the dialogue is still astoundingly clever Much like The Giant Claw before it, the screenwriters have an inherent skill for banter hat they can’t seem to shut off, even if their plots fly mightily off the rails. The fact that any part of this movie was accomplished with skill leads to the sneaking suspicion that maybe other people on set also had talent.

I know it’s a ridiculous notion, but I can’t help but find that certain scenes lend credence to it. A shot of Steve’s distorted face through a water cooler is one such moment, a visual triumph that’s far out of the movie’s apparent league. It obfuscates reality, creates a sense of unease, and – in short – succeeds where the giant rubber brains intrinsically fail. And the film does have one cool effect: Whenever Gor activates his power, Steve’s eyes become glassy marbles of evil. It’s a very low fi, Village of the Damned trick, but that’s exactly why it works so well even to this day. It might just be a pair of contacts, but there’s something so ontologically wrong with that look that it short-circuits your wiring.

Once you get into this mindset, you start considering the possibility that maybe the brain movie people were actually using their own brains as well as the ones they borrowed from the neighbor kid’s model maker kit. This approach works wonders, unearthing a glittering deposit of potential subtext While TBFPA’s approach to nuclear woes isn’t as cut and dry as, say, Them!, there are several veins of more personal horror to mine.

There’s the obvious parallel between Gor and egotistical, powerful leaders who claim to have the “power of pure intellect,” but use it to coldly strike people down for the greater good. But his possession of Steve’s body and mental faculties creates a Jekyll and Hyde/Wolf Man scenario. Gor acts as Steve’s ravenous id, pushing the civilized man into the pursuit of money, power, and sex. In the buttoned-up 50’s, these primitive drives were especially discouraged, and Steve’s main struggle is for control over the desires that threaten to rule his genteel body.

On the flip side, from Sally’s perspective, this could represent women’s fears of the changing societal and sexual mores as America slipped implacably into the 60’s. Sally is hardly a strong character, whimpering and weeping every chance she gets, but she gets some of the most screen time and her triumph lies in asserting the roles of a clean cut, heteronormative suburban couple. Think about it.

Well, either that or producers had two weeks and some brain puppets and decided to make a movie.

The brilliant thing about The Brain From Planet Arous isn’t its intelligence, but the fact that there could be more beneath the surface. It works on an analytical level and it works – to a point – on a structural level, so either way you choose to take it, it delivers. How come assembly line filmmaking seemed to work so well back then, and today we’re stuck with a half dozen Transformers movies? The world is a scary place.

That which is indistinguishable from magic:

• Yeah, definitely follow that berserk Geiger counter into that cave without a protective suit on. You’ll be fine.
• Steve’s high tech radio turns off immediately after delivering relevant information.

The morality of the past, in the future!:

• India and China are the only non-white countries that exist, according to Gor.
• Sally’s dearest, most desperate wish is to receive a dishwasher for her birthday.
• At one point, Sally legitimately calls Steve “Master.” If this film got into the hands of Tumblr, we’d have an all-out war on our hands.
• Sally’s conviction that another brain was inhabiting the body of their dog is written off as “you and your imagination,” despite the fact that Steve has literally every reason to believe that body-hopping brains exist.

Sensawunda:

• In the opening scene, Dan reads a book titled “Science Fiction.” In case you weren’t sure what movie you were watching.
• Robert Fuller’s plunging neckline might be the most revealing outfit in cinema history up to that point.
• Lead actor John Agar would cap off his career with yet another instantly dated nuclear flick, the magnetic late 80’s treasure Miracle Mile.
• That poster is honestly the single best design I've seen in my entire life.

TL;DR: The Brain From Planet Arous is a short and sweet camp picture with an occasional burst of talent.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1435

Cardboard Science on Popcorn Culture
2014: Invaders from Mars (1953) The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) Them! (1954)
2015: The Giant Claw (1957) It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955) The Brain from Planet Arous (1957)
2016: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) Godzilla (1954) The Beginning of the End (1957)
2017: It Conquered the World (1958) I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958) Forbidden Planet (1956)
2018: The Fly (1958) Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman (1958) Fiend Without a Face (1958)
2019: Mysterious Island (1961) Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964) Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)

Census Bloodbath on Kinemalogue
2014: My Bloody Valentine (1981) Pieces (1982) The Burning (1981)
2015: Terror Train (1980) The House on Sorority Row (1983) Killer Party (1986)
2016: The Initiation (1984) Chopping Mall (1986) I, Madman  (1989)
2017: Slumber Party Massacre (1982) Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987) Happy Birthday to Me (1981)
2018: The Prowler (1981) Slumber Party Massacre II (1987) Death Spa (1989)
2019: Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge (1989) Psycho III (1986) StageFright: Aquarius (1987)