ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Two movies with "Attack' in the titles ". Certain words were popular in the titles of sci-fi movies in the 1950s. For example:

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)

Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)

Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)

Attack of the Puppet People (1958)

The third film is "The Astounding She Monster". I was surprised that it was the only movie that used the word "astounding". But other popular words were "Battle", "Invisible", and "Brain".
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The Astounding She-Monster (1959)

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Warning! This super-low-budget film is so poorly done that even the most forgiving fans of 1950s sci-fi will find little to praise about it, despite the fact that star Robert Clark contributed to fondly remembered films such as "The Man from Planet X", "The Hideous Sun Demon", and "Beyond the Time Barrier"

Admittedly the story is imaginative and ambitious — but this movie is cursed with such horrible acting, direction, and editing that the result is a film which looks much worse than most amateur home movies. The dialogue is laughable, the plot elements illogical, and the music annoyingly fragmented. During the first few minutes of the film, a truly inept narrator offers horribly written comments about what is going on.


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_____X_____X_____SPOILER ALERT_____X_____X_____

The wild-but-fragmented story involves a geologist (Clark) who lives alone in the woods with his trusty dog. Two kidnappers arrive with an abducted heiress (Marilyn Harvey). While the kidnappers negotiate for their victim's ransom' a spaceship lands nearby (although it's never actually shown), and a buxom blonde alien (Shirley Kilpatrick) emerges, dressed in a shimmering, skintight metallic suit and wild eye makeup. Kilpatrick has no spoken dialogue and few close-ups.

The shapely Miss Kilpatrick is surrounded by a force field which makes her glow in the dark and gives her a deadly touch. The FX depicting these ideas are very poorly done.

Most of the story takes place at night, and the audience struggles to make out the dim and poorly photographed images.

Robert Clark eventually figures out the alien's weakness, and he concocts an acid bomb which eats through her protective metal suit. This climactic scene, however, sounds far better than it plays in the film.

Poorly produced and directed by Ronnie Ashcroft at a total cost of $18,000. He sold the film to Samual Z. Arkoff for $60,000.
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Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)

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A perfect example of a movie that can be enjoyed if the viewer knows what to expect. Sure it's low budget nonsense, but the humor in this camp little gem just couldn't be entirely unintentional.



The story involves a rich, unhappy woman (Allison Hayes) whose cheating husband only wants her money. While driving through the desert one night she is captured briefly by a giant, bald-headed alien. Twenty four hours later the woman grows to be fifty feet high (no explanation as to why). She strides into town, rips the roof off a local bar, and finds her husband smooching with Yvette Vickers (Playboy's Miss July 1959, and the sexpot cutey of "Attack of the Giant Leeches").



The special effects are poorly done, but you'll be rooting so hard for the victimized jumbo-woman you won't care about the technical flaws. The perfect ending for this story would have been for Miss Hayes to elope with the giant alien, thereby explaining his reason for enlarging her!

But alas, the filmmakers opted for a less entertaining conclusion. Too bad. Directed by Nathan Juran (under the name Nathan Hertz).







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Attack of the Crab Monsters (1956)

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Welcome to National Betamax Day! Warm up the old 25" Sony TV and pick a good spot on the couch. It's time to watch the Late Show at three in the afternoon!

__________ TV Commercial for the Sony Betamax


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And now . . . here's our feature presentation.

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One of producer-director Roger Corman's shoe-string-budget projects. This one is about a frightened group of people trapped on a Pacific island with a group of mutated over-sized crabs.





The crabs are intelligent, evil, and hungry for human brains (portrayed in some gruesome scenes). After dining on their favorite treat, these crabs are able to speak with the voice of the deceased.





There are some genuinely scary moments provided by scenes in which the monsters lure new victims away from the surviving group by calling softly from the darkness, using the voices of the victims whose brains they've devoured. The crab-monsters are full-sized mockups, and they actually move fairly well.





The cast includes Russell Johnson ("It Came from Outer Space") and Jonathan Haze ("It Conquered the World"). Female lead Pamela Duncan is a fetching heroine.








Interesting trivia: Originally co-billed with Not of this Earth.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)