I started with Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) proceeded to The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), and wound it all up with War of the Colossal Beast (1958). Let me say that, apart from sheer amusement value, none of these films is actually worth watching. They are all unrelentingly stupid - I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment.
So, let's start with the one with, at least, the best title. Attack of the 50 Foot Woman evokes everything that is best about 1950's B-grade movies. What it doesn't warn you about is that there isn't a single character in the movie who's even the least bit likeable. Nancy Archer (the titular character, played by Allison Hayes) is a spoilt (and stupid) rich woman with a philandering husband, who is obviously only after her money. She runs into an gigantic alien on the way home, with the result that she grows really, really big overnight.
Apart from the blatant misogyny of the script, the biggest fault with this film is the fact that, quite often, you you can see right through Nancy as she strides across the landscape, and the giant alien is also transparent a lot of the time. Now, giant people are one thing, but giant transparent people seems just a bit stupid! At any rate, I can only recommend this film to all the people out there who, just like me, will just have to watch it because its famous and has a great title!
The Amazing Colossal Man is often considered to be the "Gone With the Wind" of giant people films, and with good reason. It has all the required ingredients (crazy explanation, stupid physics, even stupider physiology), some really good effects (and some equally shoddy ones).
Lt. Col. Glenn Manning (Glenn Langan) gets a little to close to a plutonium bomb explosion, and gets a little burned... Like, 3rd degree burns over just about his entire body. At any rate, he miraculously heals overnight, then begins to grow. And grow. And grow. Where it gets really silly, though, is in the explanation that his heart is, for some reason, not growing as quickly as the rest of his body. Why this should be is both never explained, as well as not making any sense at all, but there you go.
His small heart causes circulatory problems, which results in him having a really bad temper for most of the film, and leaving him really, really stupid at the end of it, when he goes on the obligatory rampage, before being "disposed" of. While the miniatures were excellent, and many of the other effects shots were equally impressive, there were some "transparent" moments as well, which detract from the overall affect.
Which brings us, at last, to War of the Colossal Beast, sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man, and, I think, a better film than either of the others. Lt. Col. Manning has made his way down to Mexico, where he is hijacking food trucks to feed his enormous appetite.
Where this film stands out is the makeup. Manning is left horribly disfigured after his "demise", with half his jaw exposed, and one eye missing. While obviously an "additive" effect (i.e. makeup over the actor's face), it is still very impressive, and quite gory. It holds up extremely well, despite the film's age. The miniatures are also very impressive, even if they don't always match the full-scale vehicles at all times! There were also far fewer "transparency" problems in evidence.
Manning appears to have lost his mind completely in this one, and is basically just a giant monster. He finds his way to California, with a climax at the Griffith Observatory which is a lot of fun. Oh, and his heart attacks don't seem to be a problem any more (he should be long dead, according to the experts in the first film!).
At any rate, of all of these "giant people" films, War of the Colossal Beast is, surprisingly, the standout. It's fun, silly, and has the best SFX. You really should watch The Amazing Colossal Man first, if only so you get the whole story, but it's probably not absolutely necessary (the original distributors certainly didn't think so - they didn't even bill it as a sequel). I know for a fact that, now that I've seen it, I won't be feeling the need to watch Attack of the 50 Foot Woman again any time soon (or ever!).
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