Movie review – “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman” (1956) **1/2

An impossible film to dislike - Joe Dante in Trailers from Hell describes it as perfect... perfectly awful. He also says the love triangle subplot wasn't really needed but I disagree - it keeps us watching until the 50 foot woman goes on her rampage, just like the Rod Taylor-Tippi Hedren romance in The Birds entertained us prior to the bird attack.

The script was written by Mark Hanna, old partner of Charles B Griffith, and is a bit silly and full of logic problems but does make us very sympathetic towards the tormented Nancy (the wonderfully statuesque Alison Hayes) - rich, beautiful, alcoholic, desperately in love with a no-good husband Harry. She stumbles upon an alien space ship which turns her into a giant and sends her on a rampage to get Harry.

The most memorable performance in the film comes from Yvette Vickers as Harry's trashy mistress, gyrating in bars and oozing cheap sex - she's terrific. The most memorable scene is the ridiculous paper mache hand coming through the window, although all the finale is pretty good. The director was Nathan Juran, who is not often mentioned in talks of sci fi/fantasy (at least not read by me) but has a fine record of entertaining films, of which this is perhaps the most famous.