Top 5 Films About 50 Foot Women On-Screen
2.)The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock
One of the most obscure films I’ve ever seen. It has some interesting trivia. It is the only film Lou Costello ever did without his longtime partner Bud Abbott. It was also his last. He died shortly after filming and didn’t even live long enough to see the premiere. Is it a great film to go out on? No, but for many years this was probably the best giant woman film ever. However, the absence of a straight man to work off of hurts this film. Abbott and Costello’s best routines involve lot’s of fast word play. He’s still funny, but he often doesn’t have very many good setups. The plot is about Costello as a dimwitted inventor who somehow is dating the prettiest girl in the town. Her father doesn’t like it, but Emmy Lou really loves him and he can’t do much about it. After getting frustrated with him and his lack of wanting to get engaged, she runs off into a cave with some bizarre fumes bellowing out. They somehow make her grow into a giant. Talking with the father in a very vague terms Costello makes him think he got Emmy Lou pregnant and despite hating him insists on a shotgun wedding. He doesn’t attend so he doesn’t find out his daughter is now a giant, but his wedding present of a barn for a house works out nicely.
From there the film is just seeing these two try to navigate newlywed life (learning about each other’s quirks and what their roles will be etc.) except where one of them is probably like 25 feet tall or something. I guess that because in one of the scenes where they give Emmy Lou a shower she for some reason (I don’t think we ever get an explanation) starts to grow again. It can’t be by much since she still fits into the wedding dress made of parachutes she wore before and she doesn’t grow again in the film so I’m going out on a limb here and say this is the point in the film where she becomes the titular 30 foot bride. Now most of that actually is fairly interesting until we get to the ending where the film just goes insane. It’s hard to even describe all that happens, his invention saves the day. There’s time travel and lot’s a cartoonish slapstick, but doesn’t really work. Still it was leagues ahead of other film with this premise. I feel like as I was writing this it could work as a remake into something much better. Only time will tell.
1.) Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader
I first started seeing concept art floating around the internet, but just assumed it was some weird fanart. Then I saw the channel EPIX promoting it. And amazingly this is probably the best film made from this sort of premise. What’s really weird is that they seemed to take more plot elements from “Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfold.” Like that film it is about the concept of beauty and involves a college aged woman taking an experimental drug that makes her slowly grow to 50 feet tall. Also, plenty of boobs on-screen. It knows it’s a silly concept so it does have a sense of humor about itself. Most of the actors (especially the ones playing the bad guys) are all in on the joke. The green screen work is not great, but once again it was a low-budget made-for-TV movie. While not amazing, at best the film is just okay it has a clear beginning middle and end. They may be very simple, but it’s done well enough.
There are plenty of bad jokes, but then there are some while not great show that they were all having fun while making this. I credit a lot of this to the producer of the Roger Corman. It has the feel of a lot of his films. Ridiculous premise, but executed as well as they could given the limitations. Which is why I say on the whole this is technically the best film with this premise. It has a very low bar it’s setting for itself and it hits its mark. You know what’s really weird? This film finally truly connects Corman to the 50 foot woman genre. A lot of people assume he made the original as those kinds of movies were his MO during that time. The remake even puts his name on a truck referencing him even though again he had nothing to do with the original film. I don’t know if that’s why he wanted to make this. I remember seeing an interview with him talking about the conception of the movie coming from the idea of having two giant cheerleaders fighting with their clothes ripped off. Well at least he’s upfront about his intentions.
