There is nothing to compare with seeing one of your iconic childhood movies, as an adult, which is what happened last night at the Chelsea Classics, with Hedda Lettuce, showing the 1958 classic, "Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman."
First, there is so much sex and sexism going on, I am surprised my parents let me watch this. I had forgotten where debauched William Hudson, as no good hubby Harry, carries Allison Hayes, as Nancy Fowler Archer, upstairs, and undresses her, then cuddles up with her in bed!!!!!!!!! Were the filmmakers trying to push code boundaries????????? Did my parents think this would all go over my head? Well, they were right! Some of it, at least!!!!!!!!!!!!
This was the movie that made me want to be a slut, and hang out in cheap bar and grills, like Tony's, in this film. Tony, by the way, is played by Michael Ross, who also played the space alien giant. You gotta see him! Bald, with hair on the knuckled section of his hands, so you can imagine what the palms are like, and sporting a tank top vest with a bull on the back, looking like it came from the local gay bar, and then sporting a gladiator skirt! This film was shot for only $88,0000, so I know they had to skimp on costumes, but what was this all about? And no shoes, just bare feet; because, as we found out, after Nancy's radiation rape by the alien, who is some big queen, because it turns out he wants to add her diamond necklace to his collection--get this, he travels to earth for diamonds! How gay can you get? Why doesn't he just pull the ship up to outside Harry Winston, and raid the joint? But he is a gentleman, because after his encounter with Nancy, he carries her back to her estate, placing her gently, unconscious, atop the pool house.
The script, which is credited to some guy named Mark Hanna, I think was really written by Dorothy Parker on one of her alcohol binges!!!!!!!!!!! Besides the two most famous lines I posted about the other day, there are some real corkers, like Frank Chase, as Deputy Charlie saying things like "Holy Toledo!" and referring to Yvette Vickers as Honey Parker, as "What a doll!" Doll, indeed!!!!!!! This one is far from inflatable, and fully equipped. In fact, at the point we encounter her in the story, her vagina is probably more worn out than Joan Rivers ever wished hers to be!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Let me say a brief word, here, about Frank Chase as Deputy Charlie! He is the gayest deputy I have ever seen; he makes Don Knotts as Barney Fifte look smart and butch! He has a scene where he has them off, briefly in the office, and I have to admit I saw some potential hotness, but maybe Frank pressured the director for this shot, in the hopes of jump starting his career, even if it turned out to be in porno. The trick did not work; I don't think Frank went anywhere.
You have to see the scene in Tony''s Bar and Grill, where he is dancing with Yvette Vickers. Of course, no one shakes it like Yvette, but Frank goes in for some Michael Bennett and Donna McKechnie moves before they were really on the scene. He was ahead of his time, actually, and his constant calls to "Mary," here, indicate how closeted he really was. When the Sheriff was on all fours atop the pool house, practically splayed, I thought Charlie was going to butt fuck him! Bet he wanted to!
But poor Allison Hayes! She finally gets some glamour in the last minutes when she converts bed sheets into a sarong---which I tried to do, as a child, after seeing this, and walking about, and, boy, did my mother have a fit!!!!!!--but for most of the time she looks like a drunken version of Ava Gardner, and forced to say lines like, "Oh, Harry, if only you would love me!," clinging to him, like those giant leeches that would attack Yvette the following year. She doesn't get much room to act until she grows to maximum height.
Which is why two actresses, not Hayes, steal the show! The first, of course, is Yvette, as Honey Parker! She has the best wardrobe in the entire film--much better than Allison's striped toreador pants and overly accessorized blouse--with cheap, slutty skirts, the kind I wanted to wear because I thought they would get me ahead, not into a hotel dump, above a cheap bar and grill, like poor Honey, who had big plans!!!!!!!!!!!! But she got the most out of having fun downstairs at the club, and Yvette's carefree manner was a battle cry for burgeoning young gay boys to throw caution to the wind, and get out there, and shake! Some of us are still trying, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I had forgotten what a cold, avaricious bitch she was, as, when she is not wooing Harry orgiastically, she is trying to convince him to kill his wife! "Have ya got the nerve?" she asks!!!!!!! Harry tries, but then Nancy prevents him by growing to 50 feet! This is what he gets for abandoning her, during her tete a tete with the space giant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Honey's famous death under the table, almost cost Yvette her life, as there was a board with a nail on it, that fell, just inches, from Yvette's head! But she was a real trouper, and this was the film that consolidated her as Hollywood's Slut! Back then, when you needed someone to play a trashy, trampy slut, you called Yvette! I wish someone would call me, now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then, there is Eileene Stevens (that is how she is billed!) as the Nurse! Oh, my God! She is the direct opposite of Louise Fletcher's contained reserve; she screams if an ant crawls across the floor, and she has the biggest mouth for it I have ever seen, which the camera likes to make the most of! And the dialogue she gets---"She's changed!" "She's grown into a giant!" I am telling you, Dorothy Parker was on some binge! But I love the look on her face of absolute terror as Nancy tears off the roof of the house, and keeps rolling to people, as she does later on, pieces of wood that resemble dismantled back paddles from Mississippi river boats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Maybe she was pissed she never got cast in "Show Boat!"
My beloved had never seen this film before, and I think he is still processing it, because he has yet to realize what a masterpiece it is! What I had not realized, until last night, is what a moralistic film it is! Everyone who is no good learns their lesson. Jess, the butler, learned that his semi-incestuous relationship with Nancy netted him no cash, William Hudson as Harry learns cheating husbands get theirs in the end, while Yvette, as Honey, learn that cheap sluts don't do better than a fifth rate hotel above a fifth rate bar and grill! And that cheating whores come to a bad end!!!!!!!! Even if they have fun along the way, the fun still ends!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There is so much to take in, with "Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman!!!!!!!!!"
Now, I have to start taking in my waist line, so I can fit into some of those Honey Parker costumes, for a whole new look!!!!!!!!!!!
If only there had been Nancy Archer and Honey Parker dolls!!!!!!!!! Now, there's an idea, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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