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It was Saturday night, just a half hour before the highlight of our week, "Svengoolie." He was showing 1957's "The Incredible Shrinking Man," adapted by Richard Matheson, from his classic novel, which, unfortunately, seems to be out of print.
The film was a tour de force for Grant Williams, who, outside of "The Monolith Monsters," (remember, the giant turds?) I don't think did much else. He never married, so hmmmmmmmm....Could being gay have cost him a career? He was easy on the eyes.
It was such a cute moment when he shrinks so small his wife, Louise (Randy Stuart) buys him a huge, two floor doll house for him to live in. He even has a romantic fling with a circus midget, named Clarice Bruce, played by April Kent, who turns out to be the half sister of Gypsy Rose Lee. She looks a little like June Havoc.
Never are the questions of wardrobe, bodily functions, or sex questioned. To make up for this, the cat and the spider steal the show!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The spider, I am convinced, was the same one used in Universal's 1955 "Tarantula," and AIP's "Earth VS. The Spider." This arachnid must have had an iron clad contract; every time a spider was needed forr a Fifties monster film, there it was.
The cat, whose name is Butch, is cute at first, but once Williams starts shrinking, his predatory instincts come out. The shot of him peering into the doll house is priceless. Here--take a look!
Back to the spider, for a moment. The lead shot shown suggests-- May God forgive me!!!!!!!!!!!--a huge, gaping vagina!!!!!!!!!!! Gasp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Gay men are sure to have nightmares!!!!!!!!!! Maybe that is why Grant Williams did not do so many movies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Added to this, the film was not what we expected, for two reasons. First, it was not campy enough, save for the doll house,which was cute. Second, it had a metaphysical, nihilistic outlook, and ending, which left us cold.
Second, due to our wonderful SPECTRUM cable service, the sound went out, so we had to watch it captioned. And this was a mood piece, where music was often more important than dialogue.
Wouldn't you know, the sound came back, just after the film ended!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But, however much the spider and cat got paid, it was not enough!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4 comments:
The original Honey I Shrunk The Kids lol
Victoria,
You are absolutely right.
I never saw that film, either.
So I did not give it a thought,
while watching this oen.
Hadn't seen this since I was a kid! The effects still hold up nicely, Grant Williams is eye candy enough, and its mostly a fun ride BUT...
Good gawd how I wanted the spider to suck the life out of him by that point. Never in the history of movies has there been a worse example of the protagonist continually making the stupidest possible choice from scene to scene because the writers were too unimaginative/lazy to keep the story moving any other way. You keep wondering, did his intelligence shrink along with his skull? From the moment he traps himself in the basement (strike one), the whole movie flies off the rails and he makes Ralph Wiggum on The Simpsons seem like Einstein. Yikes.
The existentialist ending didn't bother me much: that was par for the course for the era ("invasion Of The Body Snatchers", etc). And really, once he shrank to the size of a pollen grain what the hell could they do for him anyway. Kind of a letdown, tho, after surviving the cat, the spider, and endless bouts of his own imbecility. Perhaps the moral of the story is he was too stupid to live, so he just faded away into the sunset (literally).
My dear,
To think this was written by Richard Matheson.
Maybe it works better on the printed page.
By the way, Grant Williamas never married.
Uhm Hmm....maybe you know what derailed his
career, as it did with William Eythe.
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