Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) review — an icon of female empowerment
★★★★☆
Yes, the effects are risible. And yes, the B-list director Nathan Hertz squeezes every possible second of screen time from a giant rubber hand and lots of screaming extras. But in the cultural moment when Barbie has been revamped as a totem of female empowerment this can only be seen as the original feminist doll movie.
Indeed, the opening “giant doll” shot in Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster is an obvious homage to the finale here, when the disgruntled heiress Nancy Archer (an underrated Allison Hayes) finally takes revenge on her philandering husband, Harry (William Hudson). Nancy had earlier been exposed to alien radiation and so, naturally, increases in size and wreaks havoc on her Californian desert town.
In the opening scenes she’s ridiculed for being
