Attack of the 50 Foot Woman(1958)

This chapter explores how Nathan Hertz’s 1958 cult classic Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, an exemplary text of independent exploitation filmmaking during a period of profound transformation within the film industry, is informed as much by the then-recent traditions of Hollywood melodrama and film noir as it is more commonly acknowledged sci-fi contemporaries. Such generic intertextualities are considered with specific relation to what they contribute to the film’s gender representation, particularly that of its protagonist-turned-giantess, Nancy Archer, who embodies uncontainable female sexuality which becomes equated with monstrosity in these years just predating the rapidly oncoming sexual revolution.