Village of the Giants

Rating:
Summary: Oh the pain...
Review: A 3:30 movie staple (during the 1970s) finally arrives in DVD! A terrible movie, but fascinating in a car-wreck kind of way.

The first thing that comes to mind is the costuming...this movie was made in 1965, but everyone's dressed for the sock hop! One exception is the Beau Brummells, featured as a club band early in the film...one look at these guys and you'll believe that yes, even native Californian's tried to emulate the look and the sound of the Beatles. Great band (and they actually wrote some pretty good music)...but their efforts to look like the Ed Sullivan-ear Fab Four is laughable.

Speaking of the club...it's located in the fictional city of Hainesville, California and its called the "Whisky-A-Go-Go". I don't get out much, but my recollection is that the Whisky is on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood!

It's a great chance to see some early performances by future prominent actors...you'll see the hairiest Beau Bridges you can stand (this movie is Beau-tiful), Ron Howard (looks exactly like Opie to the point of distraction, Tony Basil (yes, that Toni Basil), Tish Sterling (daughter of Ann Sothern), and Tim Rooney (Mickey's son).

Someone pointed out to me recently that the giant ducks were controlled by attaching strings to their legs and wings...no way to no for sure except to watch, and sure enough, you can see the strings. Sort of took the fun out of it for me.

Watch for one of the most offensive endings ever committed to film. Highly recommended for camp value. If you ever get the chance, see the MST3K treatment of this film.

Rating:
Summary: Cool cringeworthy camp classic; DVD looks fine, honest!
Review: As much as I love this movie, I had basically written off buying this disc based on the variety of (conflicting) complaints in other reviews here about the quality of the transfer (i.e., the print is pan-and-scan, picture looks 'squeezed,' color is faded, not up to the usual Midnite Movies standards, yada, yada, yada). My own skepticism and a quick look at IMDb convinced me to purchase the disc and evaluate it myself. I have to say I think this is a case of Amazon reviewers [commenting] about mostly imaginary problems. First of all, according to IMDb (and fairly obviously from the framing of the opening credits and the movie in general) Village of the Giants was shot on 35mm, at approximately 1.33:1, NOT in widescreen format. Cropped fake-widescreen prints may have been shown in theatres, but I see nothing to indicate that this movie was ever actually true widescreen. Second, my disc showed no evidence of any 'squeezing' effect (maybe that was a defective copy). Third, while the color is certainly not up to Herbert and Natalie Kalmus standards, it is certainly not faded much, if at all; it's just poorly balanced, and probably looks as good as it ever did. The reds, blues, greens, are all richly saturated in the expected places. The fleshtones are unspectacular but that's just sixties-era cheap color film stock, folks, it's never gonna look like Gone with the Wind. (The credits don't identify the lab but it's probably Eastman, Pathe, or DeLuxe, most certainly not Technicolor.) All in all, the print looks very good to excellent in my book: the overall brightness, contrast, and detail are just fine. True, it's not as stunning as some others in the Midnite Movies series, but very respectable; acceptably sharp and sure to make any VHS copy look inferior. Physical damage is limited to some occasional very light speckling. At the bargain price it's definitely worth grabbing for fans, even with no extras besides the French and Spanish subtitles.
As far as the movie itself, Village of the Giants is perhaps the apotheosis of Bert I. Gordon's career, his Ivan the Terrible Part II as it were: a brilliant/warped synthesis of his early giant-mutant teenflicks (Amazing Colossal Man, The Cyclops) and smarmy mid-period adult-oriented fare (Tormented, Picture Mommy Dead). Mainstream moviegoers will probably find Village of the Giants unbearable torture; masochistic fans of nails-on-a-blackboard style camp will be in bad movie heaven. Start with that quintessential cheese-lover's cast: Tommy Kirk (The Monkey's Uncle, Pajama Party, Mars Needs Women, Blood of Ghastly Horror), Beau Bridges (no doubt still trying to live this movie down), Johnny Crawford (Mickey Mouse Club, The Rifleman), Oscar-winning director (!) Ron Howard (Andy Griffith, Door-to-Door Maniac), third-string starlets Tisha Sterling, Joy Harmon, and Charla Doherty (Days of Our Lives, In the Year 2889), Tim Rooney (Mickey's son, of course) , choreographer Toni Basil (New Wave one-hit wonder a decade later with "[Hey] Mickey"), Rance Howard (Ron and Clint's dad), and Joseph Turkel (cult icon who's played numerous rough characters, often coincidentally named Joe Turkel, in everything from The Human Jungle to Paths of Glory, The Devil's 8, and The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, etc.). Whew! Plus you get nearly-complete excellent non-hit musical numbers by Freddy Cannon (Little Bitty Corrine) and the Beau Brummels (When It Comes to Your Love; Woman) that are almost worth the price of the disc by themselves. (The Brummels perform accompanied by caged, befringed go-go dancers.) Drippy teen dream Mike Clifford also croons one instantly-forgettable ballad.
The story of grown-huge teens menacing the whitebread populace of a small town, ostensibly based on, of all things, H. G. Wells' Food of the Gods (a source Gordon would desecrate again in the 1970s) is basically just an excuse for Bert and Flora's usual wildly variable special effects (this time with a healthy assist from process photography legend Farciot Edouart), and lots of gratuitous exploitation of jiggling breasts and cleavage as the fast-growing teens come ripping out of their normal-sized clothes. Try and decide which looks worse: Beau Bridges in a toga or the laughably pathetic giant-size props of his skinny, hairy legs. Also check out the way Gordon has the giants walk in 'slow motion,' exaggeratedly swinging their arms, so we can see how 'big' they are. The dialogue, performances, and production values are uniformly cringe-inducing, and the scenes of the teen giants gyrating in slo-mo to Jack Nitzsche's terrific snaky, pulsating theme music inspire a unique combination of genuine awe and mortal embarrassment. Perhaps the most inappropriately titillating movie ever pitched to the kiddie matinee crowd (right up there with The Brain that Wouldn't Die), and an amazing, excruciating 1960s camp relic.

Rating:
Summary: Village Idiots
Review: Beau Bridges leads a less than all-star cast of misfits in this flick that mixes H.G. Welles's "Food of the Gods" with the AIP bikini-beach movies. When Bridges and company (a group of like-minded delinquents) get into a fender-bender outside the mythical town of Haynesville, they decide to head in and party. These aren't the sort of kids to let a smashed car get between them and fun. Unbeknownst to them, a young kid named "Genius" and played by an Opie-era Ron Howard, toils away in his lab (beakers, Bunsen burners and all) on whatever young geniuses toil on, and accicentally creates the mysterious "goo". Whatever eats the goo grows to forced-perspective style gigantic size. (They test the stuff out on a couple of giant geese which promptly become the main course at a town BBQ; faster than you can say "shouldn't we test this stuff on laboratory convicts, Haynesville are munching on mutated foie gras.) Realizing the possibilities of the goo, Bridges and Co. steal the goo. Running out of ideas, they eat the goo and become the giants of the title - swelling out of their clothes in a scene that has become the stuff of MST3K. Exerting their will on the town, Bridges's gang enslave those who live there - forcing the diminutive population into serving them tons of fried chicken and cola. It's up to Genius and Tommy Kirk (who plays the guy putting the moves on Genius's big sister) to save the day. Will he succeed and cut Bridges down to size, or will Haynesville remain beholden to a gang of 90-foot teenagers in home made bikinis (made out of theater curtains?

Okay, you're thinking - who cares? As 60's fun, "Village" has less entertainment than say "Ghost in the Invisible Bikini" but doesn't go out for easy laughs. Most of the time you'll be watching the screen thinking "no way!" It's a thin flick with some re-play value (watching the younger Beau Bridges act horribly; watching Ron Howard in the script's least important role, knowing the bigger and better things he went onto) but would have done better with the Harvey Lembeck treatment. Also, watch out for a fiery-haired dancer played by Toni Basil of "Oh Micky" fame, and Joy Harmon, the car-wash girl from "Cool Hand Luke", as a fellow giant who thought she was big enough to begin with.

The DVD transfer isn't anything special - let's face it, this isn't the flick you got a DVD player for. There are no extras (this flick wasn't made with a "making of" documentary in mind) but the menu hearkens back to the go-go `60s and highlights that this is a fun light flick.

Rating:
Summary: it took a village to raise these damn idiots
Review: Beau Bridges leads a less than all-star cast of misfits in this flick that mixes H.G. Welles's "Food of the Gods" with the AIP bikini-beach movies. When Bridges and company (a group of like-minded delinquents) get into a fender-bender outside the mythical town of Haynesville, they decide to head in and party. These aren't the sort of kids to let a smashed car get between them and fun. Unbeknownst to them, a young kid named "Genius" and played by an Opie-era Ron Howard, toils away in his lab (beakers, Bunsen burners and all) on whatever young geniuses toil on, and accicentally creates the mysterious "goo". Whatever eats the goo grows to forced-perspective style gigantic size. (They test the stuff out on a couple of giant geese which promptly become the main course at a town BBQ; faster than you can say "shouldn't we test this stuff on laboratory convicts, Haynesville are munching on mutated foie gras.) Realizing the possibilities of the goo, Bridges and Co. steal the goo. Running out of ideas, they eat the goo and become the giants of the title - swelling out of their clothes in a scene that has become the stuff of MST3K. Exerting their will on the town, Bridges's gang enslave those who live there - forcing the diminutive population into serving them tons of fried chicken and cola. It's up to Genius and Tommy Kirk (who plays the guy putting the moves on Genius's big sister) to save the day. Will he succeed and cut Bridges down to size, or will Haynesville remain beholden to a gang of 90-foot teenagers in home made bikinis (made out of theater curtains?

Okay, you're thinking - who cares? As 60's fun, "Village" has less entertainment than say "Ghost in the Invisible Bikini" but doesn't go out for easy laughs. Most of the time you'll be watching the screen thinking "no way!" It's a thin flick with some re-play value (watching the younger Beau Bridges act horribly; watching Ron Howard in the script's least important role, knowing the bigger and better things he went onto) but would have done better with the Harvey Lembeck treatment. Also, watch out for a fiery-haired dancer played by Toni Basil of "Oh Micky" fame, and Joy Harmon, the car-wash girl from "Cool Hand Luke", as a fellow giant who thought she was big enough to begin with.

The DVD transfer isn't anything special - let's face it, this isn't the flick you got a DVD player for. There are no extras (this flick wasn't made with a "making of" documentary in mind) but the menu hearkens back to the go-go '60s and highlights that this is a fun light flick.

Rating:
Summary: DVD dud
Review: Boy o boy what a major disappointment! ....I liked Village of the Giants as a kid and I never had a chance to see it in the theater, so when I saw it was available on DVD - you know, that wonderful format that is keenly reserved for 16:9, I thought I was finally going get to see a decent version of this film after all. Not! It's a lousy pan & scan transfer with faded color and poor contrast. MGM has been releasing a lot of older films lately under their Midnight Movies title and most of them look great. This one however turned out to be a real dud. If this is an example of how older films are going to end up on DVD, I might as well go back to watching VHS tape! Blaa.

Rating:
Summary: Giant teenagers flex their muscles
Review: Don't let the reviews scare you away: this isn't just a movie about jiggling girls. There's a lot of beefcake for the guys to look at, too.

Good teenager Tommy Kirk, recently outed and evidently taking any role, no matter how feeble, is the putative star, trying to stop a group of evil teenagers from running rampant in his small fifties town. His job is made harder when they ingest something called "goo" that makes them grow to giant size.

Now comes the part of the movie that everyone fast-forwards to: the evil teens are naked at first and then they wear makeshift togas, the boys displaying beautiful, athletic bodies, as they dance in slow motion in the town square. The female teenagers are all but ignored as director Bert I. Gordon (who had a keen eye for beefcake) lingers on the gorgeous Beau Bridges and Tim Rooney (Mickey's son), who is not quite as gorgeous but makes you wish he had appeared in more movies (or at least a centerfold or two).

The boy on the giant breast that everyone keeps mentioning is teen idol Johnny Crawford, recently graduated from "The Rifleman" and soon to display a magnificent physique of his own in "The Naked Ape"; but he's not dancing or being hugged, he's attempting to destroy the giants by catapulting at them with the antidote to the "goo."

The writers should have created a more logical, suspenseful plotline, or else they should have eliminated all pretense at a story and just had Beau Bridges, Tim Rooney, Johnny Crawford, and Tommy Kirk pose in swimsuits for 90 minutes. But it's worthwhile reminding ourselves that directors were making movies for guys long before "Risky Business."

Rating:
Summary: Village Idiots
Review: Film notable for featuring a pre-teen Ron Howard (at the height of his "Opie" fame)and a young adult Beau Bridges (son of Lloyed, older brother of Jeff, THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS). Howard as "Genius" (a child-scientific-chemistry-wiz)develops a potion to make humans and animals grow to titanic proportions. A bunch of delinquent teens (headed by Bridges) get a hold of the "Food of the Gods" (the H.G. Wells story upon which it is based) and terrorize the town. It is up to the local "good teens" (headed by Tommy Kirk of Disney fame: i.e. OLD YELLER, THE SHAGGY DOG) to stop them. The plot is basically very sophomoric with some social commentary of delinquent teens of the period, mixing the mentality and look of the "beach party" movies with very light sci-fi. The only thing missing is Frankie, Annette and Eric Von Zipper. The cheesy special effects fits the mentality of the film. One aspect of this are the giant animals superimposed on the screen with the human counterparts and a hilarious sequence in which Beau Bridges giant legs are being attacked by various characters: it looks totally fake and unrealistic. The film is fairly entertaining and their is a provacative sequence after the "delinquent teens" take the potion. As they grow, their clothes don't grow along with them (at least the filmakers showed some plausibility and logic in the film). Then they make some "revealing" makeshift clothing, and before they terrorize the town, they "go-go" dance in front of everyone. Overall, a brainless and harmless film with some some future stars in the cast. Note: Look for actress Joy Harmon in the cast as one of the delinquent teens. She was in the famous car-washing sequence in COOL HAND LUKE.

Rating:
Summary: Village of IDIOT Giants
Review: How on earth did Ron Howard get in this movie? The plot is silly, the writing and the acting stinks, and the special effects are rotten. Come think of it, how did Beau Bridges get in this movie? Both have done far better work. This movie is only watchable if you do NOT take it seriously, which unfortunately, the people making the movie did. Better yet, watch the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version if you can find it. Now there was some great writing and plenty of laughs.

Rating:
Summary: Made in the 60's, looks like the 50's
Review: I couldn't figure out why this movie is so oddly compelling (aside from the fact that it was an afternoon movie staple during the 1970's). Then it hit me...this movie was made in the mid-1960's by people who didn't realize the 1950's were over! Note the doo-wop crooning (a la Fabian), the barefoot dancing, the 1950's dress (particularly among the adults). The background and establishing shots look more like "Grease" than like "Hair". The 1960's does manifest itself, primarily in featuring the then-popular Beau Brummels in the Whisky-a-go-go scene. They were a fine band...but they take pains to look like a popular British band of the era that their (quite good) music is lost in the background.

That being said, this godawful film has established itself as a cult favorite. If you've never imagined Beau Bridges as a handsome (in a fleshy, hairy sort of way) protagonist then you MUST see this film. Many of the other young actors were also notable, including the son of Mickey Rooney, Tommy Kirk, Toni Basil (that's right, the "Oh Mickey" lady) and some others.

The suspension of disbelief required to enjoy this movie is formidaable...but at 1 hour 21 minutes it's mercifully short, and for some reason it's quite engrossing. At the beginning, we get treated to the bad teens cavorting in the mud during a rainstorm, despite the obvious presence of sunlight and hard shadows. Although Bert I. Gordon has never been afraid of too much exposition, we are led to believe that the newly-grown giants have a readily-tailored set of giant clothes conveniently stashed in a conveniently empty theater. (The theater is a device for one of the simplest "giant effects", i.e. the "giant" characters are simply projected on a movie screen that the other characters interact with). But never mind.

As for the rest of it, well, you just have to accept what you see without being critical. Yes, there are cheesy optical effects, plaster giant "feet", obvious forced perspective shots. And I've heard that the Whisky-A-Go-Go may actually be in Los Angeles, not "Hainesville".

As a cult film, a vision of mid-1960's youth, and a curiosity it's highly recommended (especially at this price). Like many others, this movie would have been perfect had it been released in it's "Mystery Science Theater" format.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Camp/Features Vintage Beau Brummels
Review: I first saw this great campy film 20 years ago on TV and its got a great mixture of INTENTIONAL camp, the beginnings of a pre-hippy teen rebelliousness (1965), and some great music from Beau Brummels. The key to this film is not to take it seriously...the cast and crew didn't. "Genius" (Ron Howard) invents "GOO", a substance that turns rebel teens into giants who take over a village and the only hope is for Genius to find an antedote. He does just in time and it all works out in the end. But not before we get some giant ducks dancing to BBs live perfomance of "Woman" and other great pre-psychedelic background music. It's a trippy comedy of it's era. You can trash it, but then you miss the point.
Also don't miss those ...giant teen girls; when they grow their bikinis pop off. And when they shrink their clothes are not quite as big as you'd think.