The Amazing Colossal Man (1957)
Directed by Bert I. Gordon

Film Review

The phenomenal success of Jack Arnold's The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) was what led American International Pictures to rush into production a film in which atomic radiation caused a man not to diminish in size but to grow to gigantic proportions.  It so happened that AIP owned the rights to Homer Eon Flint's 1928 novella The Nth Man, in which a man grows to a height of ten miles, so it looked as if the studio had within its grasp another sure-fire hit that would allow it to cash in on the craze for radiation-created monstrosities that was presently sweeping the globe.  When  Roger Corman walked off the project, Bert I. Gordon was hired to replace him, his only previous directing credit being on the laughably bad monster movie King Dinosaur (1955).  As befitted his initials (B.I.G.), Gordon would end up devoting virtually his entire career to making films featuring oversized creatures, effectively repeating over and over again the basic premise of his first feature for A.I.P.

The Amazing Colossal Man has none of the sophistication and poetry of Jack Arnold's film - it basically just reworks an established formula, making the most of the fairly primitive special effects that were available at the time to a low budget production.  Back projection and standard matting techniques avoided the need for detailed miniature sets and are used effectively by Gordon to create a fairly convincing effect when the titular colossus goes on his rampage (as he must surely do) in the film's final dramatic act.  Cinematographer Joseph F. Biroc lends a suitably gloomy feel to the piece (his impressive list of credits include It's a Wonderful Life, Donovan's Brain and The Flight of the Phoenix), particularly the early part of the film which is more character-centric and admirably carried by Cathy Downs and William Hudson.   By contrast, the star of the film, Glenn Langan, gives a somewhat O.T.T. performance that ends up being bigger than the character he is playing.

The science is horrendously shaky in parts (apparently the heart consists of a single cell...) but if you're the kind of person who's worried about scientific accuracy you probably wouldn't be watching the film in the first place.  Aside from its excursions into the realms of fantasy and obvious lack of scientific understanding, the script is reasonably well written (the protagonists talk like human beings) and holds the attention well - at least it does up until the midway point, after which the film ends up as just another bog standard monster movie.  Reasonable as the effects are for a cheapish film of this time, there isn't much in the way of surprise and there's a distinct lack of pathos and dramatic impact in the rushed denouement.  Still, the film is somewhat better than the sequel that Bert Gordon subsequently directed, War of the Colossal Beast (1958), which carries on (improbably) where The Amazing Colossal Man signed off, after its abrupt plunge into mediocrity.

Film Synopsis

A plutonium bomb is to be detonated in the middle of the Nevada desert.  For some reason, the bomb's explosion is delayed and when a light aircraft crashes in the vicinity of the bomb Colonel Glenn Manning feels impelled to leap out of the protective trench and go to the aid of the crash survivors.  Before Manning can reach the smashed plane the bomb goes off and he is caught in the blast.  Badly burned, he is rushed to hospital but his chances of survival are minimal.  His fiancée Carol Forrest has an anxious few hours waiting for news of his condition as surgeon Dr Linstrom tends to his injuries.  The following morning, Linstrom is astonished to find that Manning's skin has completely healed and he is at once excited by the recuperative possibilities of plutonium radiation.  When Carol next visits the hospital, her fiancée has been moved to another facility, at a secret military base in Nevada.  Forcing her way into the facility, Carol is horrified to find that Manning has almost trebled in height.  Dr Linstrom is forced to admit that the radiation has caused Manning's body cells to multiply at a far greater rate than normal, leading to a progressive increase in his size.  As he works on a possible cure that will restore the colonel to his former height Manning continues to grow....