Some films make you larger and some films make you small. Go ask Alice or, for that matter, ”The Amazing Colossal Man” and ”The Incredible Shrinking Woman.”
From teeny housewives to elephantine ants, the movies have been playing havoc with human and animal sizes for more than 30 years, most recently with
”Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” last year`s surprise box-office hit, now available on video. Cross-sizing is grand movie magic, making visually possible the impossible, and giving viewers a unique perspective of ordinary life forms with which we interact.
Let`s start small. ”The Incredible Shrinking Man” is a classic of 1950s science fiction. Grant Williams stars as a man whose exposure to radioactivity puts him at a disadvantage against such full-grown menaces as a spider and the family cat.
But these are small potatoes to the kids in ”Honey, I Shrunk the . . .” Zapped down to smaller-than-ant size by hapless scientist Rick Moranis` laser contraption, they face such perils as B-52-sized bees and the dreaded lawn mower.
”The Incredible Shrinking Woman” stars Lily Tomlin as a housewife who suffers unexpected side effects from everyday household products.
If you can`t find ”Fantastic Voyage” at the video store, venture into
”Innerspace” with Dennis Quaid, a hot-shot pilot who is miniaturized and accidentally injected into hypochondriac Martin Short`s body.
For those looking for a really big show, they don`t come any bigger than
”The Amazing Colossal Man.” The final showdown takes place at Hoover Dam, where plutonium-contaminated Col. Manning has gone on a romping, stomping rampage.
Albert Dekker stars as ”Dr. Cyclops,” a bald, bespectacled mad scientist who shrinks five people and holds them prisoner in his Amazon jungle lair.
Hell hath no fury like a 50-foot woman scorned. ”Attack of the 50-Foot Woman” stars Allison Hayes, who cuts her philandering husband down to size after an encounter with a bald alien transforms her into a ”female colossus,” with, according to the film`s ads, ”skyscraper limbs, giant desires!”
The animal kingdom has not been spared genetic tampering. Preacher-turned-actor Marjoe Gortner and Ida Lupino are in ”The Food of the Gods,”
but the real stars are the humongous chickens, wasps, rats and other animal experiments gone awry. Another `50s classic, ”Them!”, depicts every picnicker`s nightmare: 12-foot-high ants!
But ”Village of the Giants” towers above them all. Dig this crazy cast: Beau Bridges, Johnny Crawford (the son of ”The Rifleman”), Tommy Kirk and little Ronnie Howard as ”Genius,” who invents a goop that causes pets and delinquent teens looking for kicks to grow 10 times their normal size.
Mad scientists
Scientists, whether benignly absent-minded or quite mad, and doctors on the edge have been enduring fixtures of the movies, which allow them to pursue their experiments on a grand scale.
”The Absent Minded Professor”/”Son of Flubber”: Fred MacMurray is Dr. Brainard, creator of the high-bouncing, gravity-defying flubber.
”Dead Ringers”: Jeremy Irons stars as twin gynecologists Elliott and Beverly Mantle. One is on the brink of madness.
”Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”: Fredric March won an Oscar as the good doctor-and the bad Mr. Hyde-in the 1932 classic, recently released for the first time on video in its original, uncensored version.
”The Fly”: David Hedison is Andre Belambre, who experiments in transmitting matter until a fly bugs up the works, and ”The Fly”: Jeff Goldblum as Seth Brundle in David Cronenberg`s graphic remake of the 1958 classic.
”Frankenstein”/”Bride of Frankenstein”: Not content to leave dead enough alone, Colin Clive, as the original Dr. Frankenstein, creates a hissing mate for his monster.
”The Invisible Man”: You haven`t seen anything until you don`t see Claude Rains as scientist Jack Griffin.
”The Nutty Professor”: Jerry Lewis` masterwork. His Jekyll and Hyde formula transforms the bumbling Professor Kelp into the suave, Dean Martin-like Buddy Love.
”Weird Science”: Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith are teenage computer wizards who write a program for the perfect woman and get more than they bargained for in their creation, Kelly Le Brock.
