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Greetings, and welcome to VIEWING THE CLASSICS. Here you'll find capsule reviews of vintage movies from the early days of cinema through the 1970s, with a special emphasis on sci-fi, horror, and mystery movies. Be sure to check out the Pages links, where you can find a Film Index of all my reviews, links to the reviews organized by cast members, directors, and other contributors, and links to my reviews of the films of talented young director Joshua Kennedy.

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Monday, January 26, 2015

The Amazing Colossal Man (1957)

Starring Glen Langan, Cathy Downs, William Hudson, Larry Thor, James Seay
Directed by Bert I. Gordon
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

An army colonel is caught in a plutonium explosion, and miraculously survives, but begins growing in size, eventually turning into a 60-foot giant. 

Not a great movie, and the special effects don't hold up very well, with Langan's immense figure in much brighter contrast than the backgrounds he's inserted in, but I'm still rather fond of this picture, and it's arguably Bert I. Gordon's signature film.  At times it's hard to take seriously, with Langan's bald half-naked figure making an awkward impact on the screen, but the actor does a reasonable job of delivering the character's pain and humiliation, and like many of Gordon's other pictures, there's a fun factor in seeing what effects he's going to deliver, and what's going to happen to his characters in the end.

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