Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfold (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #92

This is an example of how my tastes in films have changed over the years. This used to be my favourite film. I first saw it on videotape in the late 1990's, probably 1997. It was the very first film I bought on DVD from Amazon on 3rd August 2003. That's still the DVD that I'm holding in my hand today. I'd already bought a few DVD's from shops in Birmingham, but I'm sure it was among my first 10 films.

Maybe my tastes haven't changed that much. I didn't become a big film fan until I bought my first DVD player in 2003. I don't remember the exact date, but it can't have been long before 3rd August 2003. Sure, I'd watched films on television and videotape for years, but DVD's were a new experience for me. It's possible that I just didn't know that many films back then. On television I mostly watched the recent blockbusters. I only discovered older films later. "Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfold" remained my favourite film until 2005, when other films started to push it down the list.

I wish I'd started writing my blog in 2003 instead of waiting until 2010. The Blogger service exists since 1999, but it only became free to use after Google bought it in 2003. A year later it was made possible to insert photos into posts. After that upgrades were incremental. There weren't any big changes from 2010 to 2020, just small cosmetic changes. Now the design interface has changed. It's unfamiliar to me after ten years with the old interface, but I can put up with it. What I can't put up with is the long list of bugs that Google is unable to fix. Google's customer support for Blogger is non-existent, but in a way I can understand it. Why should they offer one-on-one support for a free product? I'd be willing to pay a reasonable amount for the privilege of direct communication with a developer. As it is, I just send the same bug list once a month to Google. There's no reply, and the bugs aren't fixed.

The centerfold in the film's title is Angel, played by J. J. North. (I hate the American spelling of centerfold, but I'll use it in this blog post). She was the Centerfold of the Month for the March edition of Plaything magazine. Now she's one of the top three models, of whom only one can become Plaything's Centerfold of the Year. She thinks she won't be picked because her breasts are shrinking. She shows them to her doctor, but he can't see any problem with them. Can you? Nevertheless, he gives her a revolutionary new serum that should increase her breast size within a week. Angel is only supposed to drink one vial each day, but she's impatient and drinks half a dozen vials on the morning of the photoshoot.

The result is that she shoots up to 60 foot in height. Poor Angel wants to get back to normal, but Bob Gordon, the owner of Plaything, has other ideas. He wants to keep her at giant size in order to exploit her as the biggest centerfold ever.

One of the other models is jealous of Angel being picked as Centerfold of the Year, so she breaks into Angel's rooms and steals the remainder of the serum. Now there are two 60 foot centerfolds!

The two girls get into a catfight that leads them all the way from the beach to downtown Los Angeles. This is one of the most ridiculous scenes I've ever seen, but it's delicious as a parody. The two bikini clad giantesses battle in the street, while people are running away from them in fear. You would think it's Godzilla battling King Kong.

There's just one problem with the film. It's not just the oldest DVD in my collection, it's the worst quality. The picture is fuzzy throughout. There are different reasons. Partially it's a poorly mastered DVD. Partially the special effects are below the standards that we expect today. The film was made in 1995, before the days of green screens. It would have cost a lot more to make the giantess scenes look more realistic.

I wrote to Fred Olen Ray begging for a remastered Blu-ray of this classic film. He replied that it's not possible because the producer Roger Corman has "mislaid the negative". That's awful. How about remaking the film, keeping as close to the original script as possible? I hope Fred is reading this.

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you might have noticed that I've skipped a number in my top 100 countdown. It's not a mistake, I skipped #93 on purpose. I shan't tell you why, but I'll get to it eventually. Be patient. All will be revealed. If you can guess the reason, leave a comment, and I'll give you a simple Yes/No answer. No more clues.