Thanks to young Ronnie Howard's formula, a small village gets filled with giant critters including dancing ducks, carnivores cats, friendly Fido's the size of a one story building and a pet tarantula too big for its mason jar. Still cute little Opie Taylor at the time, Howard was sort of the Andy Hardy of his time, and oh what trouble he causes in this deliciously bad science fiction "musical"? Yes indeed, there are Dancing Ducks. These friendly little quackers get ahold of some of Ronnie special formula ("the goo") and pretty soon are on a spit roasting for one of the biggest picnics this small-town community has ever seen. It's truly in bad "taste" that sees the dancing duck enliven a little party where the teenage population is down, not realizing that their intrusion will have them as a roast. It seems like the tongue was in the cheek of the people who wrote this, and if the duck isn't enough, the scary spider, the crazy cat and the friendly Pooch will certainly have you amused And when some of the Teen swallows some of Howard's formula, it really goes over the top, especially when the growing young ladies loose theirs. Oh, and speaking of Andy Hardy, one of the teen actors is played by Tim Rooney, son of the original Andy Hardy who would be jealous of the idea that Opie Taylor gets here.In addition to leading young man Tommy Kirk is a very young Beau Bridges. This hits its nadir in a sequence where giant teenagers (that alone is scary in itself) begin a dance while another one (Johnny Crawford), not made into a giant, hangs onto the sequined bra of one of the blonde bimbo beatnik type chicks who invaded the tiny community. If the opening scene of these juvenile delinquents rolling around in rain soaked mud doesn't have you rolling your eyes, this sequence (where the hapless young boob hanging on for dear life) definitely will. The presence of the few adults who don't even do a double take after seeing all the giant teens. After the film settles down into its juvenile plot, it becomes rather dull, with really wretched attempts at acting. The blonde crazy women seem like the types who would later flock to Charles Manson's country camps. At times, the really bad special effects make those on "The Amazing Colossal Man" and "The Attack of the 50' Woman" seem worthy of Oscars in comparison. If remade today, this needs to focus on the idiotic teenagers who text walking down the street, and make them crash into buildings because they are not paying attention to where they are going.

BEACH PARTY MEETS COLOSSUS MAN...an uneasy mix indeed. Bert I. Gordon's lame-brained comedy has a group of really goofy teenagers ingesting a goop created by boy genius Ronny Howard, resulting in extraordinary growth. Their brains do not seem to keep pace with their bodies as they're just as idiotic large as they are "normal" sized. Tommy Kirk tries mightily to lasso the giant teens and Toni Basil (as Red) dances a lot. A very young Beau Bridges is the lead teen giant and his performance here is probably best forgotten. The special effects are on par with other Bert I. Gordon productions, which is to say they're dreadful. Johnny Crawford, the Beau Brummels and Freddy "BOOM BOOM" Cannon are in it too. Based on THE FOOD OF THE GODS by HG Wells, a source Gordon would revisit just as badly several years later with his 1975 eco- thriller version.

Village of the Giants based very loosely on H.G. Wells Food of the Gods is one of those classic cult films that gets worse and more enjoyable on repeated viewings. Later on Bert Gordon actually did make a straight version of the science fiction classic that was quite a bit better. But I'm sure a pile of money was made on this one at many drive-ins across the country.Sad to say that films like these are what happens to a lot of teen idols. Of the cast in this film only Beau Bridges and Ron Howard went on to careers of real substance. I'm willing to bet that both look back on this film and cringe.I think what Walt Disney did to Tommy Kirk was a disgrace, but typical of Hollywood in the pre-Stonewall days. Tommy might have had a substantial career had the gay 'scandal' never happened, who knows. Or this might have been where he would have wound up any way, maybe later on. There are too many variables to consider. I would point out that Johnny Crawford didn't fare any better than Tommy in his post Rifleman career and he had no scandal attached to him at this point.What this is about is six out of town teenagers, drunk and stupid, wind up in a small town where they take some 'goo' that child scientist Ronny Howard invents and grow to be some 15 to 20 feet tall. Led by Beau Bridges, they start running things until the town kids headed by Tommy Kirk and Johnny Crawford fight back and Ron Howard finds an antidote. Best shot of the film, Johnny Crawford hanging on for dear life to giant Joy Harmon's cleavage. Must have sent them rolling in the aisles back in the day.

As mentioned in the summary line, "Village Of The Giants" has many of the elements of the live action Disney comedies of the early 60's: mildly bemused humor with a 'way out' attitude, safely toned down for the kiddies ("The Barefoot Executive"); teen gang dynamics romance, and dancing ("The Monkey's Uncle"); a magical chemical substance that breaks the laws of physics via cheesy process shots ("Flubber"); a juvenile genius ("The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes") and even Tommy Kirk (ex-Mousketeer and juvenile lead from many of the old Disney movies, by then in exile from The Magic Kingdom). My guess is that Bert I. Gordon, who tried his hand at many different genres (including fantasy, horror, and film noir)(all badly) decided to make a Disney film - only slightly hipper (music by the Beau Brummels, blonds in bikinis, drug jokes, etc) racier by 60's standards) and campier."Village" is intentionally camp and cheesy, all right. And it's even vaguely funny. Not "ha-ha" funny, but pothead funny - if you were stoned or drunk, you might get a mild chuckle out of the proceedings.In its favor, "Giants" features some pretty nice eye candy in the form of the blond girl members of the 'bad' teen gang that comes to town to make trouble for "our" wholesome, law abiding teen gang. (This is speaking as a male, of course). They're pretty hot, if you like the Pam Anderson platinum blond go-go dancer type. They also dance real good. And the Beau Brummels contribute a couple of nice, lively pop songs that are much rawer and funkier than anything you would hear in a Disney film from that time.Against: practically everything else. Beau Bridges eventually matured into a fine actor, but the movie tries to peddle him as a cool guy and a teen idol, which is ridiculous given his mole-like, opaque features, constipated expression and pale, flabby body. He has great hair and complexion, and that's it. Poor Tommy Kirk tries his best to carry the film as the teen 'hero' of the town, but at this point in his career, it was basically over for him. As a result, he tries too way hard and the movie makes him such a goody two shoes that you can't help but cheer when giant Beau backhands him for a loop. The special effects range from barely acceptable (a couple nice shots of the giant kids gathered on a theater stage) to ludicrously bad (the giant mannequin legs that Tommy breaks a chair against). The screenplay is completely brain dead even as it tries to veer from heavy handed irony to action to comedy, managing to be none of those things...not even good camp. I don't want to pick on the supporting cast, though, because the screenplay called for cardboard cutouts to go through the motions and allows none of the 'minor' members of the cast any room for something as evocative as actual 'acting'. BTW, what was the deal with the red headed go-go dancer? Was it supposed to be sexy when she vibrates all over like a blender set on 'puree'? Was she supposed to be shaking her 'bippy'? It wasn't a go-go dance, it was a muscle control exhibition...! Wait, stop, take a breath. (Whoofa, whoofa, whoofa. OMMMMMmmmmmm...)OK, the movie is basically harmless. It's just really stupid, so stupid as to nullify even the 'camp' entertainment value. MST3K covered it in one of their later 'Sci-Fi' channel episodes, which is pretty funny. Go watch that one if you can, or don't. You won't be missing much.