1965's "Village of the Giants" marked something of a 60s comeback for Mr. BIG, director Bert I. Gordon, in fact the only real sci fi effort he made between 1958's "Earth vs the Spider" and 1976's "The Food of the Gods," with crime dramas ("The Mad Bomber") and horror films ("Tortured," "Necromancy") in between. From a script by actor Alan Caillou (he later wrote William Shatner's 1977 "Kingdom of the Spiders"), it's a fantasy update of 'Rebel Without a Cause' with simple minded 'Beach Party' vibes, definitely a case where middle aged filmmakers trip themselves up trying to deliver something they think youngsters will like (Jon Hall did the same with "The Beach Girls and the Monster"). Joseph Levine's Embassy Pictures (later to morph into Avco Embassy) foots the bill for this rock and roll comedy, kicking things off with Jack Nitzsche's effective (though uncredited) surf rock instrumental theme "The Last Race," which segues into a smashed up car with 8 teenaged occupants displaying a raucous affinity for dancing and drinking beer, which is intended to be Gordon's idea of rebellion (they are instantly marked as the 'bad teens'). The octet is forced to walk three miles to reach the California town of Hainesville, where 'good teens' like Tommy Kirk ("Mars Needs Women") and Johnny Crawford (THE RIFLEMAN) basically do the same thing at the Whisky a Go Go, Toni Basil as Johnny's girl Red, Charla Doherty ("In the Year 2889") as Tommy's girl Nancy. Nancy's younger brother is pint sized chemist Genius (Ron Howard, taking time off from THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW), and it is he who creates a colored foodstuff called 'Goo' that turns the eater into a giant: his cat is the first to ingest, quickly rushing out never to be seen again, before a dog, two ducks, and naturally a tarantula also grow to huge proportions (the spider is all too easily dispatched with a broken water pipe and instant electrocution). After the 'bad teens,' led by Beau Bridges as Fred, drop in for more dancing, they are soon joined by the ducks, who manage to shake a tail feather before winding up the main course. This features the only group hired for the picture, The Beau Brummels from San Francisco, twice belting out "Woman" as well as the slower "When It Comes to Your Love," one of the first bands to respond to the British Invasion by writing their own material. Later on as the villagers feast upon fowl we get Freddy Cannon ("Palisades Park") breaking out with "Little Bitty Corinne," then Mike Clifford ("Close to Cathy") supplying the ballad "Marianne," to dispense with all the musical numbers during the first half. The second half finds the 'bad teens' stealing the Goo for themselves, leaving their theater refuge to wail before a captive audience, Gordon's camera closely ogling the ample assets of both Joy Harmon and Tisha Sterling with undisguised, almost drooling delight, all in slow motion to emphasize their physical enormity (Joy famously comments on her natural endowments: "I was big enough before!"). These rebels despise the adults for lecturing them but just don't get up to anything truly nasty, wisely kidnapping the sheriff's daughter to keep the law at bay, but curiously passive when Tommy and Johnny set their plan in motion to take 'big man' Fred down a notch or two (Kirk even calls him Goliath, himself posing as David with slingshot wildly missing its target). Genius literally rides to the rescue on his trusty bicycle, a solution to restore the giants to normal size again (all but the missing tabby), and one final tasteless gag involving a group of 'little people' anxious to partake of the 'Goo.' Laughingly bad at times yet essentially harmless, this became an instant camp classic, especially with adolescent male viewers who learned of the phrase 'shake your booty' long before it turned into a hit song. 25 year old Joy Harmon's enchanting freckles and bountiful bosom were later immortalized in a silent bit casually washing a car in Paul Newman's "Cool Hand Luke," while 20 year old blonde bombshell Tisha Sterling, daughter of actors Robert Sterling and Ann Sothern, earned her share of kudos for her very first screen role (she proved a fine actress in her own right for four decades, even playing opposite her mother in 1987's "The Whales of August," with the immortal Vincent Price). Bert I. Gordon would return to giant creatures just twice more, "The Food of the Gods" in 1976, followed a year later by "Empire of the Ants," working again with Tisha Sterling on 1980's "Burned at the Stake."