B-Movie Biology

The shrinkfilm archive features many 50’s movies of debatable quality. And there’s a reason: B-movies of the 50’s are a rich source of inspiration for size-related speculation.  The premise of the 50’s B-movie is invariably to take something out of its usual context -make people or animals large (or small)- and then deal with the consequences. In some ways it is exactly what The Incredible Shrinking Man research wants to do. However, according to biologist Michael C. LaBarbera, Hollywood’s approach to the concept has been hopelessly naïve. Absolute size cannot be treated in isolation; size per se affects almost every aspect of an organism’s biology.

In a fact & fun rich article on biology in B-movies Labarbera touches on a number of interesting aspects and exposes many B-movie misgivings , some of which The Incredible Shrinking Man cannot afford to ignore.

We’ll be coming back to this one.