45 Years Ago, The Incredible Shrinking Woman Perfectly Spoofed ‘50s Sci-Fi

1957’s The Incredible Shrinking Man is hailed as one of the defining sci-fi pictures of its era, a visually impressive flight of fancy which found its sense of wonder — and abject terror — not in deep space or the distant future, but in the mundanity of everyday life. Director Joel Schumacher, screenwriter Jane Wagner, and force of nature comedian Lily Tomlin, on the other hand, believed it was the perfect candidate for a good old lampoon.

Released 45 years ago today, 1981’s The Incredible Shrinking Woman had been conceived as a straightforward sequel to Jack Arnold’s original (itself an adaptation of Richard Matheson’s novel The Shrinking Man), which would focus on wife Louise entering her lost husband’s microscopic world. But the idea got stuck in development hell until the late 1970s, when John Landis decided it needed a comedic transformation.

Unfortunately, due to budgetary constraints (Landis had envisioned a spectacle he dubbed a “cross between Star Wars and I Love Lucy”) and other commitments (a little-known film called The Blues Brothers), it was Schumacher tasked with finally bringing the picture to the screen. The first-time director, then best-known for co-writing musical pictures The Wiz, Car Wash, and Sparkle, later admitted that he was in over his head, but was helped by the immeasurable talents of his leading lady.

Indeed, even when she’s shrunk to the size of a matchstick, Tomlin still lights up the entire screen. She gets plenty of chances to show off her talents, too, reprising characters from both her one-woman stage shows (no-nonsense organic cosmetics saleswoman Judith) and Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In (rude telephone operator Ernestine), as well as the full-size and miniature versions of suburban housewife Pat. Eddie Murphy, eat your heart out.

Of course, it’s Pat who takes center stage as the woman who suffers an adverse reaction to the experimental household products ad exec husband Vance (Charles Grodin) brings home, subsequently becoming a media sensation and the prime target of an evildoing corporation. Tomlin nails the confusion and anxiety that comes with this dramatic change of perspective, which, at times, plays out like an unnerving body horror.

But with one of America’s funniest women on hand, The Incredible Shrinking Woman is more interested in drawing comic mileage out of its fantastical scenario. Pat becomes so tiny she’s forced to live in a doll’s house where she’s showered by a Betsy Wetsy. Then there’s the slapstick sequence in which our pint-sized heroine, dressed in a Little Bo Peep costume, is accidentally flung from the marital bed onto a skateboard and into the arms of a Ken doll. Throw in the grossout scene where she’s covered with rotting food after falling down a garbage disposal, and it’s clear Tomlin suffered for her art.

Wagner, Tomlin’s real-life partner, never misses the opportunity to mine the outlandish situation for puns, either. “We’ll discuss this when you come down off your soapbox,” Vance declares following an argument in which his wife is, yes, you guessed it, literally standing on a soapbox. Then there’s the funeral, staged after Pat is presumed to have perished during the garbage disposal incident, where Judith eulogizes, “No one will ever fill her shoes.” Ba-dum-tish.

As well as amusing wordplay and farcical stunts, The Incredible Shrinking Woman also throws some satire in for good measure. The rubbernecking media get it in the neck for how they gleefully leap onto others’ misfortune; foreshadowing a TV landscape where everything is analyzed to the nth degree, an anchorman wonders aloud whether Pat’s ordeal is a metaphor (“The role of the housewife has become increasingly less significant…”).

It also takes some big swings at consumer culture, from the false promises of the advertising industry to the happy ignorance of what exactly we’re putting into our bodies. Judith’s ingredients-scouring trawl down the cereal aisle (“tumescent tissue of bull scrotum”) may well put you off Cheerios for life. It’s no coincidence the film begins and ends outside a supermarket.

Aptly, The Incredible Shrinking Woman is far more effective when focusing on the smaller stuff than it is leaning into its grand conspiracy, which feels more suited to Schumacher’s later genre blockbusters than an otherwise amiable domestic comedy. The film’s concept was already audacious enough without adding a brainbox gorilla, gung-ho science geek, and shady corporation determined to shrink the entire population using Pat’s blood.

At least, unlike the original, it sent audiences home with a smile rather than existential despair. While Grant Williams’ incredible shrinking man accepted his diminutive fate and eternal loneliness in an incredibly bleak finale, Tomlin is restored to her default state, the same unknown chemicals that sparked her ailment also proving to be the cure. Well, briefly anyway. In a last-minute twist that suggested a follow-up, Pat realizes she’s now growing a little too much.

Despite its star’s best efforts, The Incredible Shrinking Woman wasn’t a notable success, and its respectable but not sequel-worthy $20 million gross put pay to any further shape-shifting adventures. Still, with its charming practical effects, vibrant pastel-colored aesthetics, and a winning lead performance from a funnywoman at the top of her game, this pint-sized caper remains a huge amount of fun.

The Incredible Shrinking Woman is streaming on Amazon Prime.