1967 - KING KONG ESCAPES, more Toho monster stuff

Toho Studios partnered with Rankin/Bass studios for this monster mess.  Rankin/Bass primarily made stop motion holiday specials for American television studios.  They are probably best remembered for their Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer special featuring Burl Ives as Sam the Snowman. To have these two studios team up on a film about King Kong you can probably guess what you are going to get for an end result, a film squarely aimed at children.

It seems an evil villain named Dr. Who, has built a robot version of King Kong for the purpose of digging up something called "element X."  The actor Mie Hama probably best known to western audiences as James Bond's assistant "Kissy Suzki" in You Only Live Twice is an agent for an unnamed foreign government interested in purchasing element X which will help them take over the world. 

 

Into this story comes American actor Rhodes Reason the leader of a United Nations submarine  exploring Mondo Island in search of the real King Kong.  Rhodes Reason was the brother of Rex Reason who I last saw flying around in a spaceship towards the planet Metaluna in This Island Earth. But that's another story.

Along with Reason is his trusty assistant Akira Takarada who appeared in many Honda monster movies which stared Godzilla who was usually versus something.  Also in the mix is a young woman who was an American model in Japan named Linda Miller as a member of Reason's crew.  Miller is an interesting performer in that she can't really act but has that all American blonde look that appealed to a lot of people.  For years Miller was a mysterious presence, she didn't appear in a lot of films and had kind of vanished.  It took the internet to finally track her down.

Well anyway the movie's climax involves King Kong and robot Kong battling it out on top of Tokyo Tower in true Toho monster movie fashion.  The models and miniatures are once again by the master Eiji Tsuburaya.  Although it seems Toho could have spent a little more money on a better monkey suit for the actor playing King Kong, the giant gorilla looks awfully stupid.  

The film was written by Takeshi Kimura an old pro at this kind of film.  The running time is 104 minutes.

1960 - THE HUMAN VAPOR, oddball science fiction stuff

 Ishiro Honda, Toho's original Godzilla director took on this strange hybrid of a film.  The Human Vapor is as the title says, about a man who is given the ability by a scientist  to turn himself into a gaseous cloud.  He uses this vapor power stuff to rob a a series of banks in order to bankroll a performer of ancient Japanese dance. Simultaneously, the police are after this vapor guy as they try to figure out a way to stop him. So what we have here is a film that combines science fiction with a love story and a crime thriller.

Ishiro Honda directs and I guess he gets the job done in his own way.  Honda never brought a lot of  so called directorial touches to his film.  Honda was a very pedestrian filmmaker, no fancy angles or editing for him.  Honda was always the good company man.  The strange mix of these different genres would probably have intimidated any director.  But Honda soldiers on and gets the job done I guess.

 

Since this is a Toho film, the colors are bright, the special effects are interesting and the love stories between the various characters are very chaste.  The Human Vapor is mostly for Toho science fiction film fans, a regular viewer will probably find the film kind of boring for the most part.  

 

The screenplay was by Takeshi KImura an old hand at writing Toho science fiction films, the running time is 91 minutes.

1958 - VARAN THE UNBELIEVABLE, Ishiro Honda's remake of Godzilla

Even for Toho studios which was never above reusing footage from their previous kaju films this is a mighty lazy film.  Varan The Unbelievable is essentially a quick remake of Godzilla with some King Kong story line stuff thrown in. 

It's the same old thing,  some scientists on a remote island stumble onto a monster living in a lake.  The monster gets pissed off and starts stomping on people and wrecking stuff.  The military is called in but can't seem to find a weapon that will kill it until the last moment when a scientist develops some kind of explosive or something that will finally finish off the monster.

Even for Ishiro Honda who was always the good company man this film is mighty derivative.  Apparently it started out as a TV show and was expanded into a feature film.  Whatever the background story, the whole who thing just seems mighty tired story wise and special effects wise.

The film was written by Shinichi Sekizawa who is the author on many of these kaju films notably, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Mothra and the insane fantasy Latitude Zero among many others.

The running time is 101 minutes.

1958 - THE H MAN or Bijo to Ekitai-ningen, 'Beauty and the Liquid People'

 It's almost strange to see Ishiro Honda direct a film where he actually directs actors instead of people dressed up in Godzilla suits stomping on models of Japanese cities.  But here it is, The H Man.

The film is a rather strange mixture of science fiction and gangster epic.  It seems the H men were created from hydrogen bomb testing and swim around in the water in the form of a bunch of green goo.  While this stuff is going on, the Tokyo police are in pursuit of a gang of thieves who make their headquarters at a nightclub.  The nightclub setting allows Honda to actually stage a couple of musical numbers.  So what we have here is a science fiction / gangster / musical film all rolled into one.

 

As usual with Toho productions the color is lush and the special effects while now seeming rather primitive, are very entertaining courtesy of frequent Honda collaborator  Eiji Tsuburaya a master of building intricate models and miniatures.

 The film is an entertaining and quick 87 minutes.  Takeo Murata and Ishirō Honda wrote the screenplay.

1957 - THE MYSTERIANS, Toho's science fiction battle epic.

Toho's first color science fiction film shot in a widescreen process called TohoScope.  The film is about an invasion by aliens from a destroyed planet called Mysteroid.  Earth Defense Forces primarily led by the Japanese battle to keep these aliens from kidnapping and mating with our women.

This is very colorful stuff to put it mildly. Special effects are the real star.  It features Eiji Tsuburaya's models and lots of work with the optical printer creating laser rays and lighting bolts to put it mildly.

 

Ishiro Honda, a reliable director of these types of movies was in charge of assembling this film.  

Takeshi Kimura wrote the screenplay. The rousing music score was by Akira Ifukube.  The film runs about 90 minutes.

1962 - KING KONG VS GODZILLA - Toho's monster mash

I suppose it was inevitable that Toho Studio's would get their hands on the King Kong character and have him face off against their monster Godzilla.  Sure enough somebody got stuffed into a monkey suit and squared off against the guy stuffed into the Godzilla suit

This is not a very good film but it is a rather entertaining one.  As usual if you are a lover of toys and little miniatures, Toho studios exceeds at creating this stuff.  It's almost too bad that the monsters have to stomp around and destroy these beautifully detailed models.  It really was a different time in the world of special effects.   

The film was directed as usual by Ishiro Honda a good Toho company man apparently.  

This version of King Kong Vs Godzilla has additional scenes added on by some American producer who bought the rights to this film.  These scenes mostly consist of some actor pretending to be a news anchor and rehashing scenes from the movie.  They are kind of unnecessary and interrupt the flow of the film.

97 minutes, written by Shinichi Sekizawa.

1964 - DOGORA or Dogora the Space Monster

A typical Japanese monster movie from the old monster movie director himself Ishiro Honda.

Dogora as the monster is called for some reason eats diamonds and coal.  Into this mix is a subplot about a gang of diamond thieves who needlessly complicate the standard monster movie plot.\

This is a quick enjoyable monster movie that Ishiro Honda could knock out in his sleep and he probably did.

The dubbing as usual in these movies is half the fun.

83 minutes, written by Toho's go to monster screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa.

1969 - LATITUDE ZERO, daffy fun for 12 year old boys and up.

One Mad Hatter of a film from Toho studios and director Ishiro Honda, Latitude Zero is (or better be) an elaborate science fiction fantasy which must have been made for young 10-12 year old boys.  The film features, flying lions, flying monkey men and a flying submarine.

The plot is apparently about an underwater city doing battle with an evil scientist on an island called Blood Rock.  The film has lots of American actors like Joseph Cotton, Richard Jaeckel and Cesar Romero trying to desperately keep a straight face throughout it. This is "Where's my paycheck?" acting at it's finest.

Watching it one assumes the whole thing is kind of a put on with it's weird creatures particularly the giant felt rats which are clearly very small people in costumes crawling around on all fours,  to the flying monkey men with the vampire teeth, it had to be intentional (or at least I hope it was intentional).

The end of Latitude Zero literally rips off the ending of The Wizard of Oz.  The film is highly watchable camp if you are in the right mood.  As usual the model work by Eiji Tsuburaya is a lot of fun.

105 minutes, written as usual by Shinichi Sekizawa.

1964 - MOTHRA VS GODZILLA, aka GODZILLA VS MOTHRA aka GODZILLA VS THE THING aka GODZILLA AGAINST MOTHRA

Number four in Toho's Godzilla series, he fights a big moth or butterfly or something. 

By this time the series was getting more childish and silly, with two miniature women called the Shobjin running around spouting nonsense about getting a giant egg back.  If the egg is hatched it will result in the destruction of Japan by a giant caterpillar or something.  Meanwhile a greedy businessman wants to exploit the egg by turning it into a tourist trap. 

This film has the usual nonexistent direction from Ishiro Honda, the bright color photography makes the rubber suit Godzilla outfit look very cartoonish, and being chased around by miniature tanks and rocket launchers doesn't help the film.  The attempt by Honda to introduce an anti capitalist theme into the film is ludicrous.

 

 The series now seems to exist in the alternative universe of Sid and Marty Kroft's Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.

88 minutes.

1956 - RODAN, worth a couple of laughs, not much else.

Another Toho monster or as the call them Kaiju film, apparently the first one in color.  Rodan is some sort of supersonic flying monster who can flap his wings and make cities tumble down.

This is a typical Toho monster movie,  Ishiro Honda's direction is just about nonexistent, the special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya are his usual highly detailed models and miniatures.  If I didn't know better I would think that the Japanese Defense Force was made up entirely of miniature tanks and rocket launchers.

Rodan is really not one of the better Kaiju films, it's not silly enough to be funny and even the dubbed Japanese dialog is not up to the usual ridiculous standards of these films. 

I suppose Rodan was kind of fun to go to or watch on TV for the Saturday matinee crowd during the 50's or early 60's.   It is under 90 minutes.

82 minutes.

1956 - GODZILLA KING OF THE MONSTERS, King Kong would probably disagree with that title

Somebody got the big idea to take the 1954 Toho monster movie Gojira and Americanize it. More on that later.

Godzilla was actually conceived as a kind of a rip off of Ray Harryhausen's Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. In the Harryhausen film, the beast can't be killed because his blood contains bacteria that would cause widespread disease throughout the world. The producer Tomouki Tanaka took that basic story and made their monster a mutant with an atomic breath caused from H Bomb tests that can't be killed.

The special effects director of Toho,  Eiji Tsuburaya was also impressed with Harryhausen's stop motion animation technique but since this film was being made cheap and fast, the decision was made to stick a guy in a rubber suit and have him stomp around scaled miniatures of Tokyo. What isn't always pointed out is that certain shots are of a hand puppet of Godzilla which really doesn't look like the guy in the suit.

Supposedly Ishiro Honda was the best director of the Godzilla films but his pacing and camera setups seem pretty pedestrian to me. Honda was a Toho staff director if Honda made any career contributions as a filmmaker, it was probably as an associate director to Kurosawa on Ran, Kagemusha, and Dreams. Honda's job on those films was to keep the legendary and imperialistic Kurosawa under control for Toho studios.

 
Godzilla is just a very uneven film.  At times the special effects look pretty good with the monster stomping around the miniature city sets. At other times, well the miniatures look like children's toys. Many claims have been made that Godzilla is an allegory for the United States bombing of Japan with nuclear weapons. But I think the film is what it always was, a B grade monster movie made to entertain the kids.

Anyway, after purchasing the American rights to the original Godzilla, the new distributors went ahead and reshot parts of the movie with Raymond Burr. They hired an experienced film editor named Terry Morse who carefully matched the black and white Japanese film footage with his new American scenes.  Morse restructured the film by adding a narration to it and shortening it. This is the version that gained the most popularity internationally.  Even watching this film today, I'm still impressed with this rework job.

 
Godzilla is just not a good film. The film still suffers from poor pacing in the Japanese scenes and it has a very lame ending with a scientist who just happens to invent something that will kill the monster.  A chaste love triangle seems out of place and very contrived.   During all the destruction  none of the main characters is really ever in danger.  Godzilla is not good drama.

Still there is something fascinating about watching an unstoppable force destroy a modern city which is very enjoyable in a primal way.

 80 minutes, written by Takeo Murata, Ishirō Honda and Uncredited: Terry O. Morse.

1962 - GORATH the end of the world is coming lets have a meeting

Gorath is the third in Toho's space trilogy after The Mysterians and Battle in Outer Space. A large planet is detected in outer space the Japanese send a space ship up to check on it, the spaceship promptly crashes into the planet and everyone figures out that the planet is on a collision course for Earth. What to do? Call a meeting.

 

 
This film has lots of meetings. Everyone spends the first half of the film meeting with someone else. Lots and lots of talk. Finally at the UN the decision is made to stick giant rocket engines on the South Pole and push the Earth out of the way. This sets up many scenes of Toho models and miniatures being constructed at the South Pole. As the planet Gorath gets closer and the rocket engines are fired, a giant walrus which doesn't appreciate all of the noise shows up.

Ishiro Honda the director made lots of these types of fantasy films and he does appear to be interested in pushing a message of mankind finding the ability to work together for a greater purpose.  But Honda was also a company man as well, so if Toho wanted a giant monster walrus in their movie Toho got a giant monster walrus in their movie.
  

As with all of these Toho space epics from this period the real comes from watching the model and miniature work of Eiji Tsuburaya and his special effects team.  Everything looks pretty dated now and even back then the model work was very phony looking, but they do give the picture a toy like charm.

89 minutes, written by Takeshi Kimura.

1959 - THE GREAT SPACE WAR aka BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE or whatever

Thankfully back to some fun after the last 2 posts about the human condition. This is the 2nd of Toho's space trilogy and a sequel to The Mysterians.

 

The Natal, a bunch of alien midgets have decided to take over the planet Earth and make everyone their servants or slaves or something. They have set up operations on the Moon and it's up to the nations of the Earth to set aside their differences and work together to kick their little alien asses back to the planet Natal.

Primarily led by the Japanese, two spaceships head to the moon where they destroy the alien moonbase. This escalates the conflict and results in an all out battle between the earth defense forces and the flying saucers in the upper atmosphere of earth.

 

 

This thing was directed by Ishiro Honda who had previously filmed the original Godzilla and whose career was mostly involved in making "giant monsters stomp all over Tokyo" films for Toho. Honda was a golfing buddy of Akira Kurosawa and towards the end of his career he worked as a special assistant to Kurosawa on his final films. Hondo assisted and possibly co-directed scenes on Kagemusha, Ran, Dreams and Rhapsody in August. An amazing career in film.

But lets get serious here, everyone watches these films to see the detailed models get destroyed and that is the work of Toho's famous special effects technician Eiji Tsuburaya. This guy was prolific, he worked on over 250 films in his lifetime. Tsuburaya's son has given interviews where he talks about playing with his father's elaborate toy models as a kid what a great childhood that must have been.

To wrap it up, above is a picture of Eiji Tsuburaya (who is in the center) and some of the production team posing with the cast of Destroy All Monsters.

93 minutes, written as usual by Shinichi Sekizawa.