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Gamera The Giant Monster (1965)

Apr 201965

Zoology professor Oshima, his assistant, and a photographer are carrying out research connected to legendary giant turtles in the arctic when aerial combat causes a plane to crash, setting off its nuclear payload and waking Gamera. The giant turtle kills everyone on a ship and then heads off to find energy to consume. In Japan, a disturbed child with a turtle fixation is out by the seashore dwelling on his turtle when Gamera shows up. The dimwitted kid decides Gamera is actually his pet enlarged and decides to get in the way whenever possible. Oshima must come up with a plan to stop Gamera.

While created to compete with Godzilla, the first Gamera film is more like Godzilla’s predecessor, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. Again, the monster isn’t mutated due to radiation, but has been asleep for eons in ice. Human folly is only involved in waking him, with explosives. Our heroic human trio work closely with the military and everyone just trusts and believes everyone else until they come up with a scientific/military solution. Any theme dealing with the dangers of nuclear weapons are kept vague and in the background. This is a monster/adventure yarn, and nothing more.

The only real difference in structure is the addition of the child, who has no affect on anything. He’s obnoxious and wastes a lot of time. The only thing worse than the child is how he is treated. No one punishes him or confines him as he places himself and others in danger. They let him hang about in the middle of military operations and just hug him. I thought the Japanese were supposed to be strict.
Gamera The Giant Monster isn’t a bad film when compared to other daikaiju flicks, nor terribly good. Its major problem is there is no reason to see it beyond needing to see one Gamera movie, and there’s a better choice. The film is too much like twenty other giant monster films, all of them better. The FX are weak, but not far below the average for the time (or perhaps a decade earlier as Gamera the Giant Monster is more like something released in 1955, including being in B&W). The acting, generally, is slightly better than in similar films. The failure in that area is in the non-Japanese language bits (which was also true of Toho’s films). Apparently there were no passable American actors in Japan, and the director had no idea what the White guys were saying.

Like Gojira’s first film, Gamera The Giant Monster wasn’t just dubbed for the US market. New scenes were shot on the cheep to put more Americans in the film, and as with Godzilla King of the Monsters, the added characters do little and have almost no interaction with the Japanese characters. The result was titled Gamera The Invincible. On the positive side, there is a slight reduction in scenes with the annoying child, and the replacement American military base scenes at the beginning have substantially less embarrassing acting. The major additions are a pointless TV interview segment where Americans debate if Gamera exists, and Broderick Crawford as a general sitting around with other White guys and talking. Some of these info dumps replace ones in the original while others do nothing. Crawford was always a limited actor and he only showed up for the paycheck. He doesn’t appear to know his lines. The American version also adds a Gamera theme song. The Japanese version is better, but neither are great and it doesn’t make a lot of difference which you see if you put in the effort to see either.

Foreign Language, Giant Monsters, Reviews Tagged with: Two Reels

Gamera “Showa” films

Apr 201965

Gamera The Giant Monster (1965)
Gamera vs. Barugon (1966)
Gamera vs. Gyaos (1967)
Gamera vs. Viras (1968)
Gamera vs. Guiron (1969)
Gamera vs. Jiger (1970)
Gamera vs. Zigra (1971)
Gamera Super Monster (1980)

Gamera was Daiei studio’s attempt to compete with Toho’s Godzilla and he was reasonably successful in a financial sense, with eight “Showa” films (1965-1980) before mismanagement bankrupted the studio. He was rebooted in three far superior “Heisei” films (reviewed here) and was rebooted yet again in 2006 for a single film. Gemera is a prehistoric giant turtle, freed from the ice due to an atomic explosion. He eats (and sometimes breaths) fire and can fly, appearing as a saucer.

Gamera started with a disadvantage: His only purpose was to sell tickets. There was no artistic focus to go with the commercial one. There was no theme the filmmakers wanted to get across. That just leaves empty films filled with big monster fights, and to pull that off, you need to be very good at constructing that action. But no one was. The Gamera films were cheaper than the Godzilla ones, with no FX experts to overcome that deficit. Nor was there a genius like composer Akira Ifukube involved to give the series an extra kick; even the worst Godzilla movie had the advantage of his memorable musical themes.

The Gamera films were always kid-oriented, but after the first few movies, they dove hard into this aspect. The turtle changed quickly from a fearsome monster to a friend of children. Kids (known as “Kennys,” though not always with the overly tight pants that define them in other Japanese films) became the main human characters and the films developed a pattern. Some monster would appear to threaten the Earth and Gamera, hero and friend to children, would pop up to fight it, but would be sidelined early. Then two prepubescent boys, often with a sister who would be left behind to deal with the adults, would go on a series of adventures, often including an exotic vehicle (mini-subs and spacecraft were used repeatedly). These children would be allowed into the highest corridors of power and would have all the right answers while the adults flailed. Finally Gamera would return to defeat some poorly constructed monster. To aid sales in the US, one child was Caucasian—apparently American.

Even for children, the Gamera films have little to offer. I don’t know how they succeeded in Japan, but kids around me back in the ‘60s found them embarrassing. They spoke down to children. And what child wants to watch a kid on screen instead of a monster? If there’s one thing I remember from childhood it is that monsters were cool; kids yelling “Gamera” over and over were not. This was filmmaking for children by people who didn’t think much of children.

It would take a reboot of the series in the ‘90s for Gamera to finally come into his own and be real competition for the giant lizard.

Gamera The Giant Monster (1965)

Zoology professor Oshima, his assistant, and a photographer are carrying out research connected to legendary giant turtles in the arctic when aerial combat causes a plane to crash, setting off its nuclear payload and waking Gamera. The giant turtle kills everyone on a ship and then heads off to find energy to consume. In Japan, a disturbed child with a turtle fixation is out by the seashore dwelling on his turtle when Gamera shows up. The dimwitted kid decides Gamera is actually his pet enlarged and decides to get in the way whenever possible. Oshima must come up with a plan to stop Gamera.

Gamera The Giant Monster isn’t a bad film when compared to other daikaiju flicks, nor terribly good. Its major problem is there is no reason to see it beyond needing to see one Gamera movie, and there’s a better choice. The film is too much like twenty other giant monster films, all of them better. The FX are weak, but not far below the average for the time (or perhaps a decade earlier as Gamera the Giant Monster is more like something released in 1955, including being in B&W). The acting, generally, is slightly better than in similar films. The failure in that area is in the non-Japanese language bits (which was also true of Toho’s films). Apparently there were no passable American actors in Japan, and the director had no idea what the White guys were saying.

Gamera vs. Barugon/War of the Monsters (1966)

Gamera’s rocket is struck by a meteor, returning him to earth where he vanishes from the movie for nearly an hour. Meanwhile, three men (who I think might be low level gangsters—it isn’t clear) head to New Guinea to recover an opal that our more-or-less hero’s brother hid during WWII. The opal is not a stone, but an egg, which hatches Barugon who grows into a giant monster and attacks Japan.

In a series that drifted more and more childish with each new film, the second Gamera movie fouled up that curve by being substantially less goofy than its predecessor, in large part because it is the only Gamera Showa film without a child as a major character. Rumors claim that the island dancing girls were initially planned to be topless, and several scenes, while innocent (depending on what you think about blood licking), are suggestive of oral sex. The end product is juvenile, just much less juvenile than the rest of the franchise. You can only be so mature with a monster that shoots rainbows and is a guy crawling around on all fours.

The film is odd in another way—it is hardly a Gamera movie and I suspect the original script didn’t contain him. Gamera has only a few minutes of screen time, in re-used footage at the beginning, a brief battle two-thirds in, and then a final brawl, and he has nothing to do with the rest of the story. If you made one of the military plans more successful, you could have written him out.

The two leads, Keisuke the fortune-hunter and Kara (always subtitled as Karen) the island girl, are handled unusually well. They don’t do much, but Keisuke isn’t embarrassing—which is very rare for a human in a Gamera movie) and Kara is captivating. She’s portrayed by Kyoko Enami, one of the great beauties of Japanese cinema.

The giant monster fights are silly, but no more silly than in other daikaiju flicks of the time, and a good deal less than Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster and Son of Godzilla which came out within a year.

While you can now find an English subtitled version of Gamera vs Barugon, it was originally released in the US in a cut and dubbed form as War of the Monsters. Twelve minutes were cut, all of which involved the leads discussing plans with the military. Their loss makes the film more nonsensical (where did that giant diamond come from and why are they suddenly in a helicopter?) but doesn’t do substantial damage. And the dubbing is surprisingly good.

My rating is a bit high, but any daikaiju fan should see one of the early Gamera films, and the rating indicates that this is the one.

Gamera vs. Gyaos (1967)

A volcanic eruption serves the dual purpose of calling Gamera and waking Gyaos, an ancient flying lizard-bat that shoots sonic beams. Nearby, a greedy firm is trying to build an expressway through a village of equally greedy people. The prepubescent grandson of the village elder is obsessed by Gamera and makes friends with him. It is up to the child, the expressway supervisor, and some scientists to stop Gyaos.

Following the lead of Godzilla films of the time, Gamera vs Gyaos aims for a younger audience. Giant monster movies tend to be aimed toward the young, but we are talking single digits here. Four to six-year-olds are the audience. Show this to a ten-year-old and he’ll be embarrassed. The monsters are now filmed to expose every weakness in the special effects and they are weak. The Gyaos costume is bargain-basement and Gamera doesn’t look any better. The attempts to place a human in the same frame as a monster—which comes up often as both monsters lift the child—come off as failed Styrofoam homecoming floats. But then this is a film where a kid rides on the giant turtle’s back and road inspectors and children can wonder into government briefings, so no one was terribly worried about not being embarrassing.

Gamera is a straight-up hero now—this change is never explained. He never harms people or property, and shows up just to stop Gyaos. He’s become a big puppy, listening to the call of his master, the Kenny. And that kid never shuts up. There are ten solid minutes of the child yelling “Gamera!”

With so much time spent with the Kenny, and in meetings, there’s no time for the characters (and no money for the cheap-ass fights). After the kid, the lead is probably supposed to be the road superintendent, but he gets to do nothing. They don’t even bother with the semi-romance with the Kenny’s sister (so why is she in the film?), but then romance doesn’t fit in a film for a sex-year-old.

It all ends in a peppy Gamera song, in case you needed a statement that this film is just a string of bad discussions.

Gamera vs. Viras (1968)

Gamera is just wandering around in outer space, which is something he does now, when he runs into hostile aliens in a collection of beach balls. He destroys the balls after they have radioed home for reinforcements. On Earth, two Kennys, one Japanese and one American, are at some kind of international boy scout camp. They play some pranks, cause some problems, and manage to go on a submarine journey with Gamera. The new alien ship arrives and capture the two kids to use as hostages because Gamera would never do anything to harm children. It is up to the two young boys to save the day and have an exciting adventure.

While Gamera vs. Gyaos was a generic dikaiju movie adjusted to be for young children, Gamera vs. Viras is a children’s movie with monsters. There are hardly any adults and they exist to be the butt of the children’s pranks. This is all bright shiny colors as we follow our two child-leads as they explore a space ship, control a giant monster, and save the world. This is where the line “Gamera is a friend to all children” came from. We even have the entire world declare that we must surrender because we can’t allow the two boys to be hurt, which lets them bravely state that they would sacrifice themselves. Of course this is Japanese children’s programming, so they say “shit” and five guys are decapitated.

Cheap is the word of the day. There’s extensive use of past footage. At the twenty-one minute point, the film pauses for a ten minute recap of the previous films. Oddly, the recap is nearly twice as long in the American version, titled Destroy All Planets—bringing this overly short film up to 90 minutes. Gamera’s attack on a dam and on a city are re-used scenes from earlier films. Even the new footage is used repeatedly, with Gamera’s attack on the second ship filled out with a clip from his attack on the first. And much of the film is the kids’ exploration of the spaceship, which is one set re-colored as they supposedly enter the next look-alike room.

Is this worse than the previous entry? That depends. For anyone over ten who isn’t watching to make fun of it, then yes. But for your young child, or for your drunken party when you want to throw cheese puffs at the screen, Gamera vs. Viras will work better.

Gamera vs. Guiron (1969)

Two school boys discover a spaceship which takes off when they get in, leaving a sister behind to fail to convince the adults what’s happened. The ship is almost hit by a meteor, but Gamera, who was perusing space for lost children, saves the day. But the mighty turtle can’t keep up with the spaceship, which lands on Terra, a planet on the other side of the Sun from Earth. Terra is under constant attacks from space gyaoses, which the only two survivors of this alien world fend off with Guiron, a quadrupedal shark with a knife for a head. They plan to eat the children and travel to Earth, but finally Gamera arrives.

Gamera vs. Guiron is much like the previous film, Gamera vs. Viras. Again we have two kids (one Japanese, one American) in space. It’s much more a kids adventure film than a daikaiju flick. There’s no city crunching here. The two kids wonder around the new and exciting planet and comment to each other about the things they see and what they will do next. This is a movie where kids with a dart gun are as effective as super-technological aliens. Adults, not counting aliens, are hardly in the film and are useless (and manage to be more annoying than the children).

And again, it is really cheap. There’s plenty of reused footage to save money (they don’t even bother tinting the scene from the B&W Gamera The Giant Monster). The planet is made up of a few small sets with a few simple miniatures, and obvious map paintings. In one scene rocks come crashing down and you can see the Styrofoam bounce off the children. Guiron is a ghastly looking monster that didn’t push the budget.

On the bright-side, the two alien chicks are quite cute and wear spangly outfits with capes. That’s as sexy as a Gamera movie gets.

Be ready for multiple renditions of the Gamera song. The film ends with the moral: We shouldn’t dream of other planets, but make this one free of “wars and traffic accidents.”

Gamera vs. Jiger (1970)

After an extensive lesson on the World’s fair, we switch to Wester Island (yes, I said “Wester”) where Gamera attempts to interfere with the movement of a giant statue to the fair. Soon after, the monster Jiger rises from the local volcano and quickly incapacitates our superhero turtle. It will take two children, one Japanese, one American, to save the day by taking a mini-sub into Gamera’s body.

Japan was hosting the 1970 Worlds Fair and the nation was displaying a great deal of pride—or maybe they just wanted to sell tickets. World’s fairs used to be a big deal, a place to showcase technological advancements. So they made a Gamera movie about the fair, which is quite odd as the film repeatedly denigrates science in favor of superstition: If everyone just believed in curses likes they should, things would be fine. Though people are dying and the city is being destroyed, the first concern of the Government is non-ironically stopping any disruption of the fair. The World’s fair was really important.

Jiger is a unconvincing monster, which was true of all the quadruped daikaiju. He shoots a destructo ray from his back and darts from his horns. Daiei never had much skill in coming up with monsters, with Gyoas being the least ridiculous, and even he was built poorly. Jiger is average for a rotten bunch.

The monster fights, like in Godzilla before it, had become sillier. Gamera grabs a pipe to block the darts. They toss rocks back and forth, and Gamera uses phone poles to plug his ears.

I’ve no doubt that the trip inside Gamera was pitched to be like Fantastic Voyage, but it is just a few kids running around in a blanket-covered set. And don’t think about the size of things as Gamera would have to be a hundred times bigger for this to even pretend to be to scale.

Gamera vs Zigra (1971)

Two children—this time a boy and a girl, who are younger than in previous films—are kidnapped along with their astoundingly stupid fathers by aliens who plan to takeover the world with their earthquake machine and then live in the oceans. The kids outsmart the alien woman and return to Earth. Will Gamera defeat the aliens? Will the kids be crucial in reviving Gamera? Will this be the dumbest movie in the franchise? All will be revealed, unfortunately.

While the previous four films had been juvenile and primitive, this one is those things topped with being frustrating. It goes on and on with the spacegirl chasing our too-young-for-film children. They go down corridors, in and out of doors, down more corridors, up some stairs, across the plaza, etc. But then no one was even pretending to try in this production. This was the last of the regular Showa films. The company was in shambles and no one had any ideas. The alien spaceship is a gumball machine and the evil monster is a stiff-looking model shark. Much of the third act is a dozen people huddled together around a screen in a very small room. What very little monster action we get is not worth seeing. At least Gamera trying to sneak up on the sleeping shark should have been funny, but it isn’t. Partly that’s because Gamera vs Zigra wants to be taken seriously and pretend that the children are in real danger. Plus it dumps a theme on top: Pollution is bad. Pollution was becoming a popular subject for Japanese monster movies and this was Gamera’s ham-fisted shot at the theme. It works as well as everything else in the film.

Outside of the cute spacegirl who puts on a bikini, and Gamera playing his theme song with a rock on the shark’s back like a xylophone, Gamera vs Zigra doesn’t even work at a drunken party. Choose a different one and let this be forgotten.

Gamera: Super Monster (1980)

The alien Zenon have come to invade Earth in a star destroyer they stole from Star Wars. Luckily the Earth is defended by three female super heroes. Unluckily, they have no weapons or useful strengths and if they transform into their outfits, they will be shot from space. The Zenon’s plan is to set loose a bunch of monsters that happen to be the one in previous Gamera movies. Of course Gamera shows up to defeat the monsters just as he did before. Also hanging around to use up time is a kid who plays the Gamera march on the organ and seems to have a pointless connection to Gamera and an evil Zenon lady who isn’t quite up to the task of dealing with a child.

Daiei was dead, its assets bought by another company, which decided it wanted a Gamera movie, though they didn’t want to pay much. They weren’t even a film company, but figured they could make something back on their investment. The old contracts were still in force, so the filmmakers had no choice. And it turns out a giant monster movie is pretty cheap if you don’t film giant monsters. So they edited together clips from the previous films and shot a minimum amount of new footage, mainly dealing with humans in everyday environments, and they had their film.

The actions of the humans (and space women) have nothing to do with the monsters’s actions. People in the streets don’t act like the country is under attack (I’m guessing many weren’t aware they were in a film). There’s no attempt to make the pieces fit together. The evil lady wants to kill the superhero women because they are somehow on Gamera’s team, except they aren’t in any way. They just watch him on their home video screen. The voice from the space ship keeps threatening the evil girl when Gamera wins due to her failure, except she’s not in charge of the battles with Gamera—she came down to get the three superheroes. Gamera: Super Monster is just some nonsensical new clips stuck between old footage.

Is this worse than the abysmal Gemera vs Zigra? As a movie, yes, much worse, as it barely qualifies as a film. However, if all you want is a way to catch up on the bad Gamera movies, perhaps for your geek trivia contest, without having to watch those films, then this serves a purpose.

And that’s Gamera’s early years: eight films, six of them to be avoided unless you are four years old or very drunk. Fifteen years later he would be revived in a series of films worth your time.

Foreign Language, Giant Monsters

Chimes at Midnight (1965)

Feb 191965

Sir John Falstaff (Orson Welles) carouses with Prince Hal (Keith Baxter) and several unscrupulous characters, often in the bawdy house of Mistress Quickly (Margaret Rutherford), much to the displeasure of King Henry IV (John Gielgud). However a civil war and the king’s failing health will change the prince and his relationship with Falstaff.

The idea is brilliant: knitting together the Falstaff material from Henry IV Parts 1 & 2, with bits from Henry V, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Richard II, and using only Shakespeare’s lines except for the narration from Holinshed’s Chronicles. Falstaff is the most memorable (and popular) character from the Henry IV plays, so why not tell his story? In 1965, the now corpulent Welles was an obvious choice for the lead, and with his cinematic eye and command of language, him being director and “writer” (knitter of lines) is nearly as fitting. And the film does look beautiful.

But this is Welles, whose refusal to compromise left all his works compromised. In Chimes At Midnight that meant he didn’t have the money to finish the film properly, or shoot it all at once, or with all English speaking actors. He picked up shots when he could, often with imperfect doubles and had to adjust the framing to hide imperfections. He dubbed many of the voices himself. All of which weakens the film from what might have been, but turn out to be minor flaws.

But there’s a major flaw. The choices of what to keep and what to cut left the fellowship moments of Henry IV Part 1 out, so we never see the camaraderie amongst the gang. There’s no friendship, and certainly no love. Falstaff doesn’t even seem fond of Hal, and Hal is only contemptuous of Falstaff. Yes, that needs to be there, but there needs to be some bond between these characters. Falstaff suffers for it, but Hal suffers more, becoming completely unlikable. The “jokes” they play on each other seem like little fun, and that’s the point as Hal grows away from Falstaff to become a king in spirit, but he had to be close to move away. Hal seems cruel and obnoxious instead of young and foolish. It made me care little about Falstaff, and wish Hotspur had run Hal through.

And the cutting isn’t severer enough in other places. This is Falstaff’s story, and we should have kept with him. I like the scenes with Hotspur, but except for the final duel, have nothing to do with Falstaff. Likewise, most of what goes on at the castle is outside of Falstaff’s world.

There’s enough good here, mainly in art design and line readings, to make this worth watching, but it should have been better.

Reviews, Shakespeare Tagged with: Two & 1/2 Reels

The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964)

Nov 071964

The tomb of Prince Ra is opened by a group of scholarly archeologists, who are treated none too well by the locals for their efforts. But then the contents of the tomb are treated far worse when their greedy American benefactor (Fred Clark) shows up with plans to exhibit the remains of the prince, side-show style. Soon the mummy is up, destroying those who entered the tomb. But something even more mysterious is going on and someone has a secret, but is it disgraced drunken archeologist Sir Giles Dalrymple (Jack Gwillim), beautiful and French-for-no-reason Annette DuBois (Jeanne Roland), rich and handsome amateur Egyptologist, Adam Beauchamp (Terence Morgan), or the disapproving Egyptian Hashmi Bey (George Pastell)? It is up to John Bray (Ronald Howard) to discover what is truly happening, before the mummy finishes him.

The second of Hammer studio’s mummy cycle, and unrelated to the others, The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb is a surprisingly clever film, trotting out all the mummy clichés, and then smashing them into dust. The characters are all presented as the cardboard cutouts we’ve learned to expect in mummy films, and then shown to be completely different. The normal bad guys are noble, the heartless fool isn’t either heartless or a fool, and the wise man is less than wise. OK, Miss DuBois is nothing but a pair of breasts on legs, but otherwise the characters are complicated, with conflicting desires. The plot appears to follow the over-tried and true formula, but again, shatters expectations. It isn’t about a mummy squashing folks for entering a tomb. Yes, there is a splatter or two, but The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb isn’t a typical horror film, but a suspense/mystery, with a mummy tossed it. People looking for the same old Hammer Horror flick, or just another mummy pic will be (and have been) disappointed that the focus isn’t non-stop monster mayhem. Everyone else will be pleased to find something more.

The cast also helps to elevate The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb from its B/C-movie roots. Ronald Howard lends an air of sophistication to a role that could have been annoying in the hands of a younger actor. Gwillim, Morgan, and Bey all supply solid support, while Clark steals the show. Fred Clark was a top notch comic character actor, and he’s in full, fast-talking quip mode, making obnoxious American showman Alexander King likeable as well as supplying energy to the non-bloody portion of the film. Only Jeanne Roland drags down the proceedings, but as she is around for fully-covered eye candy, and she is quite attractive, she can be forgiven.

Like 1959’s The Mummy, the clear cinematography and lush colors are not always a plus. The Egyptian sets look as cheap as they no doubt were. It is a bit less glaring than in the other Hammer Horror films, due to little time being spent in fake desserts, but it is a relief when the story swings away from an Egypt that looks like a diorama.

The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb isn’t going to end up on any list of ten best horror films, unless that list is trimmed to only include dead guys in bandages (in which case…well..it will be as there are not a lot of shiny mummy movies). Its wit and deviation from the norm make it not only Hammer’s finest mummy pic, but an entertaining way to spend an afternoon.

Hammer’s “Mummy cycle” includes The Mummy (1959), The Mummy’s Shroud (1967), and Blood From the Mummy’s Tomb (1971).

Mummies, Reviews Tagged with: Three Reels

Ghidrah, the Three Headed Monster (1964)

Nov 021964

A Princess goes missing after an assassination attempt, and turns up in Japan, claiming to be a 5000 year old prophetess from outer space (Venus in the subtitled version, Mars in the dubbed). She predicts that Rodan will rise from a volcano, Godzilla will destroy a ship, and a space monster named King Ghidrah will destroy the planet. With assassins hot on the princess’s tail, and a reporter and her policeman brother aiding her, the princess/prophetess saves two fairies, who summon Mothra to attempt to persuade Godzilla and Rodan to join forces against the new monster.

It’s all about Ghidrah. By any standard inherent in twelve-year-old-boys, and any of us who remember being twelve-year-old-boys, Ghidrah is cool. He’s a three headed, winged, golden dragon that lays waste to everything with bolts of electricity (supposedly gravity waves, but nothing in the film indicates that). Ghidrah is all the destruction that an giant-monster-action movie should be about.

As for the rest, well, it is barely palatable, and only because there’s always Ghidrah in the wings. The plot is a collection of loosely related events that happen for no particular reason. Godzilla returns, because he does. Rodan wakes out of his long sleep at the same moment, without explanation. A princess somehow activates an innate human survival trait of channeling dead Venusians and the Venusian happens to be an expert on King Ghidrah, which is handy as a meteor falls to Earth that either contains Ghidrah or generates him (it’s not clear which). The fairy priestess from Infant Island (also call Easter Island in one poorly subtitled moment) have chosen this time to completely sellout their heritage and appear on a cheap pop TV show, so they can call Mothra. (There’ss only one Mothra grub now even though there were two at the end of the previous movie. Do you think one ate the other?) The coincidences keep happening, with everyone, human and monster, running into each other far more frequently than even Lotto players could accept. Other things happen or are mentioned that are just strange and irrelevant: the meteor is intermittently magnetic; a doctor decides to carry out a complicated procedure while giant monsters are fighting outside his door (of course, this is a doctor who says that his “complete exams” could hurt the princess—which makes him really creepy).

Does all that harm the film? It doesn’t help it. But what really is damaging is the amount of time spent on the nonsensical human plot. This is a Godzilla movie. If there’s going to be nonsense, it should involve a guy in a rubber suit. The princess/cop/assassin/reporter storyline goes on and on, without ever being engaging. It fills time. A lot of time.

That just leaves the monster battles. That is the reason for the film, and Ghidrah comes through like a pro. But the other monsters don’t do so well. Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra all look like shaved rejects from a sub par Muppet movie. The eyes and necks are (for Godzilla and Rodan; Mothra looks bad in every way) painful to watch and there are far too many close ups of these offending areas. The fight between Godzilla and Rodan involves rock volleyball and a lot of kicking. It departs from anything exciting, sidesteps funny, and drops squarely into silly. The big four way climax is better, but still involves too many tossed rocks and too much failed humor aimed at kids.

Ghidrah, the Three Headed Monster is entertaining, but it also signals real problems for the Godzilla series. Terror and theme had vanished after the first film and now excitement was going as well. The series was being remade for children, by adults who didn’t understand what kids enjoy. Godzilla vs. Mothra was an excellent children’s movie. There was no need in this film to make the monsters laugh, and chat (yes, they have a long chat, translated from monsterese by the fairies). Ghidrah gives the film just enough of a “cool” factor to make it all work. Just barely enough.

The film is also known as Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster and in later films, Ghidrah is more often called Ghidorah.

Foreign Language, Godzilla, Reviews Tagged with: Two & 1/2 Reels

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

Oct 081964

Martians come to Earth to kidnap Santa Claus because their children are morose. They plan to set him up in a toy shop on Mars, but one Martian rebels, and it is up to Santa Claus and some children to put things right.

Quick Review: I first saw Santa Claus Conquers the Martians at the height of its cult status in the early 80s. Originally made for children, it is too odd and too poorly done to work as kid’s entertainment. But those same qualities made it a natural for a midnight college showing. It had an extra draw at the time; Pia Zadora, who played a 10 year old Martian in ’64, had grown up quite well and her nude pictorials filled magazines. So, the theater was filled, and in that setting, with everyone shouting and throwing things, it was a lot of fun. But that is the only way to enjoy this primitive mess. On its own, it isn’t funny or heartwarming, just silly. But if you are planning a frat party, add a few more s.

Christmas, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

Godzilla vs. Mothra (1964)

Oct 021964

A hurricane washes a giant egg into a Japanese bay where a greedy entrepreneur grabs it, intending it to be the centerpiece for his new theme park. Two fairy girls ask for the egg to be returned to their island as it belongs to their god, Mothra. A newspaperman, his camera woman, and a professor try and help the fairies, but to no avail. When Godzilla appears, the three appeal to the fairies to send Mothra to fight Godzilla.

The most exciting and fun-filled of the “Showa” Godzilla films (those made from ’54 to ’75) Godzilla vs. Mothra avoids the pitfalls of its predecessor, King Kong vs. Godzilla, by keeping away from juvenile slapstick and inserting a real sense of adventure and danger. While the plot has its inexplicable moments (Why doesn’t Godzilla crush the egg once Mothra is no longer an issue? Why are children on a school field trip while Godzilla is destroying the country?), the film has only one significant problem: Godzilla is fighting…well…a moth puppet and two grubs. There’s really no way around that one. I’d have thought that almost any other creature would have been an improvement as an opponent for the big green lizard, but subsequent Godzilla films demonstrated that there are a lot of monsters worse than a moth.

The human story doesn’t get in the way of the monster mayhem, with the businessmen getting their comeuppance without dragging the story to a halt as happens in so many of the series’ movies. The special effects are a slight improvement over those of the three earlier films, and Godzilla himself wouldn’t look better for another twenty years. But the real standout is the music. Akira Ifukube’s score brings both a sense of wonder and epic grandeur to what is essentially a guy in a Halloween costume kicking at some marionettes. The right music can transform a picture, and this is certainly the right music.

The American release does little to muck up the works. The dubbing is reasonable (hey, it’s dubbing. It’s not going to be brilliant), and little is cut. The only moment I noticed was missing was a character being shot in the head (you still see the guy pulling the trigger, but then skip to the victim on the floor). There’s an added scene of U.S. ships firing missiles at Godzilla that neither helps nor harms the picture. The one oddity is the title, changed to Godzilla vs. The Thing. The marketing campaign kept Godzilla’s adversary a secret, slapping a tentacled question mark on the posters. I guess a big moth was a hard sell. While the title is now generally Godzilla vs. Mothra even in the U.S., the dub has characters often referring to the big bug as “The Thing,” which comes off as rude. Didn’t their mothers ever tell them to be polite to other people’s gods?

My rating is a bit high. Standing by itself, three reels is a better indicator of its quality, but everyone should see at least one of the fun, adventure-filled, rock’em sock’em Godzilla films, and this is the one.

Foreign Language, Godzilla, Reviews Tagged with: Four Reels

My Fair Lady (1964)

Aug 031964

Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison), on a bet with Colonel Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White), takes in flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) with the intention of teaching her proper English such that she could pass as a high class lady.

My Fair Lady is a nice film, a pleasant viewing experience. That sounds like I’m damning it with faint praise, which is the case only because it tends to be overrated. It’s well made, and beautifully filmed (if clearly set-bound). The songs are all wonderful. Hepburn is lovely, as she always is. Harrison is one of the better talk-singers and pulls off the role of Higgins admirably, even if he doesn’t equal Leslie Howard’s performance in the 1938 Pygmalion. It is one of the better Broadway musical to film adaptations.

It’s a good film, perhaps a very good film, but it isn’t a great one. Why not? The editing isn’t top rate, with some pacing problems, but that’s minor. Likewise some of the sets are less than they should be, but again, not a big deal. However, there are two items that matter, that keep it from being what it could have been. Firstly, it follows the stage musical, thus it has the same problem that it did: the ending. Pygmalion originally ended with Eliza leaving, with plans to marry Freddy. It’s the ending the entire play was moving toward. Shaw’s notes have Eliza and Freddy married, running a shop set up with money from Colonel Pickering. They all visit from time-to-time, though with some tenseness between Eliza and Higgans. But the theater wanted to make more money, and persuaded George Bernard Shaw to change the ending because it was assumed that people would buy more tickets if the two protagonists end up together, no matter that the entire play said they shouldn’t. So Shaw tacked on Eliza returning, changing nothing else, thus leaving it clear that she shouldn’t. The musical took the changed ending, as did the film. It’s stranger in the musical, since Freddy is given the one great romantic song, On the Street Where You Live, which is structurally odd since it leads to nothing.

The second issue is Hepburn. She is lovely, and always bewitching. I’ve no doubt she does a better job than almost any other actress could have, but then we’re looking at the difference between “very good” and “great” and in two ways, Hepburn is lacking. She is always elegant; either by talent or choice, she is incapable of being grungy. That elegance servers her when she’s supposed to be mistaken for royalty, but as a poor, dirty, guttersnipe, it doesn’t work. You always notice her, and she always seems like a princess.

Of course the biggest problem is that Hepburn doesn’t have a very good voice. She did an excellent rendition of Moon River in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but that’s because the song was specifically written for her limited vocal range. The songs of My Fair Lady were not. She tried, but she wasn’t good enough, so her songs were dubbed by Marni Nixon. And listening to the now released Hepburn versions, they were right to dub her. Nixon has a strong voice and could hit the notes Hepburn couldn’t, but she wasn’t the same caliber of actress, or maybe it was just the distancing nature of dubbing that leaves the songs lacking in emotion. They sound the way you’d expect to hear them in a musical review—A Night With Mani Nixon and the Songs of Lerner and Loewe—instead of with the weight they needed in a narrative musical.

And yes, this does lead to Julie Andrews. As is well known, Andrews played Eliza on Broadway, but was passed over in favor of Hepburn as Jack Warne didn’t consider Andrews a big enough draw. So she was hired by Disney for Mary Poppins, became a big draw, and rightfully won the Oscar. Clearly Andrews would have been the better choice, but it didn’t have to be her, just someone who was a high quality singer and actress (granted, no one else is coming to mind besides Andrews, but I’m sure there’s someone). It’s easiest to hear the problem with direct comparisons, and luckily YouTube allows for that.

The first is the Marni Nixon dub of Show Me as heard in the film—nice singing, but emotionally lacking. (Try from :18-:28 seconds)

This is the Hepburn’s attempt. The emotions are there, but the notes are painful to listen to. (:49-48 is the same section)

Finally, here’s a version of July Andrews singing the same song. Her voice is even better than Nixon’s, and she has emotion to spare, which brings life to the role. (:31 to :45 in this version)

So, Hepburn/Nixon were good. Even very good. But “very good” isn’t enough for greatness. Which is fine. A good film is a good film, and this is nice. It just isn’t a masterpiece, and shouldn’t be elevated beyond it’s range, as was done in 1964 when it won the Best Picture Oscar over Doctor Strangelove.

Featured Review, Musicals, Reviews Tagged with: Three & 1/2 Reels

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? (1964)

May 031964

After making fun of a fortuneteller, Jerry is hypnotized by her into carrying out a murder. She has poured acid on previously controlled subjects (and some not controlled) and keeps them in her closet, so Jerry is in much more trouble then he knows.

Now that’s a name for a movie. It says, “this movie is weird,” and it’s right. Not much in The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? follows normal filmmaking traditions. Most films don’t stop the action to show a rather long, amateurish dance number, much less do it over and over. Most don’t have a guy in an obvious Halloween mask walking about.

As for the plot, well I usually try not to tell too much with my brief synopsizes, but for this movie, my two sentences amount to a majority of the film. Almost nothing happens (leaving more room for dance numbers). Director Ray Dennis Steckler plays Jerry under the name Cash Flagg. Now where did he get the idea that Cash Flagg was a reasonable name? Perhaps an incredibly strange name. Maybe a mixed-up name. Ah! It’s all becoming clear. The zombies in question are hypnotized, acid-burned guys who live in the closet. I don’t think Romero got his inspiration here.

For clarity: this is a poorly directed, horribly acted, pathetically plotted film with no frights and no action, but some dancing. As a film, I can’t recommend it to anyone. However, it is bad in a way that’s so odd that it is a kick to make fun of it. Toss it on when you have some friends over, drink a lot, point, and laugh.

Back to Zombies

Reviews, Zombies Tagged with: One Reel

The Raven (1963)

Nov 011963

Erasmus Craven (Vincent Price) is visited by a raven at his window that turns out to be Adolphus Bedlo (Peter Lorre), a magician transformed in a failed duel with sorcerer Scarabus (Boris Karloff). Informed that his dead wife, Lenore (Hazel Court), has been seen in Scarabus’s castle, Craven, his daughter Estelle (Olive Sturgess), the now-human Bedlo, and his son Rexford (Jack Nicholson) set off to visit the imposing Scarabus.

The fifth Poe-based film directed by B-movie mogul Roger Corman for AIP, The Raven has even less connection to the macabre poet than the others. While House of Usher and Pit and the Pendulum were dark tales, The Raven is a spoof, with only a brief appearance by the bird and a partial quote of the poem to keep up the pretense. But Poe’s work has rarely made good cinematic material, so the deviation benefits the movie, which is one of Corman’s best.

The story is trivial, and the sets and special effects are barely functional, but the cast couldn’t be better. Price, Lorre, and Karloff were all masters of comedy, though seldom given a chance to display their prowess. Their timing is perfect. This is a chance to hear three of the great voices in cinematic history together, and it doesn’t disappoint. Price is so marvelously calm and polite throughout the picture. Lorre is in hysterical mode, while Karloff is Karloff. If you’ve heard him narrate The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, you know what you’ll hear. He speaks with menace, but always with a twinkle. Nicholson is overshadowed by the older masters, but it is nice to see him playing something different than the ravaging mad man he’s repeated in movie after movie for the last twenty-five years.

Boris Karloff was in ill health, and to make him more comfortable, he was often filmed sitting, which gives rise to one of the oddest magic duels you’re likely to see. It is reminiscent of Merlin facing off against Mim in The Sword in the Stone, except no one moves. It is silly, and goes on too long, but is a fitting climax to a fun little film.

Since Corman finished The Raven ahead of schedule, he quickly shot The Terror, with Karloff and Nickolson, in the few remaining days.

Other Foster on Film reviews of Vincent Price films: The Invisible Man Returns (1940), Laura (1944), The Fly (1958), Return of the Fly (1959), House On Haunted Hill (1958), The Terror (1963), Diary of a Madman (1967), The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971).

Back to Fantasy

Fantasy, Reviews Tagged with: Three Reels

The Terror (1963)

Oct 111963

Napoleonic officer Andre Duvalier (Jack Nicholson), separated from his regiment, finds a beautiful young woman (Sandra Knight) who disappears into the sea. Searching for her, Andre visits the castle of Baron von Leppe (Boris Karloff), who explains that the woman is his wife, dead for twenty years.

Some films are made because there is an important message to impart. Some because a clever story cries out to be seen. And a very few because an actor is still under contract for four days and sets are still standing from a previous movie. Guess which is the case here.

Low budget filmmaker Roger Corman finished The Raven with four days still on Boris Karloff’s contract. So, using the same sets, he shot what he could in those days, enlisting Nicholson to be the young lead. Nicholson had also played a part in The Raven, although not a lead. Then he handed the project off to his underlings to finish over the next few months. Four other directors were involved, including Francis Ford Coppola and Nicholson. Considering how it was shot, The Terror has a remarkably consistent style. The acting is rough, with neither Karloff nor Nickolson looking as professional as they had in The Raven, but they can hardly be faulted for that. Karloff at least has a reasonable part to play. Nicholson is given an unpleasant hero we are somehow supposed to sympathize with, and who changes personality from scene to scene.

Unfortunately, with nothing of interest in the characters, acting, or message (there isn’t one), it is up to the story to carry the film, and it should surprise no one that doesn’t happen. There is hardly a plot for most of the film, and in the end, Corman was forced to shoot an additional scene where the butler could explain what is going on. And what he says is laughable. The twist, which involves people being other than they have appeared to be, could only work in a Monty Python sketch. Let’s just say the ages of the characters don’t match up.

Since the scenes were filmed without a finished script, I can have some sympathy for the opening, where Karloff finds a skeleton in a closet. It is never mentioned again and is irrelevant, not to mention incongruous, to the rest of the story. However, not even the shooting schedule can explain why the girl-ghost pops up twice in attempts to lead a random soldier (Andre) to his death.

Perhaps Corman should have considered another comedy with his unrelated reels of film.Or better yet, remembered that all filmmaking starts with a script.

Ghost Stories, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

Children of the Damned (1963)

Oct 111963

IQ tests show six fatherless children, all the same age but of different races and countries, have intellects far greater than other humans. The interest of two scientists, a psychologist (Ian Hendry) and a geneticist (Alan Badel), makes the various governments aware of their super-children. Before each country can use its child to gain an advantage in world politics, the children use mind control powers to escape and fortify themselves in a church.

While billed as a sequel to Village of the Damned, Children of the Damned has no connection except that both have children who can control minds and were born without fathers. These new children lack the blonde hair, and bad hair style, famous from the first film. It’s even more questionable if this is an alien film at all (these children might be mutations, though like the first, nothing is explained about their origins). If you view this film as a separate entity, apart from Village, it’s not bad. However, it is very, very depressing.

Far from being damned, these multi-racial children are sympathetic. Yes, they kill, but only when forced to. They might be the saviors of humanity, or just a group that wants to be left alone, though no one will ever give them the chance to do either.

This is a semi-cold war parable. “Semi” because it doesn’t focus on the 1950s-1960s era problems of East vs. West. All countries are presented as fearful of every other country. Trusting no one, and not liking them either, each nation cares only to gain power, or make sure that no one else can. The thing that brings them together is the fear of a new power, the children. With this framework, the politics are as relevant now as they were forty years ago.

The question Children of the Damned asks is, can we rise above our distrust and hatred to make a unified and peaceful world? And it answers: No. We have set up our societies such that conflict is inevitable. Even if we decide we want an equitable peace, it is out of reach. The world is on a razor’s edge, and anything, even an accident, even a falling screwdriver, can destroy us. (That screwdriver line will make more sense once you’ve watched the film.) Well, maybe things have changed a little over the years. With a nuclear holocaust looking unlikely anytime soon, the metaphorical devastation in Children of the Damned would take a few extra mistakes and accidents: two or three falling screwdrivers. (Really, if you see the film, all those screwdriver statements will mean something.)

The film cares more about its metaphors than its characters. Everyone’s actions, child and adult, depend less on their personalities and more on the requirements of the plot. Why are all the super-children brought to London? Why is every country using the same IQ test and then giving the results to the English? Why do the children reveal themselves when taking the tests? Why do they move into an abandoned church and bring along the one cute girl in the film as their unneeded negotiator? Why does a government try a pathetic assassination plan (when it would be simple to come up with ten or twelve that would actually work)? In all cases, the answer is to move along the plot, which in turn makes a political statement.

The two scientists are almost a comedy team for the first half of the film, which brings some needed lightness to the story. After that, watching the film becomes frustrating as poor decisions are made and even the single person who is on the children’s side makes suggestions that could only lead to tragedy. I wanted the kids to kill some people and escape into the night, something they should have done at the halfway mark. But this is a film about man’s foolishness. There’s no escaping.

In the opening minutes, when it looks like this might be a horror film, we meet the mother of one of the boys, who is bitter, tortured, and a bit sleazy. Later we learn another mother has become an unstable streetwalker. A whole film could have been made from just those elements. Even though these children are good, they are still children. What would it be like caring for a massively intelligent toddler who can control your mind? One tantrum and mom is in deep trouble. It’s no wonder their minds are shattered. I’m not sure what the filmmakers were trying to say with regard to the mothers’ sexual appetites but I see a bit of Oedipus at work.

If you don’t mind your political messages poured on thick, Children of the Damned is an interesting experience. I like watching it, but not too often.

Aliens, Reviews

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