Theatrical Releases Part One – Godzilla [continued]
(vii) Ebirah Terror of the Deep (1969)
Four mismatched friends steal a yacht to go searching for a missing brother, but end up shipwrecked on a remote South Pacific island guarded by Ebirah (a giant lobster), and housing the secret base of the Red Bamboo, a para-military terrorist group in the process of building an atom bomb to hold the world to ransom. Resentful local natives (including the missing brother) are being used as slave-labour on the project, and in order to free them and escape safely our heroes must both revive a dormant Godzilla (found slumbering inside a hollow mountain) and persuade Mothra (living on an adjacent island) to help carry everyone away in a huge home-made net afterwards. Godzilla fights and defeats Ebirah before gleefully smashing up the base, then jumps into the sea to swim away moments before the bomb explodes and blows the island to smithereens.
Like King Kong vs Godzilla, Ebirah had a somewhat convoluted development. It was originally planned as a loose sequel to KKvG, to be produced in collaboration with US animation-studio Rankin-Bass as a tie-in with the latter’s new TV cartoon-series The King Kong Show (groundbreakingly shot in Japan). But when Rankin-Bass turned down Sekizawa’s script (provisionally entitled Operation Robinson Crusoe) Toho simply went ahead and made it anyway, substituting Godzilla for King Kong (which would account for a few of Godzilla’s quirkier moments, including his brief flirtation with the heroine). The following year the two companies settled their differences to successfully collaborate on King Kong Escapes (to be discussed shortly).
Ebirah represents a striking change of pace for the series. For the first time (excluding the early one-off involvement of Motoyoshi Oda), a new younger director was brought in to replace Honda—Jun Fukuda, previously best-known for straight action-thrillers and comedies. The result—combined with one of Sekizawa’s liveliest and most exciting scripts, clearly inspired by Dr No—is a real breath of fresh air. Ebirah has possibly the strongest narrative-drive of all the Godzilla films—as another writer has put it, you could take the monsters out entirely and still be left with a solidly entertaining film. It is difficult (if not impossible) to apply this observation to any other entry in the series, and it is undoubtedly this vivid, action-packed quality—the fact that there is ALWAYS something dramatic and interesting happening—that makes Ebirah so appealing. Sekizawa’s script is tightly linear (the human and monster stories are for once seamlessly interwoven, with one unlikely event leading naturally to the next), and Fukuda’s brisk direction shifts it all along at a compulsively fast pace. This was the first Godzilla film the current writer saw (on TV aged ten), and it’s no coincidence it was the one that made him a lifelong fan. It’s simply better—more immediately engaging as pure adventure—than most of the others.
Fukuda however was infamously never very proud of any of his Godzilla assignments, feeling he’d been thanklessly handed a franchise already in creative decline. While this is certainly true of his later (1970s) instalments—which are uniformly pretty bad—it in no way applies to his first two contributions, which effectively revitalised the series. Some fans object to the new tropical-island settings (the result of squeezed budgets, as they required far fewer detailed miniature sets and no mass-panic crowd scenes), but this scarcely matters much when Sekizawa—undoubtedly drawing on his own wartime memories—deploys them with such obvious melodramatic relish. As noted, the character of Godzilla is further comically humanised here, at one point sadistically taunting the luckless Ebirah with his own recently snapped-off claw, and at another scratching his nose in parody of popular ‘Young Guy’ series-star Yuzo Kayama.
Teisho ‘Sadamasa’ Arikawa (in the glasses) directs a scene in Toho’s tank for Ebirah Terror of the Deep
Ebirah never gained a theatrical release in the US, being sold straight to TV in 1969 by Walter Reade’s Continental Films as Godzilla vs the Sea Monster. In contrast it WAS (fleetingly) seen in British cinemas, thanks to Nat Miller (1909-1983) a now almost completely forgotten independent distributor once described as “one of the most fondly-regarded old boys of Wardour Street”. Miller joined Sidney Bernstein’s emerging Granada empire as an office boy in 1924, working his way up to become the circuit’s chief booker before finally leaving thirty years later to go into independent production with It’s a Great Day (1954), the first-ever British TV-spinoff (from popular soap The Grove Family). In 1957 he produced Nudist Paradise—Britain’s first sexploitation feature—and simultaneously set up distribution outfit Orb Films, specialising in foreign (chiefly Japanese) imports like arthouse classics Onibaba, Kwaidan and Sanjuro, alongside more commercial fare including cheap US sci-fi (Missile to the Moon, Giant from the Unknown), cheap British thrillers (Death Over My Shoulder), and cheap European sleaze (Honeymoon Italian Style, Primitive Love). But by 1971 the dwindling number of UK cinemas had left his modest one-man operation unviable, and Miller ended his career selling films to TV and video companies. As he worked right up to the end, it’s entirely possible one of his last deals was selling Goke and Matango to Rochdale’s JVI Video in 1982.
Toho’s international title Ebirah Horror of the Deep was problematic for a film to be aimed at British children (the word Horror still carrying strong connotations of the old adults-only ‘H’ certificate), so Miller pragmatically replaced it with the less charged ‘Terror’. He then submitted the retitled film to the BBFC in Feb 1969, being rewarded with a child-friendly ‘U’ (Universal) certificate for the first time, later getting the same happy result (in May) with Son of Godzilla. (How the BBFC squared this mysterious new tolerance with the fact that a mere FOUR MONTHS LATER in Sept they decided Warner-Pathe’s Destroy All Monsters was yet another ‘X’ is a complete mystery). At any rate, Orb double-billed the pair for release in school-holiday August with a poster proudly declaring “Nat Miller presents THE GIANT MONSTER SHOW!” The programme seems to have chiefly played Saturday-matinee bookings on the ABC circuit, as part of their fondly-remembered ‘ABC Minors Club’. Before enjoying the week’s films, attending children (and in those days there would have been hundreds at every show) were obliged to loudly sing the Club’s unforgettable anthem: “We are the boys and girls well known as / Minors of the ABC / And every Saturday all line up / To see the films we like and shout aloud with glee / We like to laugh and have our sing-song / Such a happy crowd are we / We’re all pals together / We’re Minors of the ABC!”
The amused MFB review had its tongue firmly in its cheek: “Despite the distributor’s description of him as “an enormous crab”, Ebirah is unequivocally a lobster and—judging by his brilliant red colour—a pre-boiled one at that. Not the most glorious of the Toho Company’s giant creations, for all his title billing he takes second place to the familiar Godzilla who, after a late entry into proceedings, is back on the top of his building-demolishing, explosion-causing form. The encounter between him and Ebirah, starting as an almost friendly ball-game played with a massive piece of rock, is particularly delightful, and once again the ‘good’ characters betray absolutely no surprise at finding the eccentric monster on their side. Mothra and her diminutive, vocalising twin priestesses are still a trifle dull, and though immensely enjoyable, the film is slightly inferior to Son of Godzilla. But one looks forward to the possibility of soon meeting Godzilla’s son’s bride.”
(viii) Son of Godzilla (1969)
A team of UN scientists based on a remote South Pacific island are experimenting with weather-control technology, hoping to improve crop-yields and thus increase the world’s food-supply. But an early attempt goes badly wrong and provokes a fierce radioactive storm which causes the island’s already monstrous insects to grow to giant-size overnight. When three enormous mantises discover and smash open a huge egg containing a baby Godzilla, Godzilla himself arrives to fight them off and protect his offspring. Our heroes (a reporter and native girl) befriend the goofy young creature, but also accidentally awaken Spiga, a giant spider who goes on the rampage. Judging the situation beyond retrieval, the scientists freeze the island and radio for a rescue-sub. Godzilla and his son jointly fight and defeat Spiga, before huddling together in the snow to hibernate.
More of the same from Sekizawa and Fukuda. Son of Godzilla is a magnificent achievement, one of the most uncomplicatedly colourful and charming children’s films ever made. Nevertheless it holds a generally low reputation amongst Godzilla fans, and we need to briefly pause here to consider this, and explain why its detractors have got it so badly wrong.
Shooting an effects scene on Son of Godzilla. The giant mantises were marionettes controlled (with great difficulty) from the gantries by Arikawa’s assistants.
Son of Godzilla is often judged an embarrassment, an undignified juvenile squandering of the series’ early potential. But for this to be the case there needs to be some sort of sophisticated / high-minded initial dignity to lose, and it is difficult to pinpoint this in the spectacle of Japanese stuntmen in rubber costumes rolling around miniature sets punching each other. Fair enough, Honda’s first Godzilla was a seriously-intended meditation on the horrors of nuclear war, but what followed quickly became an increasingly surreal journey into a quirky national subconscious. And if we accept that, the main criterion to apply to the results should simply be how good—how naturally engaging—the individual stories are. Son of Godzilla has one of the best, like its predecessor Ebirah a strong, fast-paced human adventure with the monsters an integral part of the drama. Some critics complain about the new Godzilla suit, which is admittedly poor—our hero’s face here rather resembles a semi-comatose frog. The later Godzilla vs Gigan in contrast boasts a classic suit, but is hardly the better film for it. Without a decent story as a starting point, all the sharpest production-design in the world won’t help much, because a beautifully-constructed house is being built on sand.
Arikawa directs Little Man Machan during the snow-covered climax of Son of Godzilla.
In practical terms, everything previously noted about Ebirah applies to Son of Godzilla. The film was never theatrically screened in the US, being sold direct to TV in 1969 by Walter Reade, who commissioned his own (Titra) dub. Nat Miller released it in the UK in August 1969 as support to Ebirah, utilising Toho’s International (ie Frontier) dub. However (unlike Ebirah, which was shown intact) Son of Godzilla was ruthlessly cut down to a breakneck 71 minutes, and it was this truncated print that was later seen in the earliest (1970s) British TV screenings.
The MFB were more enthusiastic than ever: “Out of the top drawer of the Toho Company’s monster file, with the special effects department achieving their best results in monster locomotion, Son of Godzilla has the advantage of a more soundly constructed story than most of its predecessors and of a delightful vein of humour that allows for a gentle parody of the genre. Gimantis and Spiga are worthy opponents for the might of Godzilla; but even the outsize combats take second place to a captivating sequence in which, after some ignominious failures, baby Godzilla responds to his father’s instructions in fire-breathing by producing a tiny smoke-ring.”
(ix) Destroy All Monsters (1969)
Art adapted from the US campaigns by Reynold Brown
In the benign future of 1999 all the world’s giant monsters have been safely contained on Ogasawara Island under constant monitoring and surveillance. Unfortunately, hostile (and all-female) alien race the Kilaaks covertly take control of the island’s scientists (via tiny receivers implanted in their necks), and unleash the monsters to devastate the world’s capitals. Their plan is discovered by our astronaut-hero who leads a team to sabotage their secret transmitter-station on the moon, but the Kilaaks retaliate by summoning the mighty King Ghidorah from space instead. However, with the earth-monsters now freed from alien control, Godzilla leads a joint-attack to defeat Ghidorah and destroy the Kilaak’s subterranean base beneath Mount Fuji.
With ticket-sales steadily declining (and Tanaka feeling the series had at last run out of new ideas), Toho originally planned Destroy All Monsters to be a celebratory finale, ending their flagship Godzilla franchise with a bang. The effects-budget was notably increased, and Honda brought back to direct a script (by Kimura for the first time) which was little more than a re-tread of Sekizawa’s Monster Zero with everything turned up to 11 (literally, since the film features eleven monsters). However, despite all this excitement (and the technical virtuosity on display in the intricately-choreographed final battle), an unmistakeable air of ennui hangs over Destroy All Monsters—the film contains absolutely nothing new at all. Particularly disappointing (compared with Fukuda’s preceding instalments) is the poor character development and slapdash plotting—most of the participants here are ill-defined ciphers, and the action, while relentless, feels both random and chaotic. If there is any subtext at all, it is Honda’s understated focus on the dangers of authoritarian mind-control in an already rigidly conformist society.
AIP released Destroy All Monsters in the US in May 1969, and—thanks to the ongoing tie-up with Anglo—Warner-Pathe quickly followed suit in the UK that December (having obtained an ‘X’ cert in Sept), double-billing it with lacklustre Bonnie and Clyde rip-off Killers Three (1968). The MFB review reflected mixed feelings: “Toho celebrate their twentieth monster show with a grand reunion of monsters past and present, but apart from their statutory devastation of the world’s capitals (Rodan crumples a picture postcard of the Kremlin) and a communal rampage through Tokyo, the monsters have disappointingly little to do until they get together in the last reel for a splendid battle with a rival from outer space. The Kilaak ladies—looking like interplanetary nuns in their silver-sequined outfits—are hardly more animated than their human adversaries, the model work is poor, and as usual the script is junior comic-strip. But it’s almost worth sitting through the banalities for the final confrontation on Mount Fuji, which has baby Godzilla endearingly applauding from a safe distance as father and friends tackle the hydra-headed intruder, a television reporter delivering a running commentary (“It’s Godzilla leading the attack!”), and the victorious monsters performing a celebratory jig before returning to their island holiday retreat.”
In the context of the international monster-attacks, it’s worth pointing out that although Manda (a giant sea-serpent from Atragon—see below) is excitedly described in a news-report as attacking London, we disappointingly never actually SEE this event, merely hear about it second-hand (Manda himself not appearing until the later rampage in Tokyo). As John Lydon patriotically sang a few years later: “Godzilla save the Queen / From the Kilaak regime / That Manda’s a moron / Potential H-bomb” (or something similar—I haven’t got the lyrics in front of me).
(x) Godzilla’s Revenge (unreleased in the UK)
Japanese poster 1969
Ichiro, a lonely latchkey schoolboy growing up in a blighted industrial wasteland, rarely sees his distracted shift-worker parents and is maliciously bullied by his classmates, losing himself in fantasies about Monster Island and his idol Godzilla. Travelling there in his dreams he meets Minya (baby Godzilla) who shrinks magically to human-size to explain how he too is being bullied (by Gabbera, a thuggishly warty troll), and how Godzilla is teaching him to stand up for himself. While later exploring a nearby abandoned factory, Ichiro is kidnapped by a pair of bumbling bank-robbers using it as a temporary hideout, and—inspired by Minya’s example—he contrives to turn the tables, helping the police catch the crooks before humiliating his chief adversary to finally gain the admiration and respect of his classmates.
If Son of Godzilla is viewed by many fans as best glossed over, Godzilla’s Revenge is on another level entirely, a grotesque folly to be mentioned only in hushed tones, or better yet ignored altogether as somehow not existing at all. And this is pretty ironic, since it is self-evidently the most sincerely intended of the entire series, which uniquely dares to tackle serious emerging problems in Japanese society with compassion and empathy. The fans dismissing it as an embarrassing oddball waste of time have clearly lost all connection with the dreams and terrors of childhood, in which case you have to wonder what they’re doing watching Japanese monster movies at all. At the very least, Godzilla’s Revenge is about fifteen times more interesting than Destroy All Monsters.
Hiroshi Sekida, Little Man Machan and Haruo Nakajima on the set of Godzilla’s Revenge.
By the mid-1960s Japan was beginning to confront a major housing crisis, as inner-city overcrowding led to cramped, shoddily-built apartment-blocks located far out in the suburbs, often in declining industrial areas dotted with ruined and deserted factories, their occupants facing lengthy traffic-congested commutes into work and their children consequently often left to fend for themselves in the rubbish-strewn streets. This is the landscape of Godzilla’s Revenge, and the underlying questions the film asks about its social effects—alienation, loneliness, neglect, squalor, decay—do not have any easy answers. Some critics object to the film’s apparent moral, pointing out that Ichiro escapes being bullied simply by learning to hit back harder. But in the thoroughly bleak environment the film uncompromisingly depicts, you have to wonder what alternatives he really has.
On a more practical basis, by this point in the series Toho was facing a simple choice. Destroy All Monsters had been intended as a high-profile celebratory finale, but despite a notably improved budget had barely performed any better than Son of Godzilla. Any attempt to continue after that tough lesson would have to play by a new set of rules. With Godzilla’s core audience now basically comprising schoolchildren, the remaining instalments would unashamedly pander to them, both in regularly casting child-hero identification figures, and in ruthlessly paring costs to the absolute bone to squeeze every last drop of profit from the results.
According to its writer: “Tanaka asked me, ‘Well Mr Sekizawa, can you write a script based on bits and pieces of other films?’ And I replied ‘Of course Mr Tanaka, that’s what I do best—I AM a good editor!” In other words, Sekizawa and Honda built Godzilla’s Revenge around a mass of existing stock-footage, mostly culled from Ebirah and Son of Godzilla. As the monsters here are framed as existing solely in Ichiro’s imagination it’s possible to argue that the inevitable resulting inconsistencies are less significant, but it’s nevertheless hard to ignore the glaringly different Godzilla suits on display—there are three involved, and none of them look even remotely alike. But it is unfair to try and judge Godzilla’s Revenge on the same basis as other films in the series, as it is so clearly operating on another, more self-absorbed level. This is undoubtedly Honda and Sekizawa’s most personal project, and one they are using to meditate on the very nature and challenges of childhood itself. How the viewer responds to the film will effectively depend on their willingness to examine—and perhaps confront—their own history.
Godzilla’s Revenge was released in the US by Mel Maron in December 1971. It was never released in any form in the UK, and remained completely unseen until Channel 4 screened the original subtitled Japanese version in December 1999 (at 3.15am, clearly an ideal time for its chief intended audience).
(xi) Godzilla vs the Smog Monster (1975)
A meteorite carrying an alien-spore lands in a polluted Japanese bay and creates Hedorah, a giant sludge-monster that thrives on smoke and filth, poisoning the sea, covering the land in toxic slime, and flying over cities spraying lethal sulphuric-acid mist in its wake. Our heroes, a scientist and his young son (the latter in telepathic contact with Godzilla who soon arrives to help) realise the only way to stop the creature is by drying it out via a massive electrical charge, but their plan to lure it between two vast electrodes looks doomed when the attached power-supply fails at the critical moment. Luckily Godzilla, grasping the idea, fires up the electrodes with his radioactive breath and Hedorah, trapped furiously between them, crumbles into dust.
Godzilla vs the Smog Monster is one wild film. Its young director, Yoshimitsu Banno, had worked for Toho as a production assistant since the mid-50s and had particularly impressed Tanaka with a strikingly original (and very successful) publicity event he staged for the 1970 Osaka Expo. Tanaka felt Banno was just the man to revitalise the Godzilla franchise for the 1970s, and offered him carte-blanche (within strict budget limits). Unfortunately the aging producer was hospitalised during actual production, and hadn’t grasped exactly how far Banno would interpret his liberal brief. On viewing the results on his release, Tanaka raged that Banno had just ruined Toho’s flagship series and would never direct anything for the company ever again. Which he didn’t.
Yoshimitsu Banno in the process of ruining the Godzilla series.
Against this mismatch of ambitions is the practical production context. Pioneering effects-genius Tsuburaya had died in January 1970, and his deputy Arikawa (supervising since the mid-60s) left disillusioned shortly afterwards. In March Toho closed down its entire effects dept, replacing it with a much smaller freelance unit headed by Teruyoshi Nakano. Together Banno and Nakano, both young, both enthusiastic, and both temporarily off Tanaka’s leash, indulged themselves to the full crafting a genuinely iconoclastic mishmash of cartoons, pop music, visceral horror and idiotic monster action (Godzilla actually FLIES in this one and is later nearly drowned in a pool of what looks uncomfortably like Hedorah’s voluminous diahorrea). Kimura’s initial screenplay (his second for the series) was completely re-written by Banno, who felt it didn’t go far enough. To get an idea of the reduced circumstances, it’s worth recalling that the original Gojira enjoyed a 120-day schedule. Smog Monster in contrast was shot in a breakneck 35 days, and even this would soon come to look like a luxury.
Despite all this, Smog Monster is closer in spirit to the original Gojira than any other entry in the series. Pollution was a serious problem in Japan at the time, and the film batters the viewer over the head with this fact remorselessly. However, in contrast to Honda’s optimism / faith in science’s ability to collaboratively solve the world’s problems, Banno is here brutally pessimistic. The usual authorities are powerless in the face of the threat, wrong in their early analyses and incompetent in applying belated solutions. Even the hero spends half the film incapacitated in bed, bandaged up like a mummy following one of Hedorah’s acid-attacks. As for the rebellious younger generation, they are if anything worse, vacuous, self-absorbed and ineffectual. All their aggrieved moaning about the evils of pollution has no positive effect whatsoever, and Hedorah effortlessly and contemptuously kills several of them during the climax. Although Godzilla inevitably wins in the end—let’s face it, he has to—he makes it quite clear during his exit he is now thoroughly fed up with sorting out humanity’s self-inflicted problems. This is Earth’s Protector at the exasperated end of his tether.
Banno and Teruyoshi Nakano (in the cap) set up another effects sequence. Depending on your interpretation, Godzilla is here holding Hedorah’s (a) eyeballs (b) egg-sacs or (c) testicles.
As noted, Godzilla vs the Smog Monster went on to gain some attention in the late-70s as one of the supposed “Fifty Worst Movies Of All Time”. It isn’t, though it’s certainly one of the fifty most strange and provocative. Then again, for the relevant critics involved that probably amounts to the same thing.
AIP released Smog Monster in the US in February 1972, the last of the Godzilla series they would handle. By this point their relationship with Anglo-Amalgamated had ended, as the latter had effectively ceased to exist. In 1970 Associated British (including its ABC cinema chain) had been taken over by EMI, and Anglo’s Nat Cohen had been given a seat on EMI’s board as part of the deal. Although he continued to release the occasional AIP pick-up in this capacity, by now the appeal of Toho’s fantasies—particularly one as defiantly odd as Smog Monster—must have been minimal. The only Toho adventure Cohen subsequently acquired for EMI was Latitude Zero (to be discussed shortly).
Kenpachiro Satsuma and Haruo Nakajima take another fag-break.
Against all the odds though, Smog Monster DID eventually gain a UK release. George Walker (1929-2011) has possibly the most compelling life story of anyone appearing in this essay. Born into tough East End poverty, after the War he became a successful professional boxer, later going on to manage his younger brother Billy in the same capacity. The pair began jointly setting up increasingly ambitious business-ventures, establishing Brent Walker in 1974 to develop what would later become Brent Cross Shopping Centre. George simultaneously decided to go into film distribution as a sideline, and registered a couple of small firms, Eton Films and Focus Films, to handle the business, employing Ken Dowling as his Sales Manager. Dowling acquired about twenty cheap exploitation epics over 1974-75, including various ancient AIP pick-ups like What’s Up Tiger Lily and Lost World of Sinbad. But the most significant early purchase was Death Race 2000, a major smash-hit that propelled Walker’s modest film division into the big time. From 1977 Eton and Focus were quietly retired, and Brent Walker Film Distributors became THE major independent UK renter of the period, until the entire indie-sector’s general crash in the mid-80s.
In January 1975 Dowling submitted Godzilla vs the Smog Monster to the BBFC, who awarded it a compromise ‘A’ cert. By this point the ‘A’ had become advisory only, and unaccompanied children were allowed in on the understanding their absent parents accepted the film might contain some adult content. Eton released Smog Monster (to what must have been incredibly limited bookings) in April 1975, double-billed with another AIP pick-up The Thing With Two Heads, starring Ray Milland (or at least his head). David McGillivray in the MFB dryly noted these new circumstances: “Times certainly have changed since the days when Godzilla was an ‘X’ certificated Thing bent on destroying Tokyo. Today he is a comic figure (with his own signature tune) obliged to save mankind from destroying ITSELF by way of water and atmospheric pollution. This theme, moreover, is designed specifically for the edification of children; and Godzilla’s battle against the symbolic Smog Monster is backed up with cartoon sequences to illustrate some of the more impenetrable technicalities of the plot, pop music interludes, and a boy wonder who makes helpful suggestions to the baffled scientists. The special effects have also been adapted to suit younger tastes. During combat with the two-hundred-foot piece of sludge, Godzilla (quite obviously a man in a suit) most often resembles a prizefighter dancing the Frug, and there is scarcely a minute when the monsters are not exploding something or other with their death rays. Eighty-five minutes of such excess is a little wearying, although one has to admire Toho’s public-spirited enthusiasm.”
Smog Monster would prove a short-lived diversion into the series’ wilder possibilities. Following Tanaka’s vocal displeasure, it was very much back to basics for the next instalment.
(xii) War of the Monsters (1977)
A young cartoonist gets a job with the World Children’s Foundation, but finds his new employer’s emotionless goal of “perfect peace for the world’s children” slightly sinister. Hardly surprising, when they turn out to be giant alien-cockroaches (temporarily disguised in the bodies of the recently-dead), whose home planet has been polluted to extinction by the dominant humanoid species. The cockroaches urgently need a new home, and have decided Earth will do nicely once all humans (and monsters) have been obliterated. To facilitate this, they summon King Ghidorah and new monster Gigan (an indescribable mono-eyed chicken with a buzzsaw in its stomach) from space to devastate Tokyo under their control. Godzilla and Angilas arrive to do battle, and (once our heroes have managed to sabotage the alien control-tower) successfully drive them back into space.
It is hard to overstate how unambitious Godzilla vs Gigan (to use its original Japanese title) actually is. Sekizawa’s screenplay—effectively a point-by-point rehash of his earlier Monster Zero—has just two new ideas: (i) the Invasion of the Bodysnatchers-style subplot concerning the aliens’ chilling use of recent corpses as a temporary disguise, and (ii) the fact that they need a new home because their old one has been ruined by pollution (a preoccupation clearly inherited from Smog Monster). Otherwise it’s business as usual, but now shot on approximately one-fifth of the original budget.
Fukuda returns with little visible enthusiasm, taking his frustration out on the monsters—Gigan’s lethal buzzsaw causes blood to spurt spectacularly from Godzilla’s shoulder, and Angilas’s snout, in new Peckinpah-esque levels of violence—and is now obliged to deploy so much stock-footage to pad out the fights the use of different costumes from shot-to-shot is embarrassing. The Godzilla suit (now on an unprecedented fourth outing since Destroy All Monsters) is looking very tatty, with bits of loose latex hanging off it, and a large rip fleetingly visible in an armpit as he rolls on the floor. This was Haruo Nakajima’s last performance in the iconic role, following which he retired, age 43, to work in one of Toho’s bowling alleys. He could have continued (being more than fit enough), but like many of his colleagues had lost heart following the death of Tsuburaya.
Opinion is divided as to whether this or follow-up Megalon is the worst Godzilla film overall. Megalon is even more cheap and stupid, but has a certain madcap energy and at just 81 mins is at least over quickly. Although Gigan (at 89 mins) is barely eight minutes longer, in contrast it feels tediously slow and ploddy. This is principally the fault of Sekizawa’s script, which while containing several interesting ideas presents almost all of these in the first half, the second being an unbelievably prolonged and repetitive monster battle. The two plot-strands—human and monster—here feel completely disconnected, and the effect on an already formulaic and predictable narrative is extremely damaging. This is the film that actually manages to make Godzilla boring.
Gigan was released in the US by Mel Maron’s Cinema Shares company in August 1977 (as Godzilla on Monster Island, which he isn’t, mostly). In the UK it was screened almost simultaneously as War of the Monsters by long-established renter Miracle Films, but this is where the chronology starts to get confusing. Miracle were formed in 1954 by Charles Myers, Sid Michaels and Phil Kutner to specialise (like Kenneth Rive’s Gala) in importing ‘Continental films’, exploiting the then-new ‘X’ certificate to offer mildly titillating arthouse fare to novelty-seeking Brits. They carved a steady niche throughout the 60s with this approach, and by the 70s Charles’s son Michael was in charge. The latter’s biggest coup was signing and enthusiastically promoting John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 in 1976—the director was so appreciative he later named Halloween’s killer after him in jokey tribute.
In summer 1976 Miracle had very quickly snapped-up and released the final Godzilla film (as Monsters From An Unknown Planet) and—with it proving a decent-size hit in British cinemas—naturally immediately sought a similar follow up. Gigan (rather blandly renamed War of the Monsters) gained an ‘A’ cert from the BBFC in Feb 1977, to be double-billed that May with old spaghetti western Twilight Avengers (1970).
Jun Fukuda poses against the Godzilla Tower from Godzilla vs Gigan.
Tony Rayns’ MFB review was unexpectedly positive: “Although Toho launched their series of monster epics in 1954 nearly a decade before the BBC inaugurated Doctor Who, the two serials have developed along strikingly parallel lines: each has established its own set of s-f conventions, both have built up private mythologies of monsters and monster lore, and both have increasingly used the s-f genre as a vehicle for broaching such topics as ecology with young audiences. What the Toho films have lacked, of course, is any solid, credible human focus amid all the special effects pyrotechnics, and War of the Monsters remains true to type by centring on a gaggle of ‘youth identification figures’ (including a token hippy) whose charm is distinctly elusive for Western audiences. Things are brighter on a thematic level, though; the film picks up where the previous year’s Godzilla vs the Smog Monster left off, this time offering a cautionary tale of aliens on the run from a planet stifled by pollution, and its most inspired sequence is undoubtedly the montage showing the dying planet, comprised entirely of documentary shots of present-day Tokyo. This aspect of the film fleetingly takes on a resonance worthy of Burroughs (William that is, not Edgar Rice) with the revelation that the alien invaders are in fact huge black cockroaches—”a form of life that can survive the worst conditions!” For the rest, Fukuda conjures together the usual gallery of wrecking sprees, deadly lasers, explosions and massacres with commendable pace and surprising variety. And Gigan, with one blood-red eye, pincer jaws and a chain-saw built into his torso, is an admirable addition to the roster of monsters.”
A promotional event for Godzilla vs Gigan, as invited fans watch a specially staged on-set battle.
Despite this generous assessment of the film’s dubious qualities, Rayn’s review is not the best-remembered (or even really most significant) British write-up on War of the Monsters. That accolade has to go to John Brosnan’s scathing notice in House of Hammer #13, seared into every British fan’s brain as the ONLY contemporary attention a Godzilla film ever received in a dedicated UK genre magazine (HoH lasted 23 issues, 1976-78). Comparatively few people beyond industry insiders read the MFB, but every young horror fan in the country devoured House of Hammer, and can probably still quote large chunks of Brosnan’s withering prose verbatim. Here are the edited highlights:
“This is the sort of movie that, while you’re watching it, makes you start thinking of all the more constructive things you could be doing with your time—such as pushing a sharp, pointed stick into your left ear, or watching the Generation Game on TV. I’m probably getting old [Brosnan was then 29] but the sight of Japanese stuntmen in funny costumes throwing each other around for what seems like an eternity doesn’t give me much of a kick. My mind keeps wandering in other directions—like what the conditions are inside those monster suits. Are they as hot and uncomfortable as they appear to be?…..It’s all very interesting, which is more than one can say for War of the Monsters… [Toho] have been churning out these films since 1954, and over the years they have become increasingly silly and tedious. Originally Godzilla was your run-of-the-mill giant prehistoric monster on the rampage, but these days he’s more like Puff the Magic Dragon, residing on an island with all his monster friends… Toho’s special effects have also become rather perfunctory, with no attempt to integrate the human actors with the monsters, the result being you get the impression you are watching two separate films, their only connection being sheer awfulness…”
John Brosnan’s infamous review / demolition-job from House of Hammer magazine #13.
The problem with this exasperated summary is that—while cruel—it is essentially devastatingly accurate, and probably reflected many fans’ private opinion of the film. Evidently not all though, as the ‘Post Mortem’ letters-page of HoH #17 contained the following:
“I am an avid reader of your magazine and have all your issues. I think HoH is just SUPERFANTABULOUS and is easily the best film mag I have ever seen. However, there is something that annoyed me very, very much in your latest issue and spurred me to pen this missive. It is your review of War of the Monsters, the new Godzilla film. Although John Brosnan is an extremely talented writer, and as such has his own individual views, his review of War of the Monsters is TOTALLY out of perspective. I feel fully justified in saying this because I am a Godzillaphile (Godzilla fan) and, as such, know a lot about Japanese monsters. First of all, when John Brosnan says (in so may words) Godzilla films are juvenile and stupid, he totally forgets a very important thing: GODZILLA FILMS ARE FOR KIDS! As such, they are the ultimate embodiment of what KIDS enjoy: super-scientific weapons, monsters, aliens, ‘goodies’, ‘baddies’ etc….. Toho Studios do not make them to satisfy critics and adults, they make them to satisfy KIDS! You want more proof? When I went with my friend (also a Godzillaphile) to see this film, the cinema was packed. But not only packed with kids, adults as well. And throughout the film, people were cheering when Godzilla and Angilas hit the ‘baddies’ and booing when Ghidrah did something nasty to Godzilla. When we left the cinema (two showings later) we did not see one unhappy face. All the people were laughing, smiling and talking about the film . Wouldn’t you say THAT was what film entertainment is all about?” Stephen On, Brixton, London
This obviously stung editor Dez Skinn enough to offer the following cautiously measured reply:
“Any magazine carrying opinionated reviews, as opposed to reprinting the film publicity in an only slightly reworded fashion, runs the risk of offending somebody. If a film could be made to suit everybody, the industry wouldn’t be in such a poor state as it is now. But, until that time comes, there’s sure to be someone, somewhere who will disagree. I’m sure John would take your (valid) point about Godzilla films now aiming almost 100% at the younger market, but there are still levels of quality within that market. A few weeks ago, John and I (Dez) were amongst the judges on the Antwerp International Festival of Fantasy Films. Of the forty-or-so films we had difficulty staying awake watching, one of the most enjoyable (on a pure entertainment level) was… a Godzilla film! Head and shoulders above War of the Monsters, it was Godzilla vs the Smog Monster. Thus, by definition of criticism in print being based on comparison, accepting the market / budget / effects and such, I think John Brosnan’s review still stands valid.”
This thrilling back-and-forth, as noted, represents the sole example of Godzilla being debated in a UK fan-magazine of the era.
War of the Monsters was in fact the only Godzilla film the current writer saw on its original release (at the Wolverhampton Odeon in August 1977), taken by his parents as a surprise holiday treat. On the drive there we passed the rival ABC cinema on Garrick Street, which incredibly proved to be simultaneously screening Godzilla vs the Cosmic Monster. No amount of pleading could later persuade them to go and see this as well, and—based on War of the Monsters—they can hardly be blamed.
(xiii) Godzilla vs Megalon (unreleased in Britain)
Japanese international poster 1973
Ill-advised underground nuclear testing causes dangerous earth tremors, and (unknown to the reckless scientists responsible) widespread devastation in the subterranean lost-continent of Seatopia, populated by an ancient civilisation of peaceful toga-wearing mermen. Enraged, the Seatopians forget about being peaceful and send giant beetle-monster Megalon to attack Japan in revenge. Luckily our inventor-hero has built a humanoid robot—Jet Jaguar—which can both self-program and automatically expand to giant-size, and dispatches this to Monster Island to fetch Godzilla. The Seatopians retaliate by summoning Gigan from outer space to join Megalon, but the pair are ultimately no match for our heroes, and the Seatopians are finally forced to call off the attack.
Megalon represents the Godzilla series at breaking point. By this stage, Japanese TV was swamped with cheap kaiju shows, all effectively inspired by Eiji Tsuburaya’s original 1966 smash-hit Ultraman, whose hero (sporting a colourful lycra body-suit with metallic mask/helmet) could transform to giant-size at will, to fight a variety of random monsters on a weekly basis. At just 24 minutes per episode there was no time (or need) for the stories to have any sort of logic or coherence, and Japanese children loved it.
Godzilla vs Megalon emerged from this background. Toho had run a national competition in summer 1971 for schoolkids to design a new monster, with the winner being Jet Jaguar—a robot sporting a colourful lycra body-suit with metallic mask/helmet. Swiftly realising this incredibly original character wasn’t strong enough to support his own film as originally planned, Toho instead decided to use him as Godzilla’s latest sidekick, but endless indecision delayed the project’s start-date to such an extent that Sekizawa didn’t have time to write a finished script before shooting began, instead supplying a rough story-outline for Fukuda to work from. The director was forced to literally make it up on the hoof, rewriting scenes according to the day’s weather as he went along. The original Gojira, remember, had a 120-day schedule, and even Smog Monster got 35 days. Megalon was shot (in freezing temperatures) in just THREE WEEKS. To say this shows on the screen is something of an understatement.
Jun Fukuda and Tsugitoshi Komada (Jet Jaguar) backstage at Toho.
Cataloguing Megalon’s failings is pointless. For all its threadbare feel, Gigan at least has an interesting, coherent story which is played relatively straight. Megalon has virtually no story at all and is played entirely for laughs. It isn’t boring—there’s too much randomly going on for that to be the case—but none of it makes any sense, and it’s truthfully pretty hard to watch. The stock-footage is increasingly dominant, and the new monster-battles filmed on a barren-looking wasteland lacking any detail to suggest scale. The fact that Jet Jaguar is so obviously a stuntman in a lycra outfit simply destroys what vestiges of illusion are left. If you’re in an EXTREMELY indulgent mood the film can be enjoyed as a bad joke, but that’s about it.
Megalon was a box-office flop in Japan, selling less than a million tickets for the first time in the series’ history—although being so cheaply produced, even that probably represented an acceptable profit. Artistically however, there was nowhere left to go. Even Tanaka must have grasped this, because for the next instalment he allocated an increased budget and schedule which at least gave Fukuda something to work with again.
Godzilla vs Megalon was released in the US by Cinema Shares in April 1976, and did remarkably well—American audiences seemed to actively LIKE its broad slapstick-comedy approach. But no UK distributor ever picked it up, and it remained unseen in Britain until Channel 4 finally screened it in July 1990, followed by Polygram’s first video release in 1992.
(xiv) Godzilla vs the Cosmic Monster (1977)
Mythical prophecies of the apocalypse (found deep within an Okinawan cave) seem to be coming true when Godzilla emerges to begin an uncharacteristic rampage. But the truth is soon revealed: the creature is a robot-replica, controlled by aliens (disguised apemen this time) working from a secret base beneath the cave to conquer Earth. The real Godzilla arrives to take it on, but is initially beaten back. While undercover Interpol agents chase the apemen down, our heroes (a rather confusing mix of scientists, archaeologists and Okinawan Royalty) must use an ancient magical statue to revive King Shisa—legendary lion-dog protector of Japan, currently slumbering beneath a mountain—to join Godzilla in finally defeating the alien menace.
Cosmic Monster represents a clear step-up from Megalon, but then it had to—the only alternative was to abandon the series entirely. Sekizawa again supplied the story-outline, which in fact drew heavily on an earlier kaiju TV series Giant Robo (1967), in which an evil alien-dictator blackmails (via the kidnap of a relative) a reluctant human scientist into building a giant robot-monster for him, his schemes being finally thwarted by a top-secret security force. (The notion of a famous monster fighting his evil robot-duplicate had also previously been utilised by Toho in 1968’s King Kong Escapes—see below). The finished script was a collaboration between Fukuda and newcomer Hiroyasu Yamamura, and—while at least played reasonably straight—truthfully fails to improve much on Megalon’s scrappiness. No motive is supplied for the aliens’ desire to conquer Earth—by now it’s simply what they do—and the sole character with any sort of moral depth is the blackmailed scientist (who shows a tormented regret for his actions). The film is also badly overwritten in terms of multiple ill-defined protagonists—it’s sometimes quite difficult to follow who is doing what to whom—and the non-stop Planet of the Apes / James Bond-style espionage-action is frequently incoherent. But it is certainly never dull, and at least the human and monster plot-threads are rather better integrated than previously.
Note the original (pre-lawsuit) import-title.
The improved budget is also visible in Nakano’s impressive effects-work, which for the first time in years is all-original and features no stock-footage padding. Mechagodzilla is an undeniably classic creation, though King Shisa—a shaggy overgrown pooch with waggly ears—looks absolutely ridiculous. (Coming up with successful new monsters was increasingly important for Toho by this stage, as they were now relying heavily on licensing-income from the later merchandising). Cosmic Monster seemed to justify its additional investment by doing slightly better than Megalon at the Japanese box-office, though this would prove only a temporary reprieve. But the film at least provided a reasonably dignified exit from the series for veterans Sekizwawa and Fukuda.
Godzilla vs the Cosmic Monster was released in the US by Cinema Shares in March 1977. In Britain it was picked up by short-lived new distributor Lancair Films, established in 1975 by Ron Lee (previously head of Cinerama-UK 1968-74) and Brian Taylor. Lancair (who for whatever reason borrowed Eros’s old ‘winged’ emblem for their company-logo) acquired and released about a dozen (very) cheap exploitation features over 1976-77 but quickly fell into inactivity, being belatedly dissolved in 1982. Cosmic Monster was awarded the now-standard “A” cert by the BBFC in March 1977 and released that June, double-billed with madcap Philippino sci-fi Beyond Atlantis (1973) starring Patrick Wayne.
Shall we dance? Jun Fukuda adjusts the Mechagodzilla suit (in the same backstage location as the Megalon photo above – check out the background posters ).
As with the previous month’s War of the Monsters, the MFB review was by a sympathetic Tony Rayns: “There was no way that Toho’s twenty-sixth monster frolic could have been anything other than formulary, but it could clearly have been much less shambling than it is. It seems as though Sekizawa’s storyline was, for once, quite ambitious: it’s founded on a continuous juxtaposition of ancient prophecy and modern s-f, and it assigns a distinct group of characters (boy plus girl plus scientist) the task of pursuing each thread. Whether this got garbled in Fukuda’s script or in cuts during production is obviously a matter for conjecture, but the fact is that the ‘mythic’ elements are never coherent or impressive enough to match the array of alien technology, and the script seems to forget all about fulfilling its own prophecies as it hurries towards the regulation free-style wrestling climax. Much of the trouble springs from the conception of King Shisa, supposedly leonine but actually rather shaggy-dog-like, whose presence lends the (Leone-inspired) three-way confrontation at the end more than a touch of bathos: the good, the bad and the cuddly. His stature is further diminished by the torrid pop song that the Azumi princess has to perform to arouse him from his slumbers. Mechagodzilla is, by contrast, an agreeably fiendish robot, and his clash with an especially pugnacious Godzilla gives the film more of a lift than its diffuse plotting deserves. The vague hint of a longstanding resentment of Japan by the native Okinawans is the sole remaining vestige of the ‘social consciousness’ that informed the series two years earlier.”
Cosmic Monster’s generally improved air of seriousness and commitment had brought Godzilla back from the brink, and tentatively promised a fresh start for the series. But Toho’s next instalment would prove to be the final throw of the dice.
(xv) Monsters From An Unknown Planet (1976)
Different (this time horribly warty-faced) aliens bent on world domination retrieve and rebuild Mechagodzilla, teaming him with Titanosaurus (a tall, slender aquatic dinosaur) to devastate Tokyo. They are aided in their campaign by a renegade scientist with a grudge against humanity, plus his daughter, an icily beautiful cyborg whose abdomen secretly contains Mechagodzilla’s main control-panel. Two Interpol agents discover this pair’s involvement, but our hero ill-advisedly begins to fall in love with the miserable and lonely cyborg. Eventually—with Godzilla unable to overcome his two opponents, and her confused loyalties strained beyond endurance—she fatally shoots herself, ending Mechagodzilla’s remote-control and allowing the alien plot to be once again defeated. Our devastated hero helplessly cradles her corpse on the cliffs, as behind him Godzilla wades away into the sea for a final time.
As even this brief plot-summary should hopefully suggest, Monsters From An Unknown Planet is markedly different in tone to practically every other adventure in the series. Although the now familiar (indeed obligatory) comic-strip elements are naturally present and correct, the film is otherwise a dark and brooding melodrama with comparatively sophisticated themes, an underlying atmosphere of gloomily inescapable tragedy, and an unapologetically downbeat conclusion. Combined with a further advance on Cosmic Monster’s improved production values, this is the best Godzilla film since the mid-60s, and—depending on your personal taste—arguably one of the best of the entire franchise.
Tanaka wanted to restore some of the series’ lost integrity, and—after briefly toying with the idea of bringing back the iconoclastic Banno—finally opted to recall Honda from his busy TV schedule. Simultaneously, Toho ran a national story-contest inviting ideas for a sequel, which was won by Yukiko Takayama, a young (29-year-old) student at a Tokyo scriptwriting school. Although Honda had to spend some time redrafting her finished screenplay: “[It] was psychological—you could even call it poetic—but not terribly cinematic”—the new feminine perspective—emphasising its characters’ conflicted motivations and internalised emotional struggles—would prove a minor revelation. The film’s alienated (both figuratively and literally) heroine/villain Katsura in fact rather resembles the similarly duplicitous Miss Namikawa in Sekizawa’s Monster Zero, but whereas the latter’s self-sacrificing death is framed as a submissive apology for her conduct, Katsura’s contrastingly defiant seppuku feels more like a final desperate act of rebellious autonomy. And has the added bonus of mucking up Mechagodzilla.
Monsters From An Unknown Planet (Mechagodzilla’s Counterattack in its original Japanese) is a flawed but impressive film, a provocative culmination of the tensions Honda had struggled with throughout the 60s in trying to keep his work at least semi-serious. A significant advance in every way on Cosmic Monster, it should have further consolidated that film’s improved performance at the Japanese box-office. But it didn’t. It sold even less tickets than the wretched Megalon and summarily ended the series. The belated attempt to regain an audience with a better-quality product had failed, and there was nothing left. Even the dogged Tanaka knew when to quit.
The film was released in the US in May 1978 as Terror of Godzilla by Bob Conn Enterprises (Conn, a former sales-exec for Fox and Warners, had, like Nat Miller before him, left the security of the Majors to pursue chance-taking independence). This print was cut quite extensively to obtain a ‘G’ rating, though—confusingly—Saperstein had simultaneously sold an alternate version direct to US TV (as Terror of Mechagodzilla—Toho’s original International title) which was largely uncut. The chief contentious scene features a sedated Katsura being operated on by the aliens as they implant Mechagodzilla’s controls in her abdomen. She is topless in the very brief shot, and God alone knows what effect the unrestricted sight of her bionic nipples might have had on the Youth of America.
Monsters From An Unknown Planet was very quickly picked up in the UK by Miracle Films, the uncut print gaining a BBFC ‘A’ cert in Feb 1976, to be released that June double-billed with (equally lively) spaghetti western Blazing Guns (1972). The programme (backed by some energetic promotion from Miracle, which we can return to in a moment) did exceptionally well, and as previously noted inspired the quick cash-in release of War of the Monsters the following summer.
Teruyoshi Nakano arranges another fight scene on Monsters From An Unknown Planet
Tom Milne’s laconic MFB review typically cut to the chase: “Very much the Toho formula, with all the care and money expended on the monster battles, while the remaining special effects (toy submarines, back-projected refugees, collapsible model cities) are glaringly amateurish and the ‘human drama’ is stilted to the point of paralysis. Since the Toho tongue has long been in cheek with these epics (with their monsters disarmingly reminiscent of TV wrestlers) none of this matters very much; and since the dubbing contrives, either by luck or design, to convey the exact feel and flavour of dialogue balloons, the overall effect is uncannily like a strip cartoon. Admittedly, the dialogue doesn’t always rise to the heights of such gems as “That’s strange, a gentle dinosaur!”, “Look at THAT… oooh!”, or the “We haf vays of making you talk” idiom used for the alien storm troopers. But the three monsters battling heroically through the assorted tints of fog and mist (particularly Mechagodzilla, first seen towering in the laboratory under a scaffolding of glass and steel like something out of Metropolis, and later zooming into war with head and hands all functioning as revolving rocket-launchers) more than make up for the dead patches.”
Miracle’s sales-chief Mike Myers seems to have poured more effort into promoting his film than anyone since Rank’s Frank Poole had for King Kong vs Godzilla way back in 1963, and scored two significant coups. IPC’s popular Monster Fun comic ran for 73 weekly issues from June 1975 to Oct 1976, also producing two bumper Summer Specials for the respective holidays. As a cool bonus feature, both Specials carried similar three-page promotional splashes for current monster movie releases, collaging supplied b&w stills to create a photographic strip-cartoon of each film’s action highlights. 1975’s Special promoted The Land That Time Forgot (then a major new release from British Lion) and 1976’s did the same for Monsters From An Unknown Planet. Given the massive print-runs and vast national readership UK comics still enjoyed at this point, there’s no doubt the strip must have gained Miracle a significant younger (7-12) audience who otherwise wouldn’t have realised the film existed. The captions certainly demanded attention: “The people of Tokyo witness the War of the Monsters!” / “Titanosaurus strikes!” / “Mechagodzilla—Towering Terror!” / “Face to Face for the Final Battle!”—and traditional pester-power would often have done the rest.
Monster Fun’s 1976 Summer Special thrilling three-page promotional spread
Even more incredibly, Myers got a similar high-profile promo-feature placed in what was then Britain’s longest-running weekly magazine. Titbits (1881-1984) is now generally credited with paving the way for popular journalism in the UK (both Alfred Harmsworth and Arthur Pearson worked on it prior to launching the Daily Mail and Daily Express respectively). The chief focus was human-interest stories emphasising drama and sensation, and by 1955 Titbits was shifting 1.15m copies a week. Standards (and sales) had slipped a bit by 1976 though, and the issue of 26th Feb—3rd March splashed with LEAP YEAR GIRLS TELL HOW THEY’D POP THE QUESTION, accompanied by a snap of a kneeling bikini-clad beauty offering up a bouquet to a headless brown-suited recipient. The other two cover-story captions were SKY-HIGH DANGER OF BRITAIN’S CROWDED AIRLINES and (top-right, directly opposite the masthead) BATTLE OF THE SCI-FI MONSTERS. In the small pic accompanying the latter, Mechagodzilla appears to be precariously balancing on Ms Leap Year’s head.
Titbits was printed in black-and-white, only featuring Colour on its covers and coveted ‘Scene in Titbits’ centre-spread. Somehow (God alone knows how) Myers had got hold of the centre-spread. Under the bright-red banner headline BATTLE OF THE GIANTS—“It’s an earth-shattering showdown when mighty monsters meet the terrifying tin beast”—six full-colour stills (Katsura’s bionic nipples very much to the fore) dazzled the reader’s eye. The accompanying text could barely contain itself:
“What a fight! The biggest, most brutal and terrifying the world has ever seen. Two huge flesh and blood monsters and a tin giant grapple, snap, snarl, screech in a frightening fight to the death. Furrows as wide as roads are etched in hillsides as knife-edged claws scrape the ground in anguish and hundred-foot-high electricity pylons hurtle through the cloud as they’re flicked away as easily as sets of darts. It’s a mini quake as the forces of good and evil battle it out to be king of the beasts. The new Japanese film MONSTERS FROM AN UNKNOWN PLANET that comes to London and all the provinces at Easter has it all! Mechagodzilla, an enormous robot monster, comes up from a deep sea grave to team up with the warty black villain Titanosaurus. Mission: to take over the world for their Space masters from the Third Planet in the Black Hole. A mind-twisted professor is conscripted to control the huge invaders with a fiendish device. His daughter gets into the act, is killed, taken to the invaders’ secret headquarters and brought back to life with a similar device inside her. Then up strides Godzilla, the Earth’s guardian, who tangled with the robot beast before and sent him to the deep. Hackles up, he moves into the attack. His chances look slim against such a powerful pair of enemies… but he’s a fighter. And good always triumphs.”
Titbits eye-catching cover and unforgettable centre-spread splash from Feb 1976
Well, if that didn’t pack ’em in, nothing would. Doctors’, dentists’ and hairdressers’ waiting-rooms across the UK must have seen thousands of bored customers idly flicking through the magazines only to suddenly stop and think Hang on—What the Christing Hell is THIS? And do I need to go and see it? Once again, the potential casual readership was massive.
Monsters From an Unknown Planet proved so popular it continued to be regularly revived for one-off local matinee screenings up and down the country for years—which is how the present writer happened to first see it. On Thursday 3rd May 1979 Britain went to the polls in the landmark General Election which put Margaret Thatcher into power for a decade. With most schools shut for the day, many cinemas took the opportunity to program children’s matinees, and the Wolverhampton Odeon obliged with a special 2pm screening of Blazing Guns / Monsters From An Unknown Planet. While Britain was changing forever, your author was sat in the dark enjoying a Godzilla film. I like to think Ishiro Honda would have smiled.
END OF PART 2