War of the Gargantuas (1966)

It was bound to happen sooner or later: the grace and majesty of Asian guys in big rubber suits smashing up model sets of downtown Tokyo has been stretched by definition to expand past lizards, turtles and golden dragons.

And how did they do it? By adding Frankenstein to the equation.

You see, in 1965 Toho Studios released Furankenshutain tai chitei kaijû Baragon, aka: Frankenstein Conquers the World, where a mutated heart grows into a giant deformed man (dubbed "Frankenstein", natch), which then proceeds to smash the ever-lovin' heck out of other Toho standby Barugon, followed by Tokyo, Mount Fuji and all points East. Never ones to let a good thing go so easily after an easily wrapped-up finale, Toho and company decided to make a sequel. Start a whole new Godzilla-esque thing for themselves, don'tcha know....

Besides which, it's that old black magic for Japan to use the same old formula in their movies thousands of times. In this case, giant monster created by man's scientific ignorance wreaks havoc, smashes stuff up, kills people, the army is useless, one lone scientist is all that can stop him and save the day (along with a child in short-shorts, time permitting), "tampered in God's domain" speech for the wrap-up, the end.

Not only has Toho Studios prospered long and well by this storyline, so have Godzilla, Gamera, Rodan, Ghidorah, Mecha-Godzilla (hmmm...I like that name...), even King Kong a couple of times - the list is endless.

And so director Ishirô Honda - the respected lenser of the original Godzilla film, many sequels and some other interesting variations...including Frankenstein Conquers the World! - co-wrote with Takeshi Kimura from a story by Reuben Bercovitch what would become a sequel to Frankenstein Conquers the World. Only...it wasn't.

What happened? Seems that when this was sent over to American International Pictures for release, us chappies in the US of A decided to excise all mentions of a connection to the previous movie and simply make it a stand-alone project. Makes sense.

So now we have War of the Gargantuas which turned into what would hopefully become a new dawn in an ever-growing series of sunrises. This one not only gave us one huge monster but TWO - TWO - two monsters in one. Yep, two hulking humanoid low-brows all set to bungle in Osaka...and they even threw in a giant octopus, free of charge.

For the uninitiated, a plot rundown is in order: When the surviving crew member of an horrific freighter attack tells the police how his craft was demolished by a hairy green gargantuan giant, Doctor Paul Stewart (Russ Tamblyn), his assistant Akemi (Kumi Mizuno) and Dr. Mamiya (Kenji Sahara) are called in to examine the wreckage. Seems that years earlier Stewart genetically created a younger species of the same creature and it is feared that the monster has grown up and now views man as an enemy. Several attacks ensue at sea and on land until the monster is cornered in a forested mountain area of Japan, and is nearly killed by the army when another gargantuan monster, a one brown, arrives and saves it. This is the creature created by Stewart (gasp!), whom the doctors realize cloned himself from lost piece of his own flesh. The army continues to hunt them down as the green monster, now recovered, battles his brown brother over the width and breadth of Tokyo. Stewart and Akemi must now try to save them both before the army kills him both gargantuan monstrosities....

One thing, this film fits one of the criteria for a film I review in that it has several alternate titles. Not just War of the Gargantuas (USA) but also De oorlog der monsters (Belgium), Frankenstein - Zweikampf der Giganten (West Germany), King Kongarnas krig (Sweden), La batalla de los simios gigantes (Spain), La guerre des monstres (France), Kong, uragano sulla metropoli (Italy), O polemos ton gargantuas (Greece)....

What's that? Oh yeah: Russ Tamblyn - he's the guy from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, West Side Story...dancer, singer. You know how it is, though - hard times come up and they sure did for Tamblyn, what with drinking, drug use, carousing, wenching and all. So he got put in the Nick Adams mold and appeared, dubbed and everything, amongst an Asian cast and trying for everything to seem as if he understood every word his cast mates were saying...even though you could tell by the look on his face he didn't. In fact, he's so low-key in expression, action and even in voice (he had to dub himself, even!), that he might as well have been played by Nick Adams - at least we could have expected a livelier performance all the way around.

The poor guy: in one scene Russ' hard living is even prevalent on a train trip where all looks well until he turns his head and we see his right eye is all but swelled shut and swollen and then made up to hide the fact that he has quite the shiner. Maybe someone in a saki bar called him Riff or Tom Thumb or something.

His co-stars fare better by the sole virtue that at least no one had beaten them up. Kumi Mizuno played this kind of character many times before and since in Gorath, Attack of the Mushroom People, The Lost World of Sinbad, Invasion of Astro-Monster, Godzilla Vs. The Sea Monster and - surprise - Frankenstein Conquers the World, wherein her character was the exact same as here, albeit under a different name. Versatile, ain't she?

And Kenji Sahara does his part well enough, it's just that as far as screen time and overall effect goes, he fared better in King Kong Vs. Godzilla, Attack of the Mushroom People (what...again??), Mothra Vs. Godzilla, Gorath (hey...what the...), Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster, Destroy All Monsters and Frankenstein Conquers the World.... Okay, hold on: did these guys all have the same agent or what??

Of course, when it comes to how well the vocal personalities go over in War of the Gargantuas, for that we can blame AIP for the dub job. And yes, they're the same fine folks who also brought Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster to our sunny shores. At least with that film we had psychedelic trappings, cartoon sequences and a flying Godzilla at our disposal. However, whereas Smog Monster's dubbing was humorous and had some level of (unintentional?) humor to it, the dubbing here left the film (and its gargantuas) flapping in the breeze. It's as if they were doing their level best to take themselves as seriously as The Seven Samurai in subject matter.

A serious movie. About two big hairy green and brown monsters hassling small-scale models of Tokyo. Harold Pinter couldn't have done anything with this kind of a lead-in. David Cronenberg, maybe....

Honda co-wrote, with long-time Japanese sci-fi scribe Takeshi Kimura, a story deduced from the twisted, sinewy mind of Reuben Bercovitch, who not only gave us Frankenstein Conquers the World but also gave us Hell in the Pacific and some episodes of "The Virginian" and "Bonanza". From all of this input, it's hard to tell where we got such lines as "He’s seen in the mountains, and in the ocean… How could such a huge monster get around so quickly," or "Maybe he fell in love with a whale". Maybe it was one of those lost-in-translation things.

I'll be the first to admit, however, that I'm a sucker for movies like these. Even bad ones hold that Saturday Afternoon Movie allure that I, as a kid growing up, lived for with all the excitement of a double matinee and the comfort of a burger after the show. The miniature sets all look better than usual, the weaponry is kind of cheap and toy-looking but, in a startling change for these kind of movies, at least seem to do the job well of almost destroying the creatures they're aiming for! Who ever saw THAT coming?? I was even able to forgive a stoned Russ Tamblyn blissfully walking about, mouthing dialogue that he was going to dub over himself later, anyway.

War of the Gargantuas isn't a good movie - far from it - but it IS fun. You don't expect the social commentary of a Gojira with this kind of thing (and rest assured, you won't get it), but the sights offered here are well worth your time, if you're the kind of person who loves big monsters destroying small things.

I've watched a lot of these kinds of movies and have a bunch of them in my collection. Thing is, you can tell in an instant where you stand in a giant monster film by the way the action goes. From the minute you see octopus tentacles being maneuvered with fishing wire, you can guess pretty much how things will go...and you'll be right. If that's a good or bad thing is entirely up to your preference.

If you don't like that kind of thing, though, why are you watching War of the Gargantuas in the first place? Only devotees of Ishirô Honda, giant monsters whose hair doubles for scales, painted-over black eyes. the Japan Alps and Russ Tamblyn in decline need apply. All others, go watch your "important" films. The rest of us want to have some fun with our viewing material.

War of the Gargantuas (1966) 2011-02-14T15:35:00-08:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: admin