Oh, I don't know - sometimes it will come through okay but a lot of other times it just plain doesn't. Look at 1981's Inchon: it sure did collapse under its own weight, and was a Korea/U.S. co-production to boot. The same can be said of 1976's The Blue Bird, which was the first U.S./Russia co-production and most likely did more damage to international relations than a whole army of Yakov Smirnoffs.
What are we, then, to make of this 1968 co-production between the good old U.S. of A. and the Land of the Rising Sun...AND The Land Down Under; a co-production which all but belied the fact that it was a U.S./Japan/Australia effort because of its subject matter?
And no, it's not because it dealt with a giant rubber kangaroo destroying downtown Dallas, Texas.
I'll tell you this much for free: The Green Slime sure doesn't skimp on the fact that at least a few men behind it has a hand in some of the better-known small-scale set/large rubber monster films. And to be honest, I think that is a selling point.
Plus, a kickin' theme song sure doesn't hurt matters.
Give this plot a gander and you tell me: In the not-too-distant future, a huge meteor is headed towards a collision course with Earth. General Thompson (Bud Widom) puts an about-to-retire Commander Rankin (Robert Horton) in command of a mission to destroy the asteroid...which also place shim in command of nearby orbiting military outpost Gamma 3, thus outranking current commander - and former best friend - Elliott (Richard Jaeckel). Once there, Rankin pulls rank on everybody, including old flame Doctor Benson (Luciana Paluzzi) who is now best girl of Elliott.
I know, lots of soap opera. Anyway...
Rankin and Elliott set out for the asteroid with many other officers in tow to destroy their target. after taking some scientific samples, they set their charges and leave. The mission is a success but upon returning they unknowingly bringing back a gelatinous green substance which mutates into one-eyed tentacled monsters that feed off electricity. Soon the station is crawling with them, and the very survival of every human on the base is threatened unless Rankin and Elliott can work together and bring this slimy green threat down once and for all.
One thing I (and probably you) have noticed right off is the absolute dearth of Asian actors in this movie. In fact, there are NO Japanese actors on view in The Green Slime at all - unusual, what with its pedigree. My best guess: since this was a co-production, the American (and Australian) suits most likely decided that John Q. and Sheila Z. Public would be more enticed out of their homes and into their theaters to see a science fiction movie if it starred some recognizable Anglo talent. Why do you think Raymond Burr just happened to appear in the first 1956 U.S. release of Godzilla, King Of The Monsters?
No racism of course, just marketing.
So we get Richard Jaeckel here, he who helped fight against Nazi scum in The Dirty Dozen, along with Richard Horton, he who helped fight against cowpoke scum in TV's "Wagon Train". And for a little bit of always-popular Italian flair and some Euro-cheesecake appeal, we also get the beauteous star of Thunderball, The Greek Tycoon and that local favorite The Klansman, miss Luciana Paluzzi as the all-American named Lisa Benson, a doctor on board Gamma 3. Of course, they don't do a whole lot to mask her Italian accent in the dubbing process.
Oh yeah; like any good co-production between countries, the differences between lip movements and actual dialogue can be noticed by a few milliseconds. That's just one of the filmic facts of life, you know: if your film is made overseas and you want it to play in Peoria, then you're gonna have to do a little post-production dubbing. Just like if it's gonna play in Osaka, Santa Vittoria, Paraguay or Prague, for that matter.
Writers Ivan Reiner, Tom Rowe, Charles Sinclair and Bill Finger (of which Finger and Sinclair would essay the screenplay for that 1976 powerhouse Track Of The Moon Beast) make it as easy as possible for the dubmeisters, though, since only half of the film actually deals with dialogue.
There is action, you know. Lots of it.
Director Kinji Fukasaku, world-famous for such rock-em sock-em Japanese throw-downs as Message From Space, Battle Royale I and II and - yes, I'll say it - Virus, gives us big blobby green goo monsters with electrified tentacles that go for a rampage through every square inch of Gamma 3, laser guns, sparkly arc welder-ish slashings, extras running in all directions, soldiers wearing white motorcycle helmets and wielding big honking guns and dance sequences literally oozing with sexual and dramatic tension, topped off with explosions, mass exterminations, heroic sacrifices and more model spaceships and launch pads than you can shake a tube of model glue at.
There's a tradition in films like these that, no matter what the good guys are fighting against, it's going to end with at least one platitude to counter all of the blood and alien thunder which proceeded it. Don't look at me; that's just the way they do things.
In a movie with the title The Green Slime, however, platitudes take a seat waaaay in the back in favor of bacterial mutations, breathless scientists to save one of the beasties for study, thumbs-up given out like hall passes, laser beams bouncing across the screen like so many streamers and the undeniable charm of macho male rivalry in the face of a intergalactic cataclysm.
Acting? Well, when your dialogue is compromised by the fact that it depends on what language you speak, I can only go by what it looks like the actors were saying. Robert Horton is all teeth, and upward-pointing thumbs as the posturing heel/hero Rankin who likes forcing himself into any given situation.
Flouncing around with a hairdo that the B-52's would give their clef notes for, Luciana Paluzzi plays an Italian as an American with about as much indignant aloof beauty as you would expect from from an all-American girl from the Palermo heartland.
Jaeckel is the draw here. Everyone knows this guy, and it's not like he didn't have a career before and since The Green Slime, either. He commands orders, leads, fires lasers and looks sternly at off-camera action about as well as you;'d expect, never hinting at the innate silliness of fighting off lumpy, one-eyed monsters with high-voltage appendages. That takes acting.
As far as special effects go, you really can't - or shouldn't - expect Industrial Lights and Magic. Our special effects guys here make with the bubbling green foam, fishing line supporting wiggling tentacles and plastic models of this, that and the other thing and, to their credit, make everything as viable as your average film featuring Godzilla, Mothra, Gamera or Rodan - just with Americans and melted cousins of Sigmund The Sea Monster subbing in.
Yeah, and while we're on the subject of music...aside from the expected theremin and overly-dramatic orchestral pieces by Toshiaki Tsushima and Anglo standby Charles Fox, we also get a song produced by the late great Richard Delvy, a former drummer for The Bel-Aires, who later founded surf group giant The Challengers and created such songs as "Wipreout" and "Chick-A-Boom (Don't You Just Love It)". He also created the absolute grooviest, most rocking song every in a science fiction with a deep, soulful and (as-yet) undisclosed singer asking us "will you believe it when you're dead? GREEEEENN SLIIIIIIIMMME!!!!!" You really need to hear this song if you haven't already. Go YouTube it.
Is this a good movie? Not really. Is this a bad movie? No, not bad, either. So how does one classify The Green Slime? I guess it depends on your tolerance for the old-fashioned old school of b-movies that ran continuously in drive-in theaters and on Saturday morning matinees of the Sixties; not to mention Weekend Afternoon Movies on the TVs of our youth. It's comforting to see moldy lumps of cottage cheese killing white-helmeted extras while Testors models catch fire and extras mouth dialogue that can be dubbed into just about any language.
Did I enjoy The Green Slime? Immensely, and for many of the same reasons others will hate it. This is bad film-making but in the service of the good. Everyone was in earnest here, doing their utmost to give us our money's worth by throwing everything they had in.
This is how it's done, brothers and sisters. This is what international co-productions are supposed to do.
Entertain.
Maybe not in the same way The Seven Samurai entertains, but when faced with one-eyed monsters and a dubbed Richard Jaeckel, you take it as you get it.
With The Green Slime...you're gonna get it, alright. In the best way possible.
