MOTW- 1-6-07 FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD -1965

[Xenorama ™]

Tadao Takashima ... Dr. Yuzo Kawaji
Nick Adams ... Dr. James Bowen
Kumi Mizuno ... Dr. Sueko Togami
Yoshio Tsuchiya ... Mr. Kawai
Koji Furuhata ... The Frankenstein Monster
Jun Tazaki ... Military Advisor
Susumu Fujita ... Osaka Police Chief
Takashi Shimura ... Axis Scientist
Nobuo Nakamura ... Skeptical Museum Chief
Kenji Sahara ... Soldier
Yoshifumi Tajima ... Submarine Commander
Kôzô Nomura ... Overzealous Reporter
Haruya Kato ... TV Director
Ikio Sawamura ... Man Walking Dog
Yoshio Kosugi ... Mountain Soldier
Haruo Nakajima ... Baragon

another winner! and another surprise to have it available on DVD in two versions, well, three, i guess, and having the octopus scene at the end is even a bigger plus.

anyway, the movie works very well, and mostly because the humans are so engaging that you care about them. plus the actor playing the Monster does a good job that you cheer for him as he shows up to battle Baragon and clear his name.

this is one i saw a few times on late night tv. oddly enough, it was usually on one of the networks, not the independent channel.

[Shonokin]

This is one where the higher budget and larger set scale really worked. Since Frank and Baragon are smaller kaiju, the sets were built bigger and it's amazing how much of a difference it makes in the look of overall quality.

The whole setup to the story is so wacky that ya just have to love it. It's a lot of fun all the way through and even touching at certain points. This is one of my favorite Japanese fantasy movies.

I loved the sequel too, esp. the lounge lizard snack scene.

[Torgaman]

I never got to see this one until I was an old fart.I'm kind of on the fence about it.

[Xenorama ™]

some movies it really does help to see as a kid, but this should stand up pretty well, i'd think.

i agree about the higher budgets and smaller sets. i never understood why people think that 100 meters is better than 50 m, when no matter what size a monster is it's going to be impressive. people think stupid Hummers are big compared to other cars, so if there's a 30' Baragon around, it'll make the Hummer look tiny- people can relate to that. too big and it's too far out of our thinking.

i mean, if Godzilla can only see into the 10th floor of one of those skyscrapers, that's 9 floors more than me.

[Gwangi]

I remember seeing this in bits and pieces when I was quite young (early 1970s). At K-Mart, I recall seeing model kits of what looked like some caveman battling a dinosaur, realizing later that was from FCTW! I didn’t see it fully until 1977 (the 3:30 movie on KABC Channel 7, when they played a week of kaiju).

I love it because the of the people. Kumi Mizuno is just great to look at and Nick Adams is just great period. I don’t think Henry Saperstein got enough credit for casting Hollywood actors in kaiju. It certainly opened the door and as we saw, several more were to come (all the way to at least “The Last Dinosaur”).

And in truth, I actually prefer that ending where Frankenstein is battling that great looking octopus, rather than him sinking into the Earth. The bad part of all of that is the octopus was never really built up. He just shows up right in the middle of the forest!

[Zone Fighter]

I haven't seen this one.

[Shonokin]

(using Auggie's book as a reference already) In Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters Auggie writes that the original ending was actually the crack in the earth one and that Saperstein wanted the fight with the Devil Fish put in for American release, but that ironically AIP wanted the crack in the earth ending. I suppose that is why the Devil Fish literally would have seemed just "stuck in there". Though the crack in the earth stuff seemed completely random too, but either way the movie is so wacky that it was all good.

[Xenorama ™]

while i love seeing the octopus scene, and having it subbed now is great, it really makes no sense in the movie, which has at least followed it's own internal logic. the ground sinking because Baragon has weakened it can at least be applied here. the octopus showing up out of nowhere, in the middle of a forest?

i'm afraid not!

[Torgaman]

I agree with Xeno.As far as I know octopie are ocean dwelling creatures and don't exist in lakes,plus they actually don't run around on land much.Perhaps a more appropriate ending would have been to actually have Frankie die in the fire he and Baragon caused just like in the Universal and Hammer Frankenstein films.

[Shonokin]

torgaman said:

I agree with Xeno.As far as I know octopie are ocean dwelling creatures and don't exist in lakes,plus they actually don't run around on land much.Perhaps a more appropriate ending would have been to actually have Frankie die in the fire he and Baragon caused just like in the Universal and Hammer Frankenstein films.

That would have been a perfect ending and made sense!

[Gwangi]

Yes, I think so as well!

I just thought it was a cool looking octopus, and I don’t think Hollywood could have done better job than what Tsuburaya did, the lone exception of course, being Ray Harryhausen, but his octopus would have been in stop-motion.

If the devil-fish, could have been incorporated into the plot, somehow, someway, this thing might have worked. But instead, he just shows up!

[Xenorama ™]

OK, the trick is now- how do we get the devilfish involved? we'd have to change the location of the final battle to make it a bit more conducive to oodako, right?

and it's a great octopus, no question there.

[RedKing]

Another great Toho movie, though not really a favorite of mine. I first saw it on late night TV when i was about 10 or 11 and loved it. Baragon is a great monster, and there's no way I could ever buy that Frankenstein was strong enough to beat him, even as a kid! The octopus scene is cool, but definitely comes out of left field! I went to high school with a guy that was a dead ringer for the human sized Franky, seriously. He was a nice guy and I felt bad for him as you can imagine he was picked on mercilessly.