In a B film kind of mood recently. One of my faves of all time is the 1968 children's gem, Godzilla's Revenge. It's not as good as The Curse Of The Cat People, but it's far above what it initially seems. In my memoirs, I write of it:
The original Godzilla, King Of The Monsters, in black & white, released in the mid 50s, is 1 of the classic monster movies. Yes, it had a hammy, spliced in Raymond Burr in the American version, & a too moralistic tone about nukes, but what young boy, watching the film for the 1st time, did not get goose bumps when the film’s opening credits roll to the ominous sound of Godzy’s immense footfalls? The sequel, Godzilla Raids Again, or Gigantis, The Fire Monster, was in some ways even a better film. After a few years’ hiatus, Toho Films started churning out cheesy Godzy films every other year in the 60s. Godzy would battle other Toho monsters- Mothra, Rodan, Ghidrah. The most successful 1960s film in the USA saw Japan’s Godzilla take on American monster champ King Kong. This Kong was a far cry from the ahead-of-its-time stop-motion action Kong of the original American film. Nonetheless, the man in the monkey suit approach was feasible for the film’s purposes & the battle ended in a de facto draw- Kong winning in the American version & Godzilla frying his ass in the Japanese version. The zenith of this craze came in 1968’s monsterama Destroy All Monsters!, in which every Toho monster made an appearance.
By the early 70s I eagerly awaited every new Godzilla release as it hit the Ridgewood Theater, then watched all the films whenever they came on tv. I could do a good imitation of Godzy’s roar. The films came out a year or 2 after their Japanese release. Of all of the Godzilla films post-1960 1 stands head & shoulders above- not because Godzilla battled such a terrifically monstrous foe, but it was the only Godzilla film not JUST a Godzilla film. The film- Godzilla’s Revenge- made it stateside in late 1971-early 1972. I snuck in to see it with Ziggy & Georgey G.
The setup for the film is a lonely little Japanese boy’s fantasy life. The hero is 6 or 7 year old Ichiro (Tomonori Yazaki)- the quintessential little Oriental kid, in baseball cap & micro-shorts, who loves monsters. There have been others in Japanese & Korean monster films, but none so vividly portrayed- much less the center of a film. Ichiro has a problem- because he’s small & effeminate some older, larger boys constantly pick on him & the prissy goody-2 shoes girl he hangs with. Worse, he is a ‘latch-key child’. His poor working class parents are rarely there for him when he gets home from school & several scenes bespeak his profound loneliness. An elderly toymaker, Inami (Eisei Amamoto), lives nearby, & acts as guardian, but his presence is not enough to fill what is missing. There’s always been a recurring subtext of possible pedophilia in many Oriental monster films- a young boy & an overly-protective grandfatherly figure- but no film gives off those creepy vibes like this. It’s nothing in the script, per se, just the way certain scenes play. The old man’s affections for Ichiro are too much. Intentional or not, it’s there & contributes to the empathy most viewers feel for Ichiro- especially when confronted by tormenting peers.
To escape Ichiro retreats to dream & fantasy. Nowadays he would be diagnosed with some faux psychiatric disorder & thoroughly medicated, but in the late 60s Ichiro is just a likable wimp. He plays with a Godzilla doll, so we know the film is acknowledging Godzilla is a pop figure- not a real life (in the film’s cosmos) figure, although other scenes may contradict. This film’s portrayal of real world scenes & nabes in Japan is a very different aesthetic from the mostly studio shots & cardboard miniatures of Tokyo that dominate other Godzy flicks. Ichiro dreams he’s on a secret mission to Monster Island (a 1960s Japanese precursor to Jurassic Park), where he is befriended by Godzilla’s son Minya- an odd little dinosaurlet with sleepy eyes, who can weakly blow smoke rings, not yet strong enough to consistently breathe fire. Minya was introduced into the series a few years earlier in Godzilla’s Son. But, in this film Minya is more than a little monster; he can speak- in English (& I presume Japanese in the original undubbed version, although I hope the Japanese Minya’s voice is less goofy than the Bullwinkle/Barney the Dinosaur-like voice the American Minya has), & can shrink & grow in size at will; from smaller than Ichiro 150-200 feet tall, compared to Godzilla’s 400-500 foot size.
The 2 become pals not only because they can converse but Minya can relate to Ichiro’s being picked on. Godzilla spends a portion of the film teaching Minya how to defend himself- mostly from a larger monster named Gabera (the name of the head bully that torments Ichiro, as well close to the name of Toho’s rival Korean monster star Gammera), but other monsters- mostly in stock footage from earlier Godzy romps as Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster, the aforementioned Destroy All Monsters!, & Son Of Godzilla. Alot of Godzy connoisseurs loathe this film because it cannibalizes these other films, is seen as strictly a cheesy kids film, as well not being a true Godzilla film, but the use of earlier films’ footage puts that footage to better use in a superior film than those it came from, + all Godzilla films are cheesy kids films- this 1 only explicitly so, & the fact Godzilla serves a mythic & psychological context deepens the plot’s resonance. Since Godzilla is acknowledged by the adults in the film as a fiction, the boy’s knowledge of him must come from watching the films. Thus the use of stock footage in his dreams makes perfect sense since this would be what Ichiro’s knowledge of the fictive Godzilla is based on. Minya serves as the ‘invisible friend’ many children conjure to battle loneliness. It’s worth noting Minya can speak to Ichiro only when he is at his smallest boy-like size- not when a normal-sized monster. In the film’s ‘real world’ we discover Ichiro’s monster fantasy is not only an escape from childhood bullies, but he’s managed to get caught in the middle of a bank robbery escape, taken captive by criminals, the leader in dark shades & the follower a dummy who loses his driver’s license, only to pursue Ichiro to retrieve it. Ichiro responds to his kidnapping by dreaming he is back on Monster Island, where Minya gets his butt whipped by the electric touch of Gabera. Through a series of waking & dream scenes we see Godzilla take vengeance on Gabera. Ichiro derides Gabera as a ‘loser’ because he is not strong as Godzilla. Since this is Ichiro’s dream he is only acknowledging the lessons learned from his own real-life experiences & projecting his own insecurities about the ‘real’ Gabera- his bully- onto the vanquished monster. Minya, inspired by his dad’s strength & courage, takes on & defeats Gabera himself- further solidifying Ichiro’s belief might, indeed, makes right. Violence becomes Ichiro’s paradigm for conflict resolution- in Godzilla’s world it is highly effective. I am not going to screed on the rightness nor wrongness of this for that is not the point; violence is effective when total- ask Native Americans. The problem for Ichiro is not a diminution of his soul- but the limiting effect Godzilla’s fictive success has on his ‘real life’ ability to see other ways to resolve conflicts. This will haunt Ichiro long after film’s end. Regardless, Ichiro, similarly inspired, plots & executes an escape from the Keystone Kops-like bank robbers by setting traps & using a fire extinguisher. Like Home Alone, over 2 decades later, the child outwits the criminals who pursue him into the police dragnet.
Ichiro is hailed as a hero. This means little to the 5 bullies, especially Gabera (the boy), who still pick on Ichiro. Ichiro, swelled on his fantasies & real life adventure, viciously attacks the older, larger boy, defeats him, then gets his kicks tormenting a sign painter by honking a horn- causing the old man to fall & spill his paint. Gabera & his cronies, in rote fashion, befriend Ichiro (& his tag-along girl friend), & all is well. Not really.
While the dynamics of the bully-victim relationship have never been depicted better in any film (even serious films), Ichiro has not really triumphed. He has defeated moronic criminals & stood up to tormentors, but neither were what really ailed his existence- they were symptoms, not causes, of his woe. The bullies picked on Ichiro not simply because he was small- some of the ‘lesser’ bullies were no bigger than him, but because Ichiro was withdrawn, thoughtful, creative, with meager social skills. The cause of this his de facto abandonment by his parents- his father working long hours as a train engineer, his mom late hours as a beautician. Without their approval & guidance Ichiro clomb into a shell. The possibility he was sexually abused by the elderly neighbor would only heighten the child’s incipient inward fantasy life, making him more susceptible to bullies who need to find easy quarry in children eager & imaginatively able to withdraw to a better place.
Why is Ichiro a ‘latch-key kid’ in the 1st place? 1 look at the nabe & city where he resides gives you a clue- a prototypical 1960s industrial wasteland riddled with factories, pollution, broken machinery, traffic jams, & deserted buildings. This excess led to the ecological movements of the 1970s- you can almost smell the smog from the city as it comes off the screen. The counter-zeitgeist of those years had odd little commercials featuring a cartoon character that rivaled Smoky Bear in ecological circles- Woodsy Owl. A few years later the Godzy series tackled this in Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster. Minya & the dreams/fantasies are escapes from working class poverty, an indictment of it by their very existence. Yet, the film does this quite subversively- on the surface an oft-told tale of a boy’s acceptance by peers, underneath it shows the deleterious effects of peer pressure. Although his parents work long hours they have little to show for it. The lonely boy needs a friend, so invents 1- Minya, gleaned from watching Godzilla’s Son (thus the stock footage of his dream)- which explains why he can talk. All ‘invisible friends’ talk to their creators. It’s also why Ichiro’s ‘asylum’ is the lush, tropical Monster Island.
When Ichiro is hailed as a hero for his thwarting the bank robbers, & accepted into the gang his triumphs are, at best, Pyrrhic. Nothing has fundamentally changed in his life. He still lives in a small, shitty apartment in a crime-ridden area a tv broadcast in the film charitably calls a ‘semi-industrial neighborhood’. His parents vow to be there for him, but viewers know they will not- not for lack of care, but for the reality of their circumstances. Ichiro’s ability to ‘stand up’ to delinquent bullies allows him peer approval to become a budding delinquent bully, as well- 1 more despotic than Gabera ever was. Tormenting the hapless painter the bullies had earlier in the film means Ichiro has merely jumped a social fence stuck in the middle of the same problem of urban childhood loneliness, degradation, &- for lack of a better term- ‘desoulment’. He will doubtlessly conform to the bullying code (evidenced by his harassment of the painter, & acceptance as ‘1 of the gang’) since he did not ‘rise above’ his problem through intellect, merely steamrollered it (reinforcing to the lesser gang members theirs was the better way; Ichiro merely the better fighter & leader than Gabera). Ichiro learns success can be attained by retreating from problems with self-delusion or eliminating problems by force. The film’s seeming happy ending, with his guilt-ridden dad covering for his son’s delinquency (thereby making a connection with his son?), portends later, greater travails in Ichiro’s life. This is not a criticism, just acknowledgement of a reality the film may not have been aware of. Delusion can never bring true joy, & Ichiro is on a path many a disillusioned (or delusioned?) young male has trod.
The film is also a warning against the influence of pop culture for it’s Ichiro’s misplaced imago of Godzilla as a de facto father figure, who can only resolve things in id-like rages, which leads to his Pyrrhic victories, & most likely doomed post-film existence in a world where pedophiles, criminals, & bullies seem the only figures of triumph & masculinity. Another aspect that makes the film so good is Ichiro is the nickname of the film’s director- Inoshiro Honda, the 1st & best of the Godzy film directors. How much of himself & his childhood the director imbued into Ichiro I do not know, but given this film shows alot more craft & care in the boy’s portrayal & human elements than the typical monster mash I would reckon alot.
Industrial wasteland, deserted buildings, crooks, bullies, pedophiles….sounds like a kid we all know, eh? This film resonated deeply with me from the 1st time I saw it- I knew this was the best of the series, although not cognizant why for the deeper reasons stated. I knew Ichiro, & what he was going through.
Anyway, enough with the words, here is the whole damned film!:
