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Tired of the jokes, the French take the Statue of Liberty back, slowwwwly

Cloverfield is an excellent horror movie.

It really works on a number of levels. The acting and dialogue are intelligent and believable; the pacing is gripping and speedy, without overdoing it; the camerawork, with its Blair Witch-like conceit, is very nicely done. Moreover, it is scary, and uses a wide variety of methods to achieve this scariness; indeed, virtually every method in the book, apart, thank Christ, from the something-jumps-out-suddenly method. There’s a scene in the darkness that is viscerally frightening, that hits you in the reptile brain. Then there’s the much-vaunted Statue of Liberty head, which really is marvelously effective, absolutely horrifying in a broad, conceptual sort of way. It is a very enjoyable movie, which succeeds in virtually everything it hopes to accomplish, and it is highly recommended.

What it is not is an especially good giant-monster movie.

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The American Version

What ink we got left, yellow? Red? Yeah, that’ll hold ‘em.

American International Pictures passed on this film, for reasons now lost to the mists of history. And so Walter Reade-Sterling and Continental released it in the U.S., in September of 1965. It was marketed on the cheap, with two-color posters and the usual newspaper spots; one memorable bit of marketing, though, was the three-faced, child-sized, paper ‘Ghidrah’ mask distributed as a promotion. Modern Godzilla-merch collectors would gladly slaughter orphans to get their hands on a surviving one of these. And rightly so. Ghidorah - or Ghidrah, as it was called at the time, in America – was frequently put on the lower part of a double bill with Elvis Presley’s Harum Scarum. Of course it was! Ads for the double bill had a line that went, “The beat and the beast make a holiday feast.” Okay, sure. But nothing about the King of Monsters and the King of Rock n’ Roll? Oh, never mind.

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Review

Wait, guys! I think I see a quarter down there!

It is tempting to think of Ghidorah as the point at which the Godzilla series got weird. Certainly, this film is an archetype of the kind of gonzo fun for which the Showa films are rightly known. But it’s hardly the beginning of the bizarre; King Kong vs. Godzilla was just as silly, albeit for satirical reasons (in part). And though Mothra vs. Godzilla was more straight-faced, it is important to remember that it was a movie about a giant, radiation-spewing sea dinosaur and his fight with two gargantuan caterpillars. Godzilla movies exist along a continuum of weird. And Ghidorah does weird right.

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Synopsis

Godzilla decided to get fancy with his breath ray, forming it into Japanese characters, but Rodan was unimpressed!

The film begins as these things usually do: with the introduction of the main characters. We start with Naoko (Yuriko Hoshi), a reporter putting together a series called “Mystery in the 20th Century.” She is interviewing some UFO enthusiasts with telescopes, who blame her nonbeliever brainwaves for the fact that the UFOs aren’t showing up right then. (A remarkably accurate portrayal of the thought processes of the more New Age UFOlogists, by the way.) Meanwhile, her brother, Shindo (Yosuke Natsuki), is assigned by his boss, Okita (Akihiko Hirata), to guard Princess Salno (Akihiko Hirata) of Selgina. The Princess is to be arriving incognito, as there is fear of a plot to assassinate her. We then see her on her plane; she sees a flashing light out of the window, and hears a voice suggesting that she “Stand up. You must stand up. You must leave here. Run. Run.” Apparently not one to argue, she steps calmly out of her airborne plane, with that stiff sort of walk that says “I’m hypnotized.” The plane then blows right on up. Finally, we meet Dr. Murai (Hiroshi Koizumi), a geologist, who is studying a strange, almost egg-shaped meteorite with odd magnetic qualities; it has recently come down in the mountainous Kurobe region.

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Statistics

Japanese Title: San Daikaiju Chikyu Saidai no Kessen (“Three Giant Monsters – the Greatest Battle on Earth”)
Toho Studios’ Official English Title: Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster
Other American Titles: Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster (original release)
Noteworthy International Titles: Alien Monster (British); Gojira, Mosura, Kingu Gidora: Chikyu Saidai no Kessen (Japanese Champion Festival release, “Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: the Greatest Battle on Earth”)
Director: Ishiro Honda
Producer: Tomoyuki Tanaka
Screenplay: Shinichi Sekizawa
Music: Akira Ifukube; “Shiawase Wo Yobou” (“Let’s Call for Happiness”) composed by Yasushi (Hiroshe?) Miyagawa, with lyrics by Tokiko Iwantani
Special Effects: Eiji Tsuburaya
Japanese Release: 12/20/64
American Release: 9/13/65, 9/29/65 or 9/30/65; reports vary
U.S. Distributor: Continental Distributing / Walter Reade-Sterling
Review Copy DVD Distributor: Classic Media
Running Time: 92 min./ 85 min. (American version)
Monsters: - Godzilla (Japanese: “Gojira”)
- Rodan (Japanese: “Radon,” a contraction of Pteranodon – PteRAnoDON – a sort of pterosaur) – A colossal, red-brown pterosaur, with a small, two-horned head and a spiky front
- Mothra (Japanese: “Mosura”) – One of the caterpillars, this time
- Ghidora (Japanese: “Gidora”; will later be called “King Ghidorah,” presumably after a coronation of some sort; also called “Ghidrah” and “King Ghidora”) – A huge, golden dragon, with three heads perched on the ends of long necks, a forked tail, and vast, fanlike wings
- The Shobijin (“tiny beauties” in Japanese)
Principal Cast: - Godzilla – Haruo Nakajima
- Rodan – Masaki Shinohara
- Mothra – Katsumi Tezuka
- Ghidorah – Shoichi “Solomon” Hirose (previously “King Kong” in King Kong vs. Godzilla)
- Shindo – Yosuke Natsuki
- Naoko Shindo – Yuriko Hoshi (previously “Junko Nakanishi” in Mothra vs. Godzilla)
- Professor Murai – Hiroshi Koizumi (previously “Tsukioka” in Gojira no Gyakushu, “Dr. Miura” in Mothra vs. Godzilla)
- Princess Maas Doulina Salno – Akiko Wakabayashi (previously “Tamiye,” a minor character in King Kong vs. Godzilla; known to American audiences as “Aki” from You Only Live Twice)
- Dr. Tsukamoto – Takashi Shimura (previously “Dr. Kyohei Yamane” in Gojira and Gojira no Gyakushu)
- Detective Okita – Akihiko Hirata (previously “Dr. Serizawa” in Gojira, “Mr. Shinagawa” in King Kong vs. Godzilla)
- Malness - Hisaya Ito
- The Shobijin – Emi and Yumi Ito

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