The Ides of Frankensteins

We've made it to the 15th... only 16 more reviews to go until March is over. This endeavor has been fun, and it's kept me busy as intended, but it's also getting a bit tough. Come on, folks, please give me some suggestions. Something to spark an idea. Otherwise, it's gonna be nothing but old monster movies for you.

"Furankenshutain no kaijû: Sanda tai Gaira"
(aka "War of the Gargantuas," 1966)

The name "Frankenstein" is often bandied about in a cavalier manner. Smart people know that Frankenstein was the name of the scientist. His creation was only named "the creature," or more commonly, "Frankenstein's monster." Still, when a tall, stitched-together, groaning perversion of God's will shows up to advertise beer every Halloween, you're bound to hear him called "a Frankenstein," as if there are several of them. Leave it to the Japanese to run wild with this loose appellation. Toho Studios gave the world a film best known as "Frankenstein Conquers the World" in 1965, wherein the Nazis steal the immortal heart of the monster and deliver it to Japanese scientists in Hiroshima. Then the A-bomb drops, which naturally causes the heart to grow into a radioactive feral boy and, subsequently, a big woolly humanoid who battles lesser Toho kaiju Baragon (not Barugon, who Gamera fought for rival studio Daiei) and is swallowed by the earth for his trouble. The film on the review block today is the legendary semi-sequel to that film, the Japanese title of which translates to "Frankenstein's Monsters: Sanda vs. Gaira." The director was Ishiro Honda, most famous of all Godzilla directors. Back when Svengoolie was still Son of Svengoolie, I saw this picture and loved it, but didn't watch it again for what must be more than twenty years. I recently got a hold of the Japanese language version, which does not try as hard to obscure its connections to the "Frankenstein" title as does the standard American dub. My DVD includes scene-by-scene comparisons with the American version, which has several longer scenes... I hadn't counted on that. With several international trailers and a Japanese language making-of featurette, mine is as complete a copy of the movie as you can get. Awesome!

This being a Japanese/American co-production, Russ Tamblyn ("West Side Story," "Satan's Sadists") stars as a dashing American scientist working in Japan. He's called in when a large, furry green creature stops a giant squid monster from destroying a boat, only to destroy it himself. It's said that Tamblyn dealt with a similar creature in the past, and he clearly calls it a Frankenstein in the Japanese version in one of several thin attempts at the sequel angle. Although his assistant is played by Japanese monster picture favorite Kumi Mizuno, who played the assistant to the white doctor in "Frankenstein Conquers the World," these characters have different names. It's deduced that bright light bothers the beast, so the military zaps him with those handy giant maser trucks that Japan has sitting around in case of giant monster attack. Suddenly, a nearly identical monster - this one brown - shows up and rescues the badly damaged green giant, who is covered with bloody sores for the rest of the movie. Folks dub the green, sea-dwelling one Gaira and the brown, mountain-dwelling one Sanda. Sanda is apparently the sweet, docile creature Tamblyn and Mizuno knew in the flashbacks, all grown up and having spawned an evil version of himself in Gaira. When Mizuno almost falls to her death, Sanda saves her and gives evidence that he remembers her kindness.

Then, for no apparent reason (maybe he noticed that Gaira was killing people), Sanda attacks Gaira while he's resting, and thus begins the war of the American title. Because the costumes are basically mangy monkey suits, our Frankensteins aren't as encumbered as your typical Toho kaiju, so they get pretty physical. These dudes beat the tar out of each other. Say what you want about the acting requirements needed to play a rampaging furball, but as is usual with Honda's movies, these actors are very good at physically expressing themselves while inside the suits. Gaira's a prick, and he constantly makes a hilarious taunting move by thrusting his arms into a Y, like he's starting a particularly angry rendition of "YMCA." Sanda usually looks hurt, sad or put-upon. At one point, he advances on Gaira down a corridor of demolished Tokyo buildings, shaking his head in disgust while Gaira cowers. Monsters in American flicks don't get personalities like that unless they're cracking jokes. They fight over land, they fight in the sea, they're eventually covered up by lava from an underwater volcano. The End. Eh, the flick doesn't hold up as well as "Gojira tai Hedorâ" does, but Gaira and Sanda are still pretty badass for a coupla Frankensteins. The original trailer: