Featured Creature: The one where Godzilla turns environmentalist

 

Title: Godzilla Vs The Smog Monster aka Godzilla vs Hedorah

What Year?: 1971 (Japanese release)/ 1972 (US theatrical release)

Classification: Weird Sequel/ Mashup

Rating: What The Hell??? (2/4)

 

As I write this, I’m reaching 10 reviews for this feature, and almost up to 180 for this blog. I decided it was time for something a bit different, and to that end, I looked at a few different movies. That brought me to a whole genre I have somehow missed, the Godzilla/ kaiju movies. That still left me with a few choices, including some good ones within the 1980s-‘90s timeframe I have mostly adhered to so far. But the one that had been at the top of the pile since long before I started this feature was from further back, at the transitional period of the very early 1970s. Here is Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster, and this is one time you want the English dub, just for the hysterical opening musical number.

Our story begins, after a cheery montage of scenes of pollution, with a child playing with his Godzilla toy. This isn’t “meta”, however, as both the boy and the adult authority figures refer to the big guy in the factual present tense. Meanwhile, scientists discover strange tadpole-like creatures that appear to be generated spontaneously from polluted water. Inevitably, these congregate into one kaiju-sized mess referred to as Hedorah. This entity proves to be able to change its shape, mostly alternating between a vaguely humanoid form and a sort of flying saucer of muck. The people of Tokyo are terrorized more graphically than usual as the creature smashes ships and sprays the city with a gas that reduces people to skeletons. Even Godzilla is unable to score a decisive victory over the slime monster. It’s a fatherly scientist, injured in an earlier attack, who makes a breakthrough, demonstrating that the creature can be dried with an energy weapon. The military sets up the superweapon for a last stand, in defense of an encampment of hippies who definitely deserve to be eaten. It just might be the army who saves the day, but only if Godzilla can keep Hedorah from smashing their machine first!

Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster was a 1971 film from Toho, the 11^th to feature the title character Godzilla. The film was directed and co-written by the late Yoshimitsu Banno, as what he maintained to be a return to the serious environmental themes of the original film Godzilla King of the Monsters. The film featured veteran Haruo Nakajima (d. 2017) in his second-to-last outing as Godzilla and Kenpachiro Satsuma as Hedorah, with Akira Yamanouchi as Dr. Toru Yano. It was released in Japan in 1971 and in the US by AIP (see Futureworld, Meteor, etc.) under its given title in 1972. The AIP version included a new theme song “Save The Earth!”, consisting of English lyrics set to the music of the Japanese theme “Give Back The Sun!”. While the film was evidently profitable, it drew negative reactions from critics, fans, and Toho management, leading to Banno’s dismissal from the studio. Michael and Harry Medved included the film in their 1978 book The 50 Worst Films of All Time. Banno and Satsuma would return for the 1980s incarnation of Godzilla. Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster remains reasonably available on DVD and Blu Ray, featuring a Toho dub with the original theme song in Japanese only.

For my experiences, I have already written plenty about my conflicted experiences with Godzilla in my toy blogs (see especially the patchisaurs and generic Godzilla). It will suffice to say that I loved Godzilla as an idea through my childhood, but on the few occasions I was able to watch the movies, I was either confused or underwhelmed. It was only in my adulthood that I really got a look at a representative sample of Godzilla/ Toho/ kaiju movies, which quickly convinced me that the best of the genre were the ones that didn’t have the big guy. (At one point, I traded in a copy of Godzilla Vs. Biollante, a tragedy I may recount at another time.) As for the present film, I certainly knew of its notoriety, but I didn’t watch it or look for it until I happened to find it on the used shelves. It immediately struck me not as better or worse than other kaiju movies, but as wildly weird even by genre standards. It’s certainly not the worst Godzilla movie (I have other candidates in mind for that), but it could very well be the strangest.

Going on to the movie, what’s noteworthy is that how much of the strangeness has little if anything to do with the monsters. The obvious and egregious example are the animated sequences, in hindsight a preview of the traumatizing weirdness of House. On the same vein, there’s the montage of TV-screen images literally bombarding the viewer, until the transformation to a cartoon comes as a relief. Then there are the musical numbers, somehow more bizarre in the US cut, and the overlapping the “party” sequences, which are so laughably tame nobody bothers to tell the kid to leave, yet still as freaked out as the real deal. To me, the most incongruous moment is the previously noted presence of a Godzilla toy. I’m sure nobody really thought this through further than convincing kids to buy more toys. Still, having Godzilla merchandise in the monster’s own assumed universe is a level of fourth-wall irony that western media didn’t get to until far more recently. There’s an extra odd yet poignant note in the familiarity with which the kid treats the toy, pushing it down the slide no differently than a flesh-and-blood friend. It’s just enough to wonder about the reality of what follows, without the pretentiousness that such subtexts often bring.

Meanwhile, what’s front and center is Hedorah, and it is truly nightmarish as well as nauseating. Things get off to a good start with the tadpole stage, with an extra cringey moment when the doctor handles one with his bare hands instead of a remote-control robot claw. Once they assemble, the resulting creature is easily among the most formidable on record. What’s especially unsettling is that the monster doesn’t seem to pay much attention to humans except as a source of the pollutants it feeds on (see also The Green Slime), raising the indignity as it decimates the population with what amount to excretory byproducts. Only Godzilla appears to register as a threat, ultimately distracting the creature from the humans’ belated response. The most surreal part is that the two opponents are legitimately well-matched. While Godzilla is hard-pressed to do more than temporarily disable the sludge creature, it takes visible effort for it to do any harm to him. What makes or breaks the whole setup is our default hero’s clear disgust at his adversary’s oozy attacks. The overall feel is like Rocky fighting a hobo with an unidentified skin disease; Big G can hold his own when he puts in the effort, but what he really wants is to deal with the amalgamation at arm’s length. It all builds to the film’s most effective moments, as Godzilla first tries to fling the whole mess away, then ends by wading into its desiccated mass to stamp out any remnants of life.

That leaves the “one scene”, and while there’s a lot to choose from, there’s one sequence that’s strikingly random even for this movie. After the first round or so between Godzilla and the slime monster, the youth of Tokyo gather in a nightclub you know is hip because the kid actually isn’t present as far as I can tell. Someone projects Jackson Pollack splatters on the walls while a woman in a skintight suit sings the theme song. Many of the patrons wear fish masks as they dance along, for reasons that might well make sense if you know any Japanese. In the middle of it all, one of our protagonists sits and broods. He becomes anxious, or else realizes how weird this really is. Meanwhile, a stream of ooze flows stealthily down the stairs. When someone finally notices, the sludge comes down faster, without overtaking any of the partygoers. Our gallant hero puts himself between the singer and the slime. Just when there’s real tension, the slime retreats as quickly as it came. Then we see the one actual victim, a sodden kitten still mewing pitifully. Where did it come from? Why is it even alive? Like almost everything else, it makes no sense, and works nevertheless.

 In conclusion, the one thing still lingering in my mind is the Medved brothers’ book. Now, it is itself an easy target of ridicule, particularly in light of Michael Medved’s subsequent politics. What I have repeatedly pointed out (see my own Plan 9 review) is that even in the 1990s, it was quite difficult to access older movies, and harder still to get a good sampling of movies from another country. With regards to this movie in particular, what I distinctly recall is that the Medveds presented it as no more or less than an “egregious” example of its genre, and that’s still a quite reasonable assessment. With the resources of the age of the internet, it’s easy to see that there are both better and far worse movies from Godzilla, Toho, and Japanese cinema in general. What this movie offers in spades are the things that made the series and genre memorable, for better or worse, and on the whole, it’s fun even if you’re just looking for things to laugh at. That’s enough to keep a space on my shelves, and a passing grade. With that, I’m done.