King Kong vs. Godzilla

Now, the monster mashups begin. Godzilla’s first squaring off with another creature is the result of a script that originally pitted King Kong against Frankenstein’s monster that Toho got their hands on and retooled for their marquee monster that they were discovering they could bring back repeatedly without turning off their Japanese and American audiences. They also brought back the original filmmaker behind Godzilla, Ishiro Honda, though without his original writing partner, choosing instead to use Shinichi Sekizawa, one of two writers who had become Honda’s regular partner. The result is what one might expect from this period of Toho monster movies: thin, a bit (though not incredibly) silly, and with an effort to make another kind of movie in there somewhere.

The head of Pacific Pharmaceuticals, Mr. Tako (Ichiro Arishima), has decided that his media and advertising contract is not performing to standards, so he demands that the television studio create a sensation to up their ratings which should lead to more sales of the company’s drugs. Here is the heart of the film, the satiric look at the Japanese television industry and its quest for ratings no matter what, and it’s probably where the film works best. It’s unfortunate that Sekizawa wasn’t a good enough writer to bring it into the whole of the film, picking it up and dropping it from time to time as other types of film dominate for large sections of the film, but Mr. Tako doing everything he can to push the reporters into making things sensational across the action of the film provides some solid chuckles here and there.

Sakurai (Tadao Takashima) and Furue (Yu Fujiki) end up being sent to Faro Island (also the name of the place Ingmar Bergman called home for decades, but it has to just be a coincidence, right?) to investigate a mysterious spirit that the locals live in fear of. Yes, it’s King Kong. They witness him battling a giant octopus and then getting so drunk that he falls asleep in a ceremony the locals provide him, giving them the perfect opportunity to get the Japanese boating crew to tie him up and lash him to a giant raft. Where the original King Kong outright ignored how to move a giant ape from one side of the world to the other, King Kong vs. Godzilla embraces it, and the sight is always inherently silly. Granted, the raft sight isn’t hilarious (though the combination of man-in-suit and water just doesn’t mesh all that well), there’s a moment late where they transport him by giant balloon that is just…kind of hilarious.

Meanwhile, at the same time, Godzilla has decided to awaken for no reason at all, heating up the ice prison that he was trapped in at the end of Godzilla Raids Again, and he heads straight for Japan. This (so far) short series has developed a little tic of bringing back scientific characters from the previous entry to explain the science or behavior of Godzilla in the new one. Takashi Shimuri had a cameo in Godzilla Raids Again after his near-star role in Godzilla, and this time it’s Dr. Shigezawa (Akihiko Hirata), who was also in Godzilla, to appear in a couple of scenes and explain Godzilla’s behavior. I mean, for this weird little series in the 60s, the commitment canon is surprising.

Anyway, the two monsters have a fight, but King Kong is bested by Godzilla, leading to a retreat, some business with a girl being kidnapped by the giant ape, drugging it based on the stuff it got drunk off of on Faro Island, and then transporting him to face Godzilla again when the scientists decide that despite Kong losing his first battle maybe a day before, Kong is definitely strong enough now. It’ll help if he gets miraculously struck by lightning to make him much more stronger at a down moment, too.

So, it’s silly. There is some more character stuff around Sakurai’s sister and Furue’s fiancée (I might have mixed those up, but it just doesn’t matter in the least), Fumiko (Mie Hama), but she’s forgotten for long sections in favor of bits of satirical comedy around Mr. Tako and monster mash action. Focusing more purely on the satirical elements would have been a net-positive, I think.

Eiji Tsuburaya’s special effects are, once again, the star of the show, but I have to say that he repeated the decision to play monster action quickly here like he did (supposedly accidentally) in Godzilla Raids Again. Moving these guys quickly makes them feel smaller, not bigger, and it makes the action itself inherently sillier. So, the suits are mostly pretty good (Godzilla is pretty good, Kong looks…not great, to be honest), and there’s this wonderful continued embrace of miniature destruction. However, I just wish Tsuburaya had gone back to how to film kaiju from his first effort rather than his second.

So, it’s fine. It’s an excuse to pit Godzilla against another monster. The character stuff works slightly better this time than most because it has that satirical edge, even if it doesn’t really go very far. So, it’s decent, on the brighter side of this kind of film in this era. It entertains slightly. It’s just, you know, not good.

Rating: 2/4