Goddamn, I love Godzilla…

And you do too. I know you do. Why? Because you’re here. There is no way in the world that the internet is used for people to only search for stuff they don’t like in order to find people to only affirm your negative thoughts on something, right?

Uh… heh… Um, right?

Anyway, welcome to a new review here at B-Movie Enema! I’m Geoff Arbuckle, your B-Movie Enema dude, and this week, I’m diving into the world of Godzilla for the very first time on this site with 1965’s Invasion of Astro-Monster (also known as Godzilla vs. Monster Zero, or, simply, Monster Zero in America). By 1965, Godzilla was a pretty big star in Japan. His first film, 1954’s Gojira, was a dramatic tale of how nature points out the folly of man. It was successfully imported into the United States, with added footage from the future Perry Mason, Raymond Burr, as Godzilla: King of the Monsters!, and, right away, an international superstar was born. After a sequel that isn’t exactly the best-received of the classic films from Toho, Godzilla blasted his way back into theaters after a seven-year hiatus with a showdown against American superstar monster, King Kong. From that point forward, Godzilla would appear almost every year between 1962 and 1975.

I’m not really going to go into a whole lot of backstory about Godzilla. I feel like the last couple of years, with the back-to-back-to-back successes of Godzilla vs. Kong, Godzilla Minus One, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, people have gotten their fill of how Godzilla came to be and what propelled him into superstardom on a global stage. I will say, though, that this movie was right about the time in which Godzilla grew a personality beyond “a giant lizard that likes to smash things and shit.”

1964’s Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster introduced a few things to the audience. First, Godzilla’s greatest foe, King Ghidorah, came along to become a staple of the franchise for many films to come. But, second, and maybe the more fun element of that movie, it introduced Godzilla having a bit more of a network than just a bunch of enemies for him to thrash and fight and stuff. Mothra was a star of her own from 1961 before battling Godzilla the year before this film in Mothra vs. Godzilla (yes, there were two Toho Godzilla films released in 1964 – how rad is that?). Rodan had his own film in 1956, and he’s making his first appearance in one of Godzilla’s films here. This movie shows that not only were those solo movies in continuity for those two monsters co-starring in the early stages of this movie, but they also interact and can even communicate. This shows that Godzilla isn’t just a mindless creature hellbent on destruction. He can be reasoned with and can even team up with monsters he might not otherwise want to team up with.

All of that we will get to in time as we begin dissecting this movie.

Before we do that, I want to talk about the American element and the assistance this movie would receive both behind the scenes and on screen. Producer Henry G. Saperstein was tasked by United Productions of America to acquire good monster movies to distribute throughout North America. He got in touch with Toho and became involved with some of their productions, with the idea in mind that these movies made in Japan would already have an American audience waiting for them to export. Saperstein would have quite a lot of input on the production of Invasion of Astro-Monster. One of his ideas was to have the film cast an American actor to help sell it more easily and more widely to American audiences. This led to the casting of Nick Adams.

Nick Adams was not exactly a nobody in film. About ten years earlier, he got his break in a John Ford film, Mister Roberts, and appeared in two of the three James Dean movies, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant. Dean and Adams would become friends. Later, Adams would appear in other high-profile films like the Rock Hudson/Doris Day romantic comedy Pillow Talk. He would also make more high-profile friends like Elvis. All this led to him campaigning for and receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in 1963’s Twilight of Honor. Adams tried very hard to get that Oscar. He drained his savings to campaign and put ads out in trade papers to secure votes, but he would ultimately lose to the veteran actor Melvyn Douglas in Hud.

Adams was a very interesting guy. He seemingly had a singular goal of becoming famous, even if he’d go broke to do so. He saw that Oscar as a way to become immortal. There were questions about Adams’ sexuality, particularly where James Dean was concerned. He liked to insert himself into the lives of the very famous (again with James Dean and Elvis). He would go on studio-arranged dates to places so he could be seen hobnobbing with the glamorous. It’s very likely he had either a drug addiction or issues with alcohol, or probably both. When he died in February 1968 at the age of 36, it was pondered whether or not he committed suicide, but it was ruled an accidental overdose of sedatives. His death even invited whispers of a conspiracy because certain people feared he was going to publish a tell-all book about sex and drugs in Hollywood. Adams certainly has some interesting stories that revolve around him.

But, screw all that… What I want to know, what is the most interesting story involving Nick Adams from my point of view, is how Adams deals with the Big G, Rodan, the introduction of the Xiliens to the Godzilla franchise, and the return of King Ghidorah!

We’re told the year is 196X. I love how they did that in Godzilla lore. Between movies doing it themselves and other media like video games, the creators never wanted to specifically date their movies. I mean, it’s already dated in how it looks. It’s pretty clear this movie was made in the mid-60s. The film was released right in the middle of the decade, but because of the science fiction element of the movie, coupled with the relatively contemporary styles of the characters’ dress and vocabulary, Toho didn’t want to set this thing in a future that felt too far out of reach for the audience to understand what they’re seeing. They also wanted, I suppose, to be somewhat optimistic that, before the end of the very decade this was released during, maybe mankind would make contact with an alien species or have regular ol’ missions into space and traveling out further and farther than the missions before. It’s just one of the many charms of this franchise, particularly during the Showa Era.

In a spaceship heading away from Earth, we meet space pilots Kazou Fuji and Glenn (Adams). They are flying to “Planet X,” which is far enough out that it’s said their directional trajectory is pointed toward the constellation Scorpio. Fuji and Glenn’s aircraft, P1, was sent out for Planet X because the science dudes at the World Space Agency (WSA) have been getting radio signals from what they believe might be at least somewhat intelligent life. P1 is to go out and basically make first contact. Fuji’s sister, Haruno, is told to do “NOTHING” until he returns to Earth. All things considered, that could be never. Space be scary, yo. Anyway, she has a boyfriend who is an inventor, Tetsuo. While Tetsuo and Haruno are celebrating the sale of one of his inventions, a mysterious woman meets them to deliver the $100,000 contract. She seems to know all about how Haruno works for the WSA, and the “World Education Corporation,” the company this mysterious woman works for, is keeping a close eye on her brother’s big, important mission.

There is a bit of clever dialogue and editing done at the end of Tetsuo and Haruno’s date. Tetsuo wants to impress Haruno’s hardass brother. He’s kind of domineering, especially when it comes to his sister. So, the sale of his “Lady Guard Alarm” is Tetsuo’s hope that this would really impress Fuji. In fact, the words he uses are “This will really turn him on his head!”

And then it cuts to this shot of Glenn and Fuji in space piloting the P1.

It’s entirely possible this was always scripted to do this. Tetsuo would turn that phrase, and the cut to the astronauts would be a bit of cheeky self-awareness on the part of the movie. It’s also possible this was entirely created within the editing of the movie. It may have cut to a normal upright angle for the astronauts. However, it might have been through the suggestion of the editor that he flip the image upside down and then make this a comedy edit. Either way, this is a shot that always gets a chuckle out of me.

Anyway, upon the P1 passing Jupiter, they find Planet X. They radio back to the WSA requesting orders for what they should do when they land on the alien world. Basically, they are just told to go do whatever they think is best. The planet is surprisingly warm for being in its location somewhere just beyond Jupiter. It’s sort of Earth-like in its temperature and atmosphere. Much like Earth, Planet X does have a bit of a monster problem.

After getting out of the P1, the astronauts are surprised to find Ghidorah flying around and lighting shit up with his lightning breath. I will say a couple of things here. First, there is some great miniature work on Planet X with the P1 and the little versions of Glenn and Fuji descending on a platform to step onto the alien world. That’s a neat idea. Second, this is the only Godzilla film to date that has any scenes on an alien world. That’s kind of crazy because Ghidorah, Gigan, Orga, possibly Hedorah, and Space Godzilla all come from space in various entries in the franchise. Hell, villainous humanoid villains cropped up a lot, too. As crazy as some of these movies got, it’s kind of crazier to think there weren’t more alien settings in the series.

It’s bad enough that Fuji discovers he is not alone on the surface of Planet X, but when he tries to warn Glenn about what he found, he soon discovers the P1 is missing and Glenn is not responding on the radio. Soon, a cylinder rises up from the ground, and a voice tells Fuji to step inside. The voice belongs to the “Controller” of Planet X. The Controller tells Fuji that Glenn and the P1 are underground waiting for him, so if he could give two fucks, he needs to get into that cylinder. After searching around the dark interior of this underground base, Fuji and Glenn are reunited. They are soon met by the inhabitants of this planet, the Xiliens, and their goofy needle hats.

The Xiliens are, more or less, fairly friendly and hospitable. What WSA picked up when they were receiving messages from Planet X was an invitation because they needed help. You see, what we know as King Ghidorah is known as Monster Zero on Planet X. We name things using an alphabet. They name things with numbers. I would say that’s terribly inefficient to constantly count from zero to infinity, but I’m not here to judge since King Ghidorah has made Planet X’s surface uninhabitable. That’s why they conduct their business underground, and I can give them a little sympathy for that… for now.

The Xiliens have tried everything to rid themselves of this demon. They just don’t have the firepower to repel Monster Zero. The three-headed dickhead uses his lightning breath to laser the shit out of the surface and damage the underground lair. Initially, the Controller thinks maybe these random humans will give him some answers about how to get rid of Monster Zero, but Glenn is just, like, “Yeah, we are fresh out of ideas… So… what are you going to do now?” as if he’s trying to change the conversation.

After Monster Zero leaves, the Xiliens come in with a request. They want to borrow Monster Zero-One (Godzilla) and Monster Zero-Two (Rodan). Despite the Xiliens luring two schlubs from Earth to make their request, Fuji and Glenn need to run this shit up the chain of command to make the agreement. At least the Xiliens are offering a miracle drug that will cure ALL diseases. After making their offer, the Xiliens load Glenn and Fuji back into the P1 and send them back home. As they fly away, the Controller chuckles sinisterly and says something in, I dunno, Klingon or something about how he thought these guys looked like a couple of real beta bitches.

Back on Earth, the spokespersons for doctors and women urge the WSA to take the Xiliens up on their offer. That’s… That’s all it takes. A guy who says he’s a doctor and thinks a miracle cure sure does sound a-okay for his future in the profession. A woman in a kimono says chicks dig the idea of working with these ultra-fab dudes from Planet X. So the WSA says they agree to these terms, provided that Godzilla and Rodan are located in the places the Xiliens claim they are.

Before we can get to the kick ass monster action, we have some more human plot to go over that is actually kind of important. Tetsuo is nervous. He’s nervous about having lunch with Fuji. He’s nervous about what the World Education Corporation is going to do with his invention. That first thing isn’t exactly something he can get too many answers on other than Kazuo is a hard ass. The other thing does have something he can do… go to the WEC headquarters and just flat-out ask them what their plans for this invention are. He’s not relieved when he’s basically just shooed away with no answers as to what this Lady Guard Alarm will be used for by an educational materials company.

Fuji pokes a hole through Tetsuo’s good news by asking the nervous boyfriend what the WEC would want to pay that much for an invention, followed by Tetsuo basically being forced to say he has not yet been paid despite handing over the invention. Glenn is soon discovered to be going on a date with Namikawa, the very woman who knew a whole bunch about the mission to Mission X and then bought Tetsuo’s invention. It doesn’t take long for Glenn to realize that the Xiliens may not be who they say they are. Glenn and Fuji soon discover Xilien ships coming up out of the water of a lake, showing they’ve already been here and have been hiding for some duplicitous reason. Still, despite some shaky sense of trust within Fuji and Glenn’s minds, the Earth authorities are given enough reason to go ahead and make the deal with the Controller.

Of the three Xilien spacecraft hiding in the lake, one carried the Controller and the Xilien negotiation team. The other two are merely transport ships. They fly off and use a tractor beam-like field of energy to pull a sleeping Godzilla from his resting place in the lake and nab Rodan from his hidey hole inside a mountain with the same tractor beam and a big bubble for space travel.

Before Glenn is called to the Xilien spaceship to accompany the aliens back to Planet X and to obtain the miracle drug, Namikawa begs Glenn to not go back into space. He says that everything is going to be just fine, but she says he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Still, a man of his duty and all, he leaves her and says he’ll marry her when he gets back (they have been on two dates, but, hey, the heart wants with the heart wants). She claims to her superiors that she was only seeing Glenn to get information, but is told to break it off with him anyway. Tetsuo followed Namikawa so he can find out more about what they are going to do with his invention. Realizing this is also her fault that someone has followed her to the Xilien hideout on Earth, she’s chewed out for being a shitty evil alien. Oops! I mean a shitty alien. We don’t know if they are bad aliens yet… or do we, hmmm?

Anyway… The Xiliens take off with the monsters in tow. They drop Rodan and Godzilla onto Planet X and go underground. Ghidorah returns to attack the planet. The Xiliens wake Godzilla and Rodan up. They look around fairly confused about the whole situation, but get into action the moment Ghidorah starts shooting and flying at them. It’s not a very long fight. Godzilla throws some rocks at Ghidorah. Rodan picks up some rocks, flies them over to Ghidorah, and throws them at Ghidorah. Godzilla kicks rocks at Ghidorah… It’s a lot of rock action from Godzilla and Rodan. However, it does the trick! Ghidorah flies away in defeat, which then leads to one of the greatest things in Godzilla’s history.

Yes, this is the movie in which Godzilla dances after defeating an enemy. I mentioned earlier that this was in the era in which the Big G started growing a personality. In the previous entry, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Godzilla apparently cussed out Rodan and Mothra. Well, at least we’re told that by Mothra’s twin fairies. Later, he’d use his tail as something to slide on while he gives a Megalon a flying kick to the guts. In Godzilla vs. Hedorah, he’d curl up and use his atomic breath to fly away after a job well done. These are the things that made watching these movies as a kid so much fun. Some people would maybe not be so enamored with it, but they are wrong. This is why Godzilla has endured as a superstar. Tom Cruise runs. Godzilla dances, does flying kicks using his tail to slide on, tells Rodan his mom is a whore, and uses his atomic breath as a propulsion system so he can fly. These are irrefutable things that make movies magical.

Hell, even the Controller is like, “Yeah, man, that’s fuckin’ cool!” He comments on how Godzilla and Rodan were able to ward off Ghidorah with no damage suffered to their underground base. He’s less-than-pleased to find out that Fuji and Glenn have snuck off to poke around to find out what the Controller really has up his sleeve. They escape some Xilien guards by getting into an elevator cylinder and going to, uh, the basement of the underground lair? Anyway, it’s already been established that Planet X is lousy with gold. However, the Xiliens don’t give a shit about their gold. What they find valuable is water. They don’t have enough of that.

Something else Planet X is lousy with – women who all share the same appearance, that of Namikawa.

The pair of Earth astro bastards get captured. The Controller then reveals that water is not at all scarce. He won’t tell them how they get their water, but it’s not that scarce. The Controller then hands the Earth dudes the cure for all diseases and then reveals that they recreated the P1 and tells them to go back to Earth with their cure. Before they take off, Fuji is a little hesitant about leaving Godzilla and Rodan on a distant planet. Glenn is not nearly as sympathetic. He says they’ve caused them enough headaches on Earth so they can find their own way back.

As they take off, the two monsters mournfully watch after learning they are stranded here.

This is some sad shit. It really does show a more dedicated shift for Godzilla to be seen as a friendly creature. There’s sad music playing as the two monsters try to wave down the ship to take them back home. It kind of gets you right in the ol’ feels. It wasn’t just a shift for how Godzilla would be seen on screen, but a shift, I believe, in the attitudes of the Japanese people. Just ten years prior, the first Godzilla film aligned him with the concept of a horrifically destructive war that ended in the two biggest explosions ever caused by humanity. It was an allegory for how the war had beaten down the Japanese people and how we could create horrible monsters to visit more scourges upon ourselves. By the mid-60s, the attitudes of a now very successful and rebuilt Japan seemingly welcomed Godzilla not as a creature of the country’s destruction, but a star that helped, at least in a small way, to make Japan stronger, better, and more visible on the world stage.

Rodan, on the other hand, was always a creature that I felt got its start in a movie that ended on a somber note. Most people don’t realize that there were two Rodans in the original 1956 movie. They were mates and were attempting to nest when they were lured into a volcano that killed them as they screeched and felt the pain of death. It’s a sort of sad movie in the final moments, despite the two creatures creating a lot of havoc and destruction while they were flying around and courting each other and having dates and shit.

Back on Earth, Testsuo has been thrown in the clink by the earthbound Xiliens for his snooping around. Meanwhile, Haruno makes an appointment with Namikawa to find out what happened to her beau. Just as all this was going on, the P1 returned to Earth to deliver the formula for the miracle drug. When they play the tape they were given on a reel-to-reel player, they discover they’ve been hoodwinked! The recording is not the formula but the Controller with a series of orders for them to obey. Basically, the Earth is to become a colony of the Xiliens. If they do not do as they are told, the Xiliens will destroy humanity.

I like that there are news reports about how the people of Earth took to the news of the Controller’s demands. I think this movie might have been trying to make a comment on war and colonization. That comes in the form of the reports that some value peace at all costs, even if it means they would be conquered. Meanwhile, the vast majority of humanity wants to fight the Xiliens. This leads to swift and destructive protests pretty much everywhere. In fact, the WSA is wrecked, and we see Glenn walking around with a gun to protect himself before he runs into Namikawa, who wishes to speak to him about her true feelings.

She explains that she was indeed sent to spy on him, but she fell in love with him. She can’t defy her own people. She says something about how she has given herself over to computer control. She has to do what the Controller tells her. However, if he were to become a citizen of Planet X, he could marry her and avoid judgment. He’s arrested by Xiliens, but Namikawa is killed by her own people when she tries to help him. The Xiliens explain that she was tainted by emotion while the rest of them are controlled by computers. So when she defied the orders the computers sent them, she had to be liquidated.

The whole computer control thing is weird, but I guess that kind of sets up the start of this final act. The Xiliens return to get humanity’s answer to their commands to become a colony and be ruled by them. They reveal that they’ve dumped King Ghidorah into the United States to start blowing shit up. Our heroes at the WSA come to the realization that Ghidorah was always the Xiliens’ pawn. That’s when they learn that both Godzilla and Rodan have been placed under the same control as Ghidorah. If the humans continue to resist, Godzilla and Rodan will be unleashed to blow shit up.

The method of control is “magnetic” control. Fuji realizes that they need to build something that will block the magnetic waves they are using to control the monsters. The only thing they can’t quite figure out is whether or not the Xiliens use the same frequencies we are aware of. Meanwhile, both Glenn and Testsuo share the same cell at the Xillien hideout. The cell is curiously soundproof. They discover a note left by Namikawa that explains sound is the Xilliens’ kryptonite. Finally, Tetsuo understands why his invention was bought by the World Education Corporation. That sound will disrupt the Xiliens’ soggy brain bits. They use this to flee their captivity, but not before they make the Xiliens believe they killed the pair by blowing up a boat speeding away from the hideout.

Fuji gets to work on the method to block the magnetic waves controlling Godzilla and Rodan. Tetsuo, Haruno, and Glenn get to work on an amplifier that will blast a whole bunch of sound at the Xiliens to destroy them. Realizing they might be up for a fight all of a sudden, the Controller moves up the timetable to begin their invasion of Earth. The Controller sends Godzilla and Rodan out to start fuckin’ shit up.

And here we are – the typical Godzilla movie business. I don’t think many people who are kind of mild fans of the series or tourists to the franchise realize that this is typically how most of these Godzilla movies operate. They aren’t all monsters all the time. They are usually about 90-100 minutes, with a solid 60 minutes being whatever the human characters have going on that somewhere between tangentially and closely connect to the monster plot. The final act, and especially the final 20 or so minutes, is usually where the majority of the monster business happens.

The Controller orders Ghidorah to come over to Japan and help out with Rodan and Godzilla’s rampage. This is what people pay their money to see in one of these movies. We’ve got guys in big rubber monster suits stomping on miniatures of buildings while stuff explodes and the Japanese Self Defense Force firing missiles and stuff at them.

Elsewhere, Tetsuo and Glenn successfully get their noisy noise on a tape to be played on the radio. People are told to turn up their radios as loud as possible. This causes the Xilien spacecraft to lose control and wobble around. While the ships are having a hard time staying under control, Fuji leads some JSDF trucks into position to deploy the interruption for the magnetic control over the monsters. The Xiliens are basically destroyed by Tetsuo’s noise overpowering them. The Controller does say something sort of cryptic and ominous. He says they need to escape into the future… Into the dimension they have yet to explore. He hits a button, and both his ship and the Earth base for their forces explode.

Now, it’s time for Fuji to do his part with the monsters. Sure enough, the monsters are freed from Xilien control. Once freed, Godzilla and Rodan immediately want to put Ghidorah in the fucking ground. The humans, seeing that all the shit has hit all the fans, decide to hightail it the fuck out of there. In a fight just as short as the one on Planet X, Godzilla and Rodan fight well enough to force Ghidorah to retreat.

The humans yuck it up as Glenn is told he is flying back to Planet X to be Earth’s first ambassador to the planet.

Invasion of Astro-Monster is a great example of the fun and kooky shit the Godzilla franchise was getting up to just as it began to turn away from allegory and metaphor and toward being a fun time for kids to enjoy on Saturday afternoons. It’s nowhere near a work of art, but it’s a fun paint-by-numbers adventure that you can certainly have a great deal of fun with. It’s a reminder of times when movies were just fun to watch, even if some hints of cynicism are still present. These weren’t the movies made for hundreds of millions of dollars today. These didn’t need to turn a nearly half-a-billion dollar profit, leaving them to the film studio to make sure nothing too risky happened in the plot to try to ensure the best possible return on that budget. These were made with the idea in mind of, “Hey, what should Godzilla do next? Fight aliens? Sure!” and they just made the fuckin’ movie on a meager budget of about 47 Wendy’s Baconators.

I very much want to do more Godzilla flicks in the future at the blog. I do want to stick to the ones that have the wilder concepts and the sillier stuff, like the victory dance. I promise the tail-propelled flying kick will make an appearance on this blog someday. I’m sure Hedorah, the shit monster, will get his day here. You better believe the toga-wearing goofballs of Godzilla vs. Megalon will also get featured. But, for now, we leave Japan and return to the United States. We’re going to stick near the science fiction genre for next week’s movie, but we’re going to add in a hefty dose of horror too. Join me for the next review, 1981’s Scared to Death.

Until then, I need to go report to computer and tell it that I wanna kick King Ghidorah in his dragon balls.