Between this blog and my previous one, Professor Damian’s Public Domain Treasure Chest, I’ve been writing about movies for quite a while now. Because of that, there are a lot of posts that have simply gotten lost to the mists of time. So, I figured I’d use the idea of “Throwback Thursday” to spotlight some of those older posts, re-presenting them pretty much exactly as they first appeared except for updating links where necessary or possible, and doing just a bit of re-formatting to help them fit better into the style of this blog. Hope you enjoy these looks back.
Here’s another Throwback Thursday post from Progessor Damien which takes a look at what sometimes happens or at least used to happen) when foreign films are broght over to the US for popular consumption.
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“Oh, no! They say say he’s got to go! Go, Go Gammera!”
Yeah, it really doesn’t have the same panache as the Blue Oyster Cult original, does it, Kiddies? But that’s ok, because the giant monster in question today gets his own rock anthem right in the middle of his first movie. Even his giant lizard predecessor had to wait more than 20 years for that.
Daikaiju Eiga – that’s the Japanese term for the type of movie (giant monster) that we’re looking at today, and since that’s where the best ones come from, it seems only appropriate to give them their correct name. Of course, considering what we’ve done to the actual movies, simply ignoring the Japanese term would seem only a minor slight.
Toho films began the tradition, of course, with their 1954 release of the original Gojira, which came to America in the form of Godzilla. Unfortunately another trend was also begun once it reached our shores. Believing that American audiences wouldn’t want to watch a film either with subtitles or where there were very few American actors for them to relate to, the film was not only dubbed into English, but it was heavily re-edited, with scenes moved around, many of them pulled, and new scenes were added starring Raymond Burr. Unfortunately between bad translations and terrible editing, (and an attempt to both appease and appeal to American audiences) much of the original meaning and subtext of the film was lost. Still, it was a hit both there and here, and this treatment became the trend for all subsequent Japanese monster movies brought to America.
As noted, Gojira (or Godzilla) first appeared in 1954. 11 years later, when the daikaiju eiga craze was really hitting its stride, Toho’s film studio rival, Daiei, decided to jump on the bandwagon and create their own giant critter. Now I’m not going to speculate on what the person who first proposed that they combat the big G. with a giant turtle was thinking, but fortunately they figured out some pretty neat ways to trick him out so that he could become a formidable foe for the forces that would soon be arrayed against him. First off, instead of “Atomic Breath”, they gave him fire breath. But this creature not only breathed fire, he could eat it. As a matter of fact, as the movie progresses, we find out that he is made of different stuff than those of us with lungs, and the big lug actually needs the flames as fuel to survive. More than that, though, Daiei also provided their Big G with a power that Godzilla would never get. When he pulled his head and legs into his shell, the giant turtle was able to shoot flames from his “port holes” and fly! Certainly helpful for an animal that otherwise has no way to get off his back, as the military soon finds out.
Of course, upon his arrival in the US, Gamera (the Japanese name) was given a pretty complete makeover. An extra “m” was, for some reason, added to his name. Another pretty atrocious dubbing job was done. And again, scenes were cut, recut, and added, so that the movie once again bore little resemblance to what it had once been. Nonetheless, the film proved successful in both its Japanese and American versions, and Daiei went on to bring him back in a film a year until 1971, when Daiei went into bankruptcy. (The first was actually the only one released to American theaters, the rest were packaged for Television by American International.) Since then, there have been a couple of attempts at revivals, though they have proved less successful.
Here’s a short clip showing the monster’s initial emergence from his icy tomb and a bit of the American footage that was inserted.:
(Just a note: it is only the American version which was never properly copyrighted and is now in the Public Domain. The original Japanese version is still under copyright, and Shout factory has announced that they have licensed it and will be giving the film its first American DVD release on May 18th.)
Now for the Skinny:
Title: Gammera the Invincible
Release Date: 1965
Running Time: 86min
Black and White
Starring: Gamera, Brian Donlevy, Eiji Funakoshi
Directed by: Noriaki Yuasa
Produced by: Hidemasa Nagata, Yonejiro Saito, Masaichi Nagata
Distributed by: Daiei
And as always, until next time, happy viewing!
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Hope you enjoyed this blast from the past.
In anticipation of seeing the newly released third Barbershop movie, Barbershop: The Next Cut, I decided to go back and give the first two entries in the series a re-watch. I remembered liking them when they first came out, and thought I’d see how well they held up over time.
Barbershop is very much an ensemble piece, featuring Cedric the Entertainer in what has to be considered his breakout role as the elderly barber Eddie, alongside Anthony Anderson, Sean Patrick Thomas, Eve, Michael Ealy, Troy Garity, and Keith David, among many others. Though the story centers around, Calvin and his efforts to keep the shop open, it really is the story of the shop itself and its place in the neighborhood, being the focal point where people can come together and be themselves, talk, share their stories, their concerns, and feel a sense of community. With sharp writing thanks to a screenplay by Mark Brown, Don D. Scott, and Marshall Todd based on a story by Brown, and Story’s directorial skills, it proves to be a movie which, though it could easily slip either way into the overly maudlin or too broadly comic, instead walks the line between the two quite nicely and proves itself to have just the right amount of heart amongst the comic shenanigans.
Barbershop was followed up in 2004 with Barbershop 2: Back in Business, which saw the reunion of most of the original cast, along with a few additions, most prominently that of Queen Latifah as the owner of a beauty shop just next door to Calvin’s. Also, original director Tim Story is replaced on this one by Kevin Rodney Sullivan and the screenplay is by Don D. Scott.
Nonetheless, the film does prove to be an entertaining enough return to the setting, and does make a strong statement about the importance of local institutions trying to fight for their existence against those who would try to replace them simply for the sake of money.
Considering that the original was an adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, one of the things that I’m kind of curious about is how much credit will be given to that movie when it comes to this modern remake of John Sturges’s 1960 movie The Magnificent Seven.
During the Cold War, a secret Soviet project created a group of Superheroes. Each of the heroes was meant to represent a different nationality of the USSR and the strengths and traditions of those people. However, with the end of the cold war and the Union on the verge of collapse, it is time for these heroes to come out of hiding and join together against not only threats both internal and eternal, but also supernatural.
Arsus -A type of berserker or werebear, [who] has the ability to transform himself into a large bear, though he can control how much of his body is transformed and can transform partially if he wills it. This transformation ability can allow him to seamlessly alter his size, bulk and musculature and transform himself into a burly humanoid, as well as use his transformations to physically augment himself. He has multiple phases of transformation due to his ability to partially transform. He is armed with minigun in battle, which he carries on his back when fully transformed. He can also use his inhuman physicality to fight, especially when he is full bear form. Desperate, loyal and determined, he is known for his drive to “break the enemy into small pieces”.
Khan – Masterfully skilled with all kinds of blades, as well as with many kinds of martial arts. Along with other blades, he is primarily armed with twin, crescent like blades, each of which resemble a scimitar, scythe or sickle and can be joined at the hilts to form a double bladed weapon. The strong blades, with enough force, can slice through entire cars without going blunt or being damaged. He is also physically augmented, possessing a degree of superhuman strength that allows him to smash through brick walls with a single punch and send men flying through the air with his attacks, as well as superhuman mobility that gives him acrobatic and gymnastic capabilities and the ability to effortlessly dodge and evade attacks, even gunfire at point blank range. He also possesses inhuman speed, enough that he almost appears to teleport. Using his speed requires him first to focus hard, achieving a meditative state that causes his eyes to turn completely white and allowing him to perceive faster than any human can. While in this state, he sees everything as being in slow motion while he himself moves at normal speed, or somewhat faster. Whenever he moves in this state, a black gaseous trail appears behind him outlining his movements. His strength and speed allows him to use his strong blades to slice a car and anyone in it in two.
Ler – He is armed with all forms of earth manipulation abilities, and is able to control stone and soil, collect dust from boulders, stop falling rocks, and move mountains. He can cause the ground to break apart under his enemies feet with great precision in what parts break and what shape the subsequent depression makes. This allows him to form instant craters, canyons, ravines, and sink holes to fight his opponents, though these formations are usually small in scale. Being able to cause quakes and tremors in the ground beneath his opponents, such as making the ground under them erupt and explode. Along with his abilities, he is armed with a small chain with a large rock cemented on its end, which he can use as a type of flail.
Xenia – Flexible and agile, to a superhuman degree. She has the ability to move on water as if it were solid ground, as well as to seamlessly floating through it. This gives her higher mobility in water than the fastest, or most maneuverable sea creature. She cannot feel temperature differences and can survive in an airless vacuum, which allows her to survive underwater without any negative effects. She can also transform her body into clear, water like liquid and use it defensively or offensively. This ability allows her to become gelatinous and vicious, allowing her to flow like liquid and physical touch and interact at the same time.
Ok, pop quiz, hotshots! When does Old Blue Eyes not have blue eyes? When the Hal Roach Studios gets ahold of a classic Frank Sinatra gangster movie and decides to colorize it. In doing so, they made the odd decision that Sinatra’s eyes should be brown. Of course, this was in the early days of colorization, so honestly there were a lot of colors that weren’t very well done, but this seemed a particularly egregious mistake. Fortunately, for those of us who prefer our noir in black and white, it’s also available both online and on disk in its original format..
The movie, with its true sense of desperation and inevitability is very much in the film noir genre, and Sinatra proves a very creditable lead as the odds mount against him but he remains determined to pull the trigger. not even losing one of his men in a gunfight with the police or the unexpected appearance of a television repairman who quickly becomes a hostage. In a review at the time of the film’s release, The Hollywood Reporter stated “As an assassin in the piece, Sinatra superbly refutes the idea that the straight role potentialities in From Here To Eternity was one shot stuff. In Suddenly, the happy-go-lucky soldier of Eternity becomes one of the most repellent killers in American screen history.”
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