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https://www.amazon.com/Frankenstein-Conquers-World-DVD/dp/B000JU8H7E
Frankenstein Conquers The World.
(Starring Nick Adams. Tadao Takashima. Kumi Mizuno.
Yoshiro Tsuchiya. Takashi Shimura. Koji Furuhata. Dir. Ishiro
Honda. 1965.)
Japanese film director Ishiro Honda had a career spanning over sixty
years. Best known by America audiences
for his kaiju films, he is the man who brought us Godzilla, Ro-dan, Varan The
Unbelievable, Mothra, and many many other gleefully apocalyptic orgies of
destruction that are really kid-vid at heart.
But of all his giant monster movies, Frankenstein Conquers The
World is one of my favorites.
In Nazi Germany during the waning days of World War Two, a mad scientist
packs up the heart of Frankenstein’s monster into a steamer truck for The
German military, which has been charged with taking it on a top-secret mission
that could win the war for The Axis. The
plan is to transport it by Das Boot beneath the horn of Africa to the mid Pacific
played just for this movie by Indian Ocean.
The heart is transferred from The U Boat over to a Japanese
submarine. Suddenly Allied aircraft show
up and drops a bunch of bombs on them.
Then the Japanese sub happily steams off with its cargo to … Hiroshima! The heart is delivered to Hiroshima and a surgeon
for study, the surgeon played by the great Japanese character actor, Takashi
Shimura, the only actor who ever lived who could say I starred in Seven Samuari
and Godzilla.
But wouldn’t you know the very day the heart of Frankenstein’s monster
is delivered to Hiroshima, the Enola Gay flies over and drops The A-Bomb.
Fifteen years later in Hiroshima, it is discovered that a feral
boy is living in the hills behind the city and eating stray pets. Soon Dr. Bowen, Dr. Kawaj, and Dr. Togami from
The Hiroshima International Institute of RadioTherapentics are on the case.
Meanwhile, at the Akita oils field, the place blows all to hell. And then the monster Baragon puts in an appearance,
Baragon is something of a giant armadillo who can stand on his
hind legs if he has to take a leak, and who can burrow underground and destroys
oil rigs for apparently no reason other than to give Frankenstein somebody to
fight.
Meanwhile, we learn that Frankenstein’s heart was subjected to radiation
from the atomic blast, and the boy grew from the heart. Now fifteen years later, all this kid wants
to do it eat and grow out of his clothes.
I’ll bet there are fathers all over the world with teenaged children
sitting there thinking, “Uh huh. Uh
huh.”
Now this being a Japanese monster movie, there is always one character
who is a complete screw-up and makes a total mess of everything. And the award goes to … Dr. Kawaji, who lets
in the TV news crew to film the creature with predictable results.
Back to Bragaon, of all the giant Japanese monsters in all the
Japanese monster movies I’ve ever seen, I like Baragon the best. Mothra, Varan, Rodan … they really
didn’t have much going for them in the personality department. But Baragon … he does have a personality. He’s a snot-nose punk.
I mean will you look at those rolling eyeballs. He’s a schemer all right, like in this
sequence where he raids the chicken farm knowing full well everybody in town is
going to blame the big tall dumb guy with the flat head. If you’ve ever been accused of something you
didn’t do, I’m sure you can relate.
Ishiro Honda was a master of spectacle.
Maybe not of plots that made any sense, or of dialogue that wouldn’t
embarrass a second-rate comic book writer.
But if your hot on seeing things like a giant Frankenstein monster
terrorizing a bunch of kids on some rock and roll cruise, Honda’s your
man.
With Ishiro at the helm we get to see …
The only Frankenstein monster ever to get hit by a cab.
Obligatory Japanese Monster movie shots of citizens running for
their lives, in this case fearing Frankenstein is going to catch them and eat
them,
And Mount Fuji in flames while Frankenstein puts Baragon into an
airplane spin.
The first time I saw Frankenstein Conquers The World in color and
widescreen was on a big screen TV back in about 1998. Even though I’d seen it once before as a kid,
I finally I got the chance to view it as it was meant to be viewed.
And there’s this scene where feral Frankenstein kid is at the Institute,
and they have him in front of a television tuned to some Rock and Roll Show. And the kid’s getting into it, right? Now I’m watching this and this thought pops
into my head. “Are they taking a poke at
Keith Richards?”
Okay. This movie was made
in 1965 and in 1965 Keith Richards was still a fresh face on the music scene. He wouldn’t be looking rugged like this character
for about another ten years. Maybe
because the hair looked similar I don’t know, but I soon decided, “Aw I’m just
imagining things.”
Then somebody on the TV screams and feral Frankenstein kid freaks
and gets up, grabs the TV and tosses it out the window.
I’m just saying.
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