Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster (1964)
Audio Commentary by David Kalat
Classic Media DVD - 2007
Classic Media DVD - 2012
Classic Media DVD Box Set - The Godzilla Collection
From start to finish, David Kalat talks practically nonstop through this very enthusiastic and insightful commentary, which plays over the 85-minute US version of Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster on Classic Media's DVD. Kalat's obvious excitement to talk about the kaiju genre coupled with the elegant structure of the commentary make for a very entertaining listen.
At the first police station scene, Kalat provides info on actors Yosuke Natsuki and Akihiko Hirata as well as Yoshio Tsuchiya, who was almost in this movie. Beginning with the airplane scene, he spends six minutes expounding on screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa and his role in shaping the kaiju genre. At one point he quotes an exchange between Sekizawa and Takeshi Kimura from Guy Tucker’s book Age of the Gods.
Beginning when the princess first speaks to a crowd, Kalat offers a lot of context about the volume of Toho’s sci-fi film output in the 1960s. He details this production’s close relationship with Dogora and how this film’s casting and characters reflected the shift in tone toward comedy.
At 21 minutes, Kalat makes an impassioned case for why English-dubbed versions of Godzilla movies are essential to make them accessible to young children. He takes a jab at the Hong Kong-produced dubs and goes into a lot of the ways that this movie was altered for its US release. When the princess appears at Mt. Aso, he describes how Ishiro Honda replicated many of this film’s American edits when he cut it down for the 1969 Champion Festival re-release.
Kalat spends Rodan’s emergence from the mountain reflecting on how and why this take on the monster differs from the 1956 film. When the princess reappears on the boat, he takes a moment to touch briefly on Honda’s underrecognized legacy. When Naoko brings the princess to the hotel, Kalat contrasts Yuriko Hoshi’s character with her role in Mothra vs. Godzilla, then talks about Akiko Wakabayashi.
When we return to the hotel after Godzilla sinks the boat, Kalat talks for four minutes about the long-term impact that the original King Kong had on this genre. He then digresses for a couple of minutes to recount how King Kong vs. Godzilla came to be. From Godzilla and Rodan’s appearance in the town through King Ghidorah’s awakening, Kalat describes the differences between the Japanese and US versions of these scenes. He then spends time talking about Takashi Shimura, Eiji Tsuburaya, Akira Ifukube and Tomoyuki Tanaka.
At about 54 minutes, Kalat offers more parallels between Ghidorah and Dogora. He spends the entire hospital sequence going through a lot of varied and interesting background info. When Godzilla and Rodan are fighting on the hillsides, Kalat talks at length about how the success and eventual end of Godzilla movies in the Showa Era reflected broader cinematic trends of the time.
The remainder of the action comes with a lot of screen-specific tidbits. At 71 minutes, Kalat talks about the 8mm reel of Ghidorah’s final battle that he had as a kid, then he quotes Teruyoshi Nakano from an interview with Stuart Galbraith IV.
Kalat provides more biographical info on Tsuburaya and later describes the history of the Mosugoji Godzilla suit. At 77 minutes he repeats the old legend about the suit’s head being damaged when it slammed into the Nagoya Castle model in MvsG. I was at Haruo Nakajima’s Q&A at the Mad Monster Party convention in Charlotte back in 2013 when someone asked him if it was true that slamming into the castle damaged the suit’s head and made the lips wobbly. Nakajima said no and laughed, then he said “People like to talk about rumors that aren’t true,” as translated by his daughter Sonoe.
About 80 minutes in, Kalat talks about King Ghidorah’s suit actor, Shoichi Hirose, and how he eventually ran afoul of Tsuburaya. After the monster battle, during the denouement at the airport, Kalat steers the commentary to a close, reflecting on the end of Toho’s Golden Age of science-fiction and the enduring legacy of Godzilla and his kaiju co-stars.
