G50@Egy Day 4

[CyHunter]

Today I attended Day Four of the American Cinemathique-hosted 50th Anniversary celebration at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Today’s screenings included the original Rodan, as well as Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster. To anyone who has never had the opportunity to do so, let me say that viewing any film, Godzilla or otherwise, is way more fun with an audience of fans who also appreciate and recognize the enjoyment the movie can provide.

The proceedings began with a translated interview with a few of Tsubariya’s crew. They provided some interesting moments from the making of both the films, while on the screen some behind-the-scenes photos were projected. It’s really something, how easy it is to forget the mammoth size of the sets built. A background mural from GTTHM, displaying the Japanese mountains, alone seemed to stretch into infinity when the suit actors and stagehands are in front of it.

The first feature (Rodan) then began. Not to my surprise, the opening credits of Honda, Ifukube, and of course, RODAN, were met with applause from the crowd. The film was the same dubbed version (and I believe, though I could be wrong, the same print as) available on DVD here in the states. I’ve seen the film before, but since I had much opportunity to share my thoughts on it before, I guess this is a fairly appropriate time. I find Rodan to be a fairly enjoyable and quite well-made film, if not one that interests me all the time. It would seem to me that the first part of the film is superior to the latter—I love the creepy mood set up initially, and all the stuff in the mining tunnels is gold. But once the military starts attacking the Rodans, the movie seems to lose some of it’s steam. I think a large part of that has to do with the editing. The military assault on the beasts, particularly the final bombardment of missiles, runs way too long—is it just me, or are they running the same few shots of missiles firing, exploding, and the Rodans roaring over and over again? While I can’t say if this is only in the American release, I would tend to think the contrary, since the U.S. version is shorter by about ten minutes. However, the film does end on a high note—it’s an interesting and novel way for the monsters to perish; one that retains their dignity as they seem to die willingly. This is something that distinguishes this instance in a Japanese-made monster flick of the military defeating the monster from, say, the D&E flick, or any number of “Atomic Spiders From Marsâ€

[August]