Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla (1974)

“Who are you?”

“Commander first conquest of Earth, from the third planet of the black hole, outer space.”

This is most certainly one of the best films the franchise has given us. I don't care how Mechagodzilla is disguised as Godzilla only in the early scenes so we get to see some old-fashioned distruction by our old friend but appears only as a robot (described as a "cyborg") thereafter. Nor do I care about the Ptofessor's suspiciously accurate guesses early on, nor that his pipe is the most obvious example of Chekhov's Gun in cinematic history.

No; this is B movie heaven, with lots of action, interesting locations and a fast-moving plot- set partly, interestingly, in Okinawa, which is culturally and linguistically not quite Japanese, and certainly gets othered here. Mechagodzilla looks awesome and, while one sinister bloke indeed turns out to be the alien leader, others turn out to be cool and friendly Interpol agents in a nice bit of misdirection. Even the true form of the aliens looks quite impressive.

As for the corny sci-fi dialogue and hilariously 70s alien spacecraft, well, those are the reasons we watch these sorts of films. We even get an appearance from Angilas, and a cool new monster in the form of King Seesar. 70s Godzilla is really on form by now. And what’s pleasing is that each film is interestingly different.

Godzilla vs Megalon (1973)

“Jet Jaguar grew up."

This film is utterly, hopelessly, delightfully bonkers. Let's briefly examine the plot: an underwater civilisation that was submerged three million years is somewhat irked by a nuclear test (usual subtext then) and sends a monster called Megalon to destroy Tokyo in revenge, and totally not, say, New York or Vladivostok. Oh, and there are some human characters (not a single female in the whole film!) who have invented a frienly and very Japanese robot which, randomly, can change size to fight monsters. Oh, and the sea people call upon their alien mate to send Gigan from the last film, because the studio spent money on the prop and they're bloody well going to use this.

We can conclude two things from this. One: Japan was clearly reading Erich Von Daniken as much as everybody else in 1973. Two: this is B movie gold.

What's not to love here? I mean, Godzilla and the robot even shake hands after defeating the body. Oh, and the sea people have some vague connection to Easter Island- those megaliths are three million years old, apparently. And some of the sea people, who live under the Pacific, are Caucasian. But we probably ought to worry less about this and more about how these humans, who diverged three million years ago, seem to be anatomically modern. But let's not, and nor should we think too hard about how pe-modern hominids could have had such a hi-tech civilisation.

This is enormously entertaining, delihtfully dated and superbly un-selfconscious fun. More please.

Godzilla vs Gigan (1972)

“Only Godzilla has a chance..."

Time for another Godzilla film, and it's not as though this one isn't pretty much the greatest hits. Again, aliens that look like humans and act secretly (these ones are cockroaches from a world environmentally despoiled and, in a nice touch, we see their shadows). Again, we spend the first half of the film un layering a mystery while the second half is all monster set pieces.

But there's no getting away from how much fun this is, especially with the nicely metatextual theme of comic books (the hero is a comic book artist) and heroic Godzilla and Angilas talking via speech bubble(!) as they swim from Monster Island to save the world. Just let's not dwell on how they're suddenly able to escape its waters.

The baddies are a suspiciously depowered King Ghidorah and a new partly metal monster, who has a cool chainsaw but, surprisingly, isn't really all that prominent for much of the film. The set pieces are awesome, but go on a little too long, and I love the blatant use not only of models but of toy dolls.

Yes, it's derivative and no, it's not the best film in the franchise, but there's no denying how much fun it is. It's also nice to see an environmentalist message, although I suspect we shouldn't look too hard to find a subtext in the people behind a fashionable '70s kids' adventure playground being evil aliens. This is, well, another Godzilla film. But we know what we're getting, stock footage and all, and it doesn't disappoint.

Son of Godzilla (1967)

“The smell of a story attracts me...”

Another Godzilla film, I thought, thinking I knew what to expect. Imagine my surprise. No Godzilla destroying Tokyo; indeed no Tokyo at all, as the entire film takes place on a fictional island on the South Pacific. None of the co-star monsters like Mothra or King Gidorah. Just some big preying martises, a massive spider, Godzilla, and... a cute baby Godzilla who looks bizarrely as though he's been animated by Jim Henson.

And yet... silly though it is, with most of the baby Godzilla sequences being accompanied by music to inform us that this is supposed to be comedy... it somehow works. It certainly starts well, with an intrepid reporter, and our POV character as so often before, stubbornly parachuting on to the island to get a story, and discovering sci-fi weather control experiments to solve world hunger by making "waste areas" fertile. I'm sure that won't harm the ecosystem in any way whatsoever.

We get the usual quotient of human drama, a mysterious girl, an unnerving disease with a high fever (interesting whenever one comes across such themes when quarantining) and an egg, almost pecked to death bu praying manises. But none of that is the real point of the film. No, that's to see Godzilla as we've never seen him before, looking after his Muppet Baby of a son, teaching him to roar, to emit ray beams and to fight giant spiders. And we end with Godzillas Senior and Junior embracing in the face of an unnatural cold, both surviving.

This is not your usual Godzilla film. It's utterly mad. But it's actually refreshing to see something a little bit different, and the whole thing is just absurd enough to work. I'm not sure I should have enjoyed this, but I did.

Ebirah: Horror of the Deep (1966)

"It's too bad Mothra has no alarm clock..."

Wow. I've rather liked every film until now, albeit some more than others, and was somewhat apprehensive abot the change of director. I needn't have worried. Jun Fukuda has given us an example of the B movie at its finest.

From the beginning this film is fast-paced and gripping. We have the mystery of a brother lost at sea, A stolen yacht, and the destruction f said yacht by awesome crab-like sea monster Ebirah within the first twenty minutes. And then things get even more excited.

Our motley and hastily-assembled gang of heroes end up washed up on Infant Island. There's good news and bad news. On the positive side, they're not blacking up the "natives", Unfortunately, there's a mysterious unidentified private army who are enslaving the natives to make a yellow liquid what mollifies Ebirah so that ships can venture to and fro. Oh, and for some reason they're making a nuclear bomb. Plus their leader has a badass eyepatch.

All is not lost, though. Our heroes are well-drawn, fun characters who react in fun ways to their adventures. Oh, and on the other end of the island the natives are singing to wake Mothra, who can always be relied upon to spring into action at moments convenient to the plot.

Plus Godzilla is buried and sleeping, and can conveniently be woken up with lightning- cue Godzilla, Mothra and Ebirah fighting each other as the plot dictates, plus the baddies setting off a nuclear time bomb. We end with goodies triumphant and baddies smashed- but the island is nuked, gone forever. Yet, in a perfect final shot, Godzilla survives.

Gripping and compelling, this is what a B movie should be.