Godzilla: All Monsters Attack (1969)

"Everyone is so hard a work that they forget about the kids, huh?"

This is, appropriately enough, the 666th film I've blogged over the last nine years, and it's winderful. For completely unexpected reasons, it's the best Godzilla film I've seen so far.

Opinion, it seems, is divided between those who hate the film for its lack of focus on the monsters and extensive and for its obvious use of stock footage of the monsters on the one hand, and those who point out that this is quite clearly a sodding children's film, and a magical one at that, on the other.

This is a film about a litte boy, Ichiro, whose parents work long hours and leave him alone for hours after school (unthinkable in this day and age), and who is both obsessed by Kaiju and plagued by a bully whom he likens to Gabara. In his dreams, nicely shown as such by the type of effects that we Doctor Who fans call CSO, he flies to Monster Island and sees all the monsters, befriending little Minya. For those who comlain about Minya talking, these are dream sequences and this is a sodding kids' film, pretty much Mary Poppins with Kaiju.

I think it's a lovely, elegantly plotted and ingenious film, albeit cheap, about a little boy encouraged to fight bullies- and crooks- by a parable on Monster Island. Who'd be a kid in 60s Japan?

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.

Mothra vs Godzilla (1964)

"We feel that we cannot trust humans..."

Another Godzilla film, methinks. And, while we're at it, lets do a sequel to Mothra. And let's make an obviously cheesy B movie notably better than it's expected to be, or needs to be. Even if the cast is starting to look awfully familiar- didn't Japan in the '50s and '60s have a wider group of B movie star actors than this?

Because this film is, indeed, better than it needs to be. Oh, it's more of a sequel to Mothra with Godzilla, despite his screen time, just a prominent guest star, but this simply reflects Mothra's deeper backstory, being goddess of an island in the Pacific whose inhabitants, thankfully, are not blacked up this time.

But there's a proper plot, with story beats in the right places. A giant egg is found; human greed leads to its usual silliness; and then those two miniature ladies from Mothra turn up to provide some much-needed exposition, and for some reason seem to know what a hydrogen bomb is.

But it all works, plot-wise, and masterfully builds both tension and interest. Godzilla arrives and wreaks the usual havoc to an unnamed city that we shall call, well, "Tokyo" which looks, suspiciously, to be entirely made of models. Our heroes- the by-now familiar combo of male journalist with social conscience, klutzy but moral female photographer and obligatory generic scientist- are forced to go to that island from the last Mothra film to beg for help. Fortunately, to a degree, the "natives" are presented with a little more dignity this time. And so Mothra heads to Japan to battle Godzilla and an epic battle ensues after which she, er, dies of old age.

The film concludes as we wait for the egg to hatch in order for a baby Mothra (or two) to give Godzilla the spanking that the short remaining running time demands. It all commands the attention rather strongly, weird though it is to have Iwo Jima mentioned in a film which doesn't star John Wayne. And yes, Ishiro Honda gives s the usual splendid set pieces. A magnificently entertaining film.

King Kong vs Godzilla (1962)

"Don't blame them if their god eats you both..."

I know it's midweek, but we've eaten and washed up early, so there's time for the next Godzilla film- the first in colour- and this one not only picks right up from where we left off but co-stars the most famous cinematic beast of all: King Kong.

It's an oddly comedic film, with the usual comedy heroic duo out-slapsticked by their absurd boss, but this approach works in a film which was always going to subsist as a piece of low camp at its most loveable. The costumes obviously have men inside, the tanks are obviously models, and it's amusing so see the camera pan slowly around an electrical substation later on, confirming via the grammar of such films that the substation will later be destroyed in exciting fashion.

We begin with parallel plotlines as an expendable American nuclear submarine awakens Godzilla and is quickly destroyed, while our comedy heroes investigate that island from King Kong for reasons which are said to relate to the advertising of pharmaceuticals but make no sense whatsoever.

The island is a pretty good copy of the 1933 original except, of course, that the "natives" are all Japanese extras in blackface. Oh dear. There's also a very silly scene in which the island chief is amused by a transistor radio as our comedy heroes give out free cigarettes to all and sundry, including a little kid. Oh dear.

There are plenty of exciting set pieces, including an inconclusive early battle between the two monsters where Kong is sent running. Kong also gets a pretty girl to snatch out of a rail carriage  and take to the top of a building, as he's contractually obliged to do. Plenty of model tanks again appear and poor old Tokyo, which can't have been rebuilt for very long, is trashed once more.

We end with a suitably epic clash ending up with Kong swimming home, as Godzilla's fate remains uncertain. That was... pretty much exactly as you'd expect, and good fun,