Gammera The Invincible (1966)

poor Gamera, he never gets as much attention as Godzilla.  so I'm going to watch the first seven or so movies and talk about them a bit.

here's the trailer for Gammera The Invincible that I posted over Hallowe'en.  it's a good trailer and the movie is pretty good, if a pretty obvious idea to exploit the success of Godzilla.  Daiei wasn't the only Japanese studio to do so either.  but they had the most success, as no other monster made 6 (or 7) sequels like Gamera did.

however, the movie itself is a bit schizophrenic, as Gammera wipes out Tokyo but we aren't supposed to quite hate him, as he saves Toshio from a certain doom.  Noriaki Yuasa knew what he was doing, apparently, even if the viewers weren't quite sure.

this was the last Gamera movie I saw from the original series.  I had seen the infamous Sandy Frank dub when it came out on tape, but wondered where actors such as Albert Dekker and Brian Donlevy were.  it wasn't until a bit later that the different versions were reported.  and then it was the early 90s when I rented this movie from Eddie Brandt's Saturday Matinee, though I am not sure the website works.  nowadays one can find most anything on DVD, but back then, it was a good deal.

it's not the most exciting monster movie, seen on a grainy VHS tape.  Neptune Media did a much better job when they released it ten years ago.