look out, there's smog in the air!

well, sort of- it's Hedorah in all it's flying form glory.  you don't hear too much about this cool looking form of our favorite sludge monster, but I really like it.  it always reminded me of both a horseshoe crab and a trilobite.

It's never really explained in the movie how Hedorah gets to transform into this form, or even how it flies.  and that's not really important- the cool visual is the main thing.  if I'm not mistaken this is the first dai kaiju (giant monster) that did get to transform in a movie, though I guess a case could be made for Dogora as well.

this movie comes with all sorts of iconic and unforgettable images, such as Godzilla against the sunset (or sunrise, take your pick).

the second Godzilla movie I ever saw and first one I watched on television.  in fact, two whole families watched it together, well, two moms and four kids.  the women wanted to know what happened to that poor mud covered cat early on in the movie, but at least it wasn't eaten away, like many of the people were.  I later got to see this on the big screen, in the late 70s.  must have been a weekend showing or something, but there it was, and my brother and I went.

and this was the title present.  nowadays, the AIP title and dubbing in this movie is harder to find, as the nice looking Sony DVD uses Toho's title of Godzilla vs Hedorah, the literal translation.  the "international" dubbing is pretty good in this one, but since I've listened to Titra/Titan's dub job for so long I much prefer it.

One last note, the kid playing Ken Yanno (the only "Ken" in a Godzilla movie) also played "Roku-chan" in Godzilla vs Megalon.  this was sadly, the last AIP dubbed Godzilla movie ever released in the States.