Monday, December 27, 2010

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.

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