The Monster Island Film Vault Posts

I’ve gotten into a bad habit of not blogging on time, haven’t I? That’s mostly because I’ve been fielding multiple phone calls for the bad PR last week’s episode on Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956) got me after Elijah Thomas alleged that I had an OnlyFans account. I ended up consulting with Miss Perkins about how to handle it, which wasn’t easy for me to do. The only reason she didn’t charge me was because I’m a space war veteran. That was nice of her, at least.

Anyway, here are my notes from the episode:

• Why are there microphones styled after…human nipples? Or are they yeti nipples? You know what, don’t answer either of those questions. I don’t need more OnlyFans accusations.
• The line, “Makes King Kong look like a midget,” was from an article in the Daily News, which is based in New York City, so I’d know.
• I love Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster almost as much as Monster Zero. I saw it at the Champion Film Festival as a kid with Masao. That was a magical experience. Almost as magical as helping Gamera save the world from a space squid.
• I had Goji-kun fetch me Godzilla (1954) from the Vault, and there is no reference to “cursed waters” in it. Good catch, Elijah!
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers came out in 1956, the same year as this film.
• For the record, I said, “You got a problem with droids?” when Nate said only he and Elijah could understand me.
• “Dubbed” = you meant “subbed” when asking about ’54, Nate.
• So, about the White Heron. I…basically have it on loan from the Anti-Megalosaurus Force. Or rather, they loaned it to Ozaki and his EDF Mutants…but only because Captain Gordon pulled some strings. I don’t feel like saying more.
• More love than Marchand. Indeed. Except I don’t get much fanmail. Send me fanmail, folks.

And now for the overabundance of leftover notes from Nate’s research that I have to edit down. It’s a good thing I like my job. A lot of these were from Nate’s “previous podcast life.”

Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956) Notes

• The reporter character from the original cut still appears in a few shots and scenes, but he’s mostly supplanted by Martin.
• Emiko and Ogata, who were the primary characters in the original, aren’t properly introduced until 24 minutes into the film. They are supplanted by Martin as the main character(s). This is unfortunate considering how compelling they were in the original cut. (In my most recent re-watch, I found myself wanting more of them and less of Martin). It spells out the love triangle more clearly than in the original. (Nate says he doesn’t feel this way anymore. –Nate)
• There are several long shots of just Burr observing things or minding his own business while other characters talk or he narrates.
• After Serizawa shows Emiko the Oxygen Destroyer, the original dialogue is there when he says her name, but then the dubbing kicks in. They’re clearly different.
• The closest Martin ever comes to meeting his college friend Serizawa is talking to him on the phone.
• Martin says Osaka might be attacked by Godzilla next. He was right—see Godzilla Raids Again. (I wonder how he felt about being right? I’d ask Raymund Martin, but…he’s in mourning. –Jimmy)
• Still has the huge scientific error of saying the Jurassic Period as 2 million years ago. You’d think American filmmakers would catch that. Worse yet, they grossly exaggerate Godzilla height from 50 meters (approximately 160 feet) to 400 feet (he’s never been that tall). This misnomer is still believed by some on pop culture. (J.D. Lees, editor of G-Fan, once posited a fan theory to account for this discrepancy by saying Yamane was too frightened to make an accurate assessment. I doubt it). (I call BS on that! –Jimmy)
• Serizawa appears 33 minutes in. He, too, is given a lesser role in this film, which also tragic given how compelling a character he is in the original. (Again, Nate doesn’t feel this way anymore. –Jimmy)
• The oxygen destroyer is introduced sooner in this cut than in the original Japanese version. It’s done as set-up as opposed being something that might potentially be used against an existing problem (i.e. Godzilla after he comes ashore once). This is a more western-style of storytelling. Either way is legitimate, but I did find myself feeling like the device was introduced too soon in my re-watch.
• This cut also has a brisker pace than the original, which isn’t surprising given that it is about 10 minutes shorter.
• Unnecessary scream when Godzilla attacks a car. Almost comical. (It’s no Wilhelm scream, though. –Jimmy)
• The mother and children are still in this cut of the film, but they are neither dubbed nor subbed, leaving her words a mystery to those who don’t understand Japanese. It’s been a point of contention among critics and fans. While it does help to know what she says, which makes the scene better, I, for one, am grateful it was left in. The effect is changed. This version seems intended to show the death of innocents (i.e. women and children) in Godzilla’s massacre.

Japan’s Green Monsters

• Toho sold the distribution rights to Embassy Pictures for $25,000 (which is about $251,000 now).
• They say this version makes the American have superior insight and omniscient knowledge, making the audience not empathize with the Japanese characters. (I call BS on this, too. –Jimmy)

Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men

• Brothers argues that this version isn’t true to the letter of Honda’s original but is true to its overall spirit.

Honda Biography

• Premiered at Times Square in April 1956. Earned $2 million.
• During the Occupation, Hollywood set up an office in Tokyo to distribute American films.

LeMay

• The dubbing was recorded in five hours.
• Terry Morse directed small films for WB and was given $10,000 (about $100,000 now) to do all of this.

Galbraith

• He’s surprisingly cold toward the movie (either version), saying Godzilla lacks personality and isn’t as distinctive as Toho’s later work.

Kalat

• Burr had just co-starred in Rear Window (1954).

Noriega

• “The Hollywood re-edited film plays on an American sense of guilt toward the Japanese in the early fifties, saying in effect, “look at what we’ve done/are doing to Japan.” As with other American radioactive-monster films, this guilt is then projected onto the monster, who is revealed to be the true cause within the movie. Godzilla’s death represses American guilt and anxieties about nuclear weapons: both history and Japan’s own filmic rendition are retextualized to erase the bomb and thereby relieve anxieties about the American occupation and H- bomb tests.”

Glownia

• “In the American version he is not afraid that if publicized his invention would initiate a new arms race, rather that it could fall into the wrong hands. Thus Godzilla, King of the Monsters! tends to legitimize the possession of weapons of mass destruction by the “good guys”, and at the same time deny this right to the ‘bad guys’”

Ryfle and Godzisewski Commentary and “Godzilla’s Footprint” (and Hoberman)

• Burr’s presence elevates it.
• Edmund Goldman, the head of Manson Productions, is the man who can prove that he discovered Godzilla. He purchased the rights from Toho.
• Martin teats the Japanese well and doesn’t look down on them. Also, the extras are Asian.
• The cinematography is different The new footage uses close-ups and medium shots while Honda preferred wide shot followed by close-ups.
• Ryfle compares this to the Donner Cut of Superman II, which he said may not see the light of day. Ha! It did! (This was out-of-date when the Classic Media DVD was released! –Jimmy)
• This gets lumped in with B-movies largely because of the hyperbolic ad campaign.
• The dialogue was recorded without visuals. That made looping difficult.

Kalat Commentary

• The atomic monster genre played to the contradictory Cold War fears of Americans at the time: “Science is bad, and we need more of it.” (Speaking as a science guy, I disagree. Science is good…if used properly. An improper use is time travel. Stop it with time travel, people! –Jimmy)
• The average foreign rights price was $3,000 (just for perspective).

War Crimes Tribunal

• The chief prosecutor was Joseph B. Keenan, Assistant Attorney General of the United States and Director of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice of the United States. He was appointed by President Truman. (Wikipedia)
• Keenan: “War and treaty-breakers should be stripped of the glamour of national heroes and exposed as what they really are—plain, ordinary murderers”. (Wikipdia)
• Prosecution presented its case from May 3, 1945, to January 24, 1947.
  • The Charter provided that evidence against the accused could include any document “without proof of its issuance or signature” as well as diaries, letters, press reports, and sworn or unsworn out-of-court statements relating to the charges. (Brackman, Arnold C. (1987). The Other Nuremberg: The Untold Story of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial. New York: William Morrow and Company. P. 60).
  • Article 13 of the Charter read, in part: “The tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence…and shall admit any evidence which it deems to have probative value”. This included such things as: wartime press releases of the Allies, the recollections of a conversation with a long-dead man, and letetrs allegedly written by Japanese citizens that had no authenticity and weren’t cross-examined by the defense (Minear, Richard H. (1971). Victor’s Justice: The Tokyo War Crimes Trial. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. P. 120)
  • When the prosecution rested, the Tribunal implemented the “best evidence rules,” a legal term that said the most authentic evidence was original documents (as opposed to descriptions of said evidence, for example). Justice Pal, one of two justices who voted for acquittal on all counts, observed, “In a proceeding where we had to allow the prosecution to bring in any amount of hearsay evidence, it was somewhat misplaced caution to introduce this best evidence rule particularly when it operated practically against the defense only” (Minear, Richard H. (1971). Victor’s Justice: The Tokyo War Crimes Trial. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Pp. 122-123)
• The Defense presented its case January 27, 1947, to September 9, 1947.
  • George Furness, a Defense Counsel, stated, “[w]e say that regardless of the known integrity of the individual members of this tribunal they cannot, under the circumstances of their appointment, be impartial; that under the circumstances this trial, both in the present day and in history, will never be free from substantial doubt as to its legality, fairness and impartiality”.
  • Former Foreign Minister Shigenori Tōgō asserted that “[because of the Hull Note] we felt at the time that Japan was being driven either to war or suicide”. (Wikipedia)
• There was contention over Emperor Hirohito’s legal status and the legitimacy of the Tribunal itself.
  • Justice William Webb of Australia, in his concurring opinion, wrote of Hirohito’s legal status, “The suggestion that the Emperor was bound to act on advice is contrary to the evidence”. While he didn’t indict the Emperor, Webb said Hirohito was responsible as a constitutional monarch who accepted “ministerial and other advice for war” and that “no ruler can commit the crime of launching aggressive war and then validly claim to be excused for doing so because his life would otherwise have been in danger…It will remain that the men who advised the commission of a crime, if it be one, are in no worse position than the man who directs the crime be committed”. (Röling, B. V. A.; Rüter, C. F. (1977). The Tokyo Judgment: The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (I.M.T.F.E), 29 April 1946-12 November 1948. 1. Amsterdam: APA-University Press. ISBN 978-90-6042-041-6. P. 478)
  • Justice Henri Bernard of France argued that excluding Hirohito called the entire Tribunal into question.  He concluded that Japan’s declaration of war “had a principal author who escaped all prosecution and of whom in any case the present Defendants could only be considered as accomplices”, and that a “verdict reached by a Tribunal after a defective procedure cannot be a valid one”. (Röling, B. V. A.; Rüter, C. F. (1977). The Tokyo Judgment: The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (I.M.T.F.E), 29 April 1946-12 November 1948. 1. Amsterdam: APA-University Press. ISBN 978-90-6042-041-6. P. 496) (Wikipedia)
  • Justice Bert Röling of the Netherlands wrote in his dissent, “It is well-nigh impossible to define the concept of initiating or waging a war of aggression both accurately and comprehensively.” He added, “I think that not only should there have been neutrals in the court, but there should have been Japanese also.” While he argued they would’ve been a minority and not swayed the balance of the trial, he said, “they could have convincingly argued issues of government policy which were unfamiliar to the Allied justices”. Citing difficulties and limitations in holding individuals responsible for acts of state and making omissions of responsibility crimes, Röling called for several defendants to be acquitted (including Hirota). (Wikipedia)
  • Justice Radhabinod Pal of India wrote a 1,235-page judgment that dismissed the Tribunal as victor’s justice: “I would hold that each and every one of the accused must be found not guilty of each and every one of the charges in the indictment and should be acquitted on all those charges”. While accounting for the influence of wartime propaganda, exaggerations, distortions of facts in the evidence, and “over-zealous” and “hostile” witnesses, Pal concluded, “The evidence is still overwhelming that atrocities were perpetrated by the members of the Japanese armed forces against the civilian population of some of the territories occupied by them as also against the prisoners of war”. (Wikpedia)
  • Justice Delfin Jaranilla of the Philippines, interestingly, dissented for different reasons. He thought the penalties imposed by the tribunal were “too lenient, not exemplary and deterrent, and not commensurate with the gravity of the offence or offences committed”.

Criticisms

• Justice Röling went further, saying, “[o]f course, in Japan we were all aware of the bombings and the burnings of Tokyo and Yokohama and other big cities. It was horrible that we went there for the purpose of vindicating the laws of war, and yet saw every day how the Allies had violated them dreadfully”. (Wikipedia)
• Complicating matters, there was no international law pertaining to aerial combat at the time. Ben Bruce Blakeney, an American defense consul for Japanese defendants, argued that “[i]f the killing of Admiral Kidd by the bombing of Pearl Harbor is murder, we know the name of the very man who[se] hands loosed the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.” However, the Pearl Harbor attack was classified as a war crime under the 1907 Hague Convention because it happened with no declaration of war and with no just cause for self-defense. Likewise, Japan’s bombings of Chinese cities was never brought up because it was feared this would mean incriminating the Allies for their fire bombings of Japanese cities. This meant no Japanese fighter pilots escaped prosecution for their actions. (Terror from the Sky: The Bombing of German Cities in World War II. Berghahn Books. 2010. p. 167. ISBN 1-8454-5844-3.)
• Justice Pal published a dissenting opinion where he said he found the prosecution’s case that the Japanese government conspired to engage in aggressive war and subjugate other nations to be weak. While he acknowledged the brutality of the infamous Nanking Massacre, he saw nothing to indicate the Japanese officials were responsible.  There is “no evidence, testimonial or circumstantial, concomitant, prospectant, restrospectant, that would in any way lead to the inference that the government in any way permitted the commission of such offenses”, he said. He also added that conspiracy to wage aggressive war wasn’t illegal in 1937 or made illegal since then (“The Tokyo Judgment and the Rape of Nanking”, by Timothy Brook, The Journal of Asian Studies, August 2001.)

Have fun reading all of that.

As for next week, Nate has finally reached the “promised land,” as he calls it: the Heisei Gamera Trilogy. We start with 1995’s Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, which features the return of his favorite people, the Tourists. I’m not sure how many of them will make it, but they were all invited. Also, Nate has to finish his interview with Spacewoman Kilara or be shot into space. Then we have another Patreon-sponsored episode. This time it’s from MIFV MAX member, Damon Noyes, who selected The Magic Serpent for us. That should be interesting.

See you then!

Social media:

• Follow me on Twitter: @NasaJimmy
• Follow MIBOD on Twitter: @MonsterIslaBOD
• Follow Raymund Martin (The Monster Island Legal Team) on Twitter: @MIFV_LegalTeam
• Follow Crystal Lady Jessica on Twitter: @CrystalLadyJes1

#JimmyFromNASALives       #WeShallOvercome

Comments closed