Frankenstein - Zweikampf der Giganten

For monster lovers, this has to rank up there as one of Toho Studio's greatest and most satisfying giant monster movies. For those looking for it, there's plenty of nonstop monster mayhem and devastation on tap. However, it's hard for me to decide which of the two versions I prefer; the Japanese original (which calls our creatures "Frankenstein's" and is a direct sequel to Toho's own FRANKENSTEIN VS BARUGON, aka FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD) or the U.S. edition (which christens the beasts "Garganutas" and works better as a separate stand alone story). This may be a rare occasion where the American rendition proves to be more entertaining, for a few reasons...

One grisly sequence shows the evil monster chewing a woman victim up like a piece of meat and spitting something out; in the Japanese version it's a bouquet of flowers, while in America it works more effectively as the girl's clothes.

Another quality I prefer in the U.S. edition is some of the music. Just works better for me during the action sequences of the monsters being fought off by the army as well as when they're beating each other up.

In the American film, Russ Tamblyn is especially funny to hear while looping his own embarrassed voice into English. And no matter which version you settle on, you'll still get the treat of hearing a female nightclub singer belting out that horrendous and long-vilified classic tune with hilarious lyrics that include "the words get stuck in my throat"! Worth watching for this alone! *** out of ****

This is one of the more original Toho productions out there, and it's also one of the more frightening. The Green Gartantua is the bad one, and he is only too happy to eat people whole whenever he gets the chance. The classic seen in this movie is when the Green Gargantua comes ashore near a hotel/apartment complex and tears the walls off exposing people inside. Then he grabs one and pops them into this mouth, chewing with gusto! To top off this great scene he *spits out* the chewed clothes of the person he ate, sort of like a person would spit out a cherry pit.

This movie really needs a re-release on DVD!

A fond and nostalgic personal memory, "War of the Gargantuas" was a welcome treat in my family's living room (they had more console television sets back then; am I getting old or what?), and is one of my favorite Japanese monster movies. When they aired it, which was often, I'd get a chance to watch it five times during that week, at 8:00pm on a KTLA (Los Angeles area Channel 5) Movie of the (whole) Week (I was just a kid then, and before anybody was able to rent videos at Blockbuster).

Barebones Summary (without spoiling it for the inexperienced viewer):

A beautiful young female scientist, Akemi (pronounced ‘ uh-kay-mee '), does research on a docile, missing-link-like monster child -eventually called `The Brown One.' (There is a cute scene in which Akemi feeds it a chocolate bar, soon after it has played with children's toys). One day the small and hairy young creature escapes the laboratory and grows up alone in the forest. Some years later Akemi meets an American scientist, Paul Stewart, and you just know these two lovebirds are going to fall in love.

Meanwhile at Tokyo International, a huge green monster pops out of the ocean and proves everybody wrong when they say Airport food is lousy. The ugly sea titan sticks its hand in an office window, pulls out an even uglier cleaning lady and shoves it in his mouth. As it munches away and spits out the wrapping (clothes), the clouds overhead start to clear (Ouch, it hates the light!), so it peels-off down the runway and dive-bombs into the ocean.

Elsewhere that evening, aboard a luxury yacht, an American singer belts out a corny love ballad to her formal audience-`The words get stuck in my throat…' (And you just know someone--or something--will soon put a stop to her awful singing).

Before you know it, the behemoth brothers meet several times to resume their sibling rivalries by knocking the wind out of each other, smashing military vehicles of all shapes and sizes, and knocking over downtown buildings.

I believe WOTG offers considerably more than your usual Toho Studios/Japanese Monster Movie, and could do with a modern spin (provided the original plot is not much altered as to seem another film entirely). It certainly has its comedic moments, as already mentioned. There are infinite possibilities in remaking it. The Japanese are great at creating model tanks and realistic building models… all that stuff. And the title creatures are scary looking… ‘Green' looks like a gargoyle without horns, and ‘Brown' looks like a somewhat frightening, foreign version of Frankenstein's montster

This is certainly one of the better non-Godzilla kaijus. It has plenty of action and in some ways it has a love story within it. The character Akemi has a deep motherly affection for Sanda (the Brown Gargantua) and is willing to do anything to protect it from the wrath of the army who see him as nothing but a menace. In the meantime, Gaira (the Green Gargantua) is the true evil. He sees man as nothing but food and this brings him into conflict with his brother who is gentle in nature but results to violence as a last resort.

"War Of The Gargantuas" comes from my favorite era of Toho's kaiju flicks, the 1960s, when the emphasis was relatively straightforward action and fun, and thankfully no annoying little kids making friends with the monsters. And this time, we have a monster in the Green Gargantua (Gaira) who is really frightening and who eats people to boot (not even Godzilla ever went that far). It left me unnerved the first time I saw it as a kid.

Like most kaiju films, the original Japanese version is much better than the later dubbed American version. Russ Tamblyn (generally okay but clearly bored and resentful of his sudden fall from the heights of "West Side Story" and "The Haunting") might have gotten his own voice back in the U.S version (the Japanese actor who dubs him in the original doesn't sound anything like him at all and in Toho's European market English dub they used another actor), but everything else about it is decidedly inferior. The dubbing is awful, and sections of Akira Ifukube's score are replaced with an endless, monotonous theme for the military that I think was first used in "Earth Versus The Flying Saucers." Cropped and faded, as existing American video prints are now, the film really looks cheap and silly and the flaws are magnified. The original Japanese version in widescreen format, has beautiful color and sound that immediately conjure the image of a stylish late 60s action flick with reasonably good FX for the time, and the results far more entertaining in the end. Also in the Japanese version, we learn that this movie is actually a sequel to "Frankenstein Conquers The World" since the monsters are referred to as "Frankensteins" rather than "Gargantuas" as they are in the dubbed version.

As for the infamous nightclub scene featuring ex-Fox starlet Kipp Hamilton's infamously bad song before she gets attacked (but contrary to what others say here, not eaten), even that somehow comes off better in the Japanese version. When you stop to think of it, the Japanese audiences had it better since they couldn't understand a word of those inane lyrics when they were watching! But what the heck, how many other bad songs did we suffer through in all those James Bond film knockoffs in the late 60s? ("Your Zowie Face" in "In Like Flint" anyone?) I prefer to write that off to the goofy spirit of the times. And "War Of The Gargantuas" is in the best tradition of the goofy spirit of fun 60s kaiju that remains a guilty pleasure to savor again and again in my book.