Cast:
Akira Yamauchi (Dr. Toru Yano), Hiroyuki Kawase (Ken Yano), Toshie Kimura (Toshie Yano), Keiko Mari (Miki Fujinomiya), Toshio Shiba (Yukio Keuchi), Yoshio Yoshida (Gohei, a fisherman), Haruo Suzuki (JSDF senior officer), Yoshio Katsube (JSDF engineer), Tadashi Okabe (a scholar), Wataru Ōmae (a policeman), Takuya Yuki (a communications officer), Yukihiko Gondo as a helicopter pilot), Haruo Nakazawa (teenager in the meadow), Kentaro Watanabe (TV news anchor), Haruo Nakajima (Godzilla), Kenpachiro Satsuma (Hedorah) Directed by Yoshimitsu Banno.
Review:
Apparently, the impetus for this film (the 11th in the series) started with an expo. With the Mitsubishi Pavillion at Expo '70 in Osaka, Toho participated and saw their eyes interested in an audio-visual exhibit of mirror reflections that was created by Yoshimitsu Banno. Banno was approached to make a Godzilla movie and he came up with an idea about a pollution monster in light of the fact that Japan's growing economy would create a huge problem of pollution. Banno had graduated from Tokyo University in 1955 and actually served as an assistant director on four Akira Kurosawa movies and this would be his one major effort as a director. Banno aimed for a small cast with 35 days to shoot. Tomoyuki Tanaka, who usually oversaw the films as a producer, was in the hospital for most of production and Banno used this so he could include a scene he didn't think would get approved otherwise: Godzilla using his atomic breath to fly. Animation was also used at certain points in the film. For the American edit released in 1972 by AIP, it was called "Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster" with its own song "Save the Earth" (as opposed to "Give Back the Sun"). The movie was a mild success with audiences, receiving a bit of critical scorn along with subsequent appreciation in some circles (Roger Ebert once said this was his favorite Godzilla movie). Teruyoshi Nakano, who provided the special effects for the film, stated that the comic scenes were likely added to lighten the tone of a film that he felt looking back "seems kind of cruel and heavy handed". Banno never got to do a Godzilla movie again, although he did receive an executive producer credit on a few of the 2010's Godzilla movies in America; Banno died at the age of 86 in 2017. Incidentally, Jun Fukuda returned to direct Godzilla vs. Gigan in 1972, which happened to deal with cockroach-like aliens going to Earth after their planet was destroyed...by pollution.
I have to admit, this is a pretty fun movie. Of course, anything is better than All Monsters Attack. Sure, it probably won't be for everyone with its pacing of 85 minutes full of tension and mayhem...amidst plenty of strange imagery and moments. Just to paraphrase: people get turned into skeletons when sprayed by the monster, one person hallucinates fish heads on people (right before the sludge arrives) building is shown falling down to complete silence, a kid goes on a roller coaster and sees Godzilla appear in silhouette that you can actually spot because...yes. I do appreciate the Hedorah design apparently also being able to shoot lasers because screw it, why not? It might be goofy looking, but it makes a suitable enough idea in being a symbol of what things could be with a lack of care for the Earth: sludge (consider how things look now). People coming together to try and deal with the monster at least this time around is not a collection of speeches in a boardroom, and the kid this time around is mostly just curious rather than being all the way involved like the last film. I fail to see the problem with the scene of Godzilla flying with his breath. After movies where he did a dance and had a goofy son, the flight is not exactly uncanny to actually see in, you know, a monster movie where Godzilla already gets smothered in one eye. Yamauchi and the others in the cast are pretty routine, which is a compliment in that one isn't rolling their eyes at the level of drama that is supposed to play out in a Japan that may be more economically sound but may also lose something much more important in its soul. Even the hippies get involved, with a... bonfire on a mountain. And hey, here's a film where the military does something: they come with a big electrode to try and dry out the sludge monster before Godzilla takes him to the cleaners (wonder how he gets that stuff off him later). As a whole, it is a weird little film, but as a movie trying to be conscious of the time it was made in, it is a pretty entertaining film to see realized that managed to make an impression to stick out from the previous efforts.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
29 years old today. Ha.
Links for people delivering better insight from the actual production: Smog Monster Director EXTRA / ゴジラ対ヘドラの監督〜EXTRA〜 (SciFi Japan TV #26)
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