Godzilla (and Friends)—Other Media [continued]

(iii)  Licenced Spin-Offs

Although the original Godzilla series had ended in 1975, Tanaka always planned for the character to return once the right re-launch vehicle was agreed (which in the event took almost ten years).  In the meantime, Toho fiercely protected their copyright, and were notoriously tough negotiators when approached by outsiders hoping to licence their star property for independent projects.  Nevertheless, three notable American spin-offs did get approved (and subsequently imported into Britain) and these can now be briefly discussed.

In 1977 Hanna-Barbera, veteran creators of dozens of classic TV cartoon-shows from the Flintstones to Scooby Doo, were looking for new ideas.  According to Joe Barbera: “My job back then was to dig up new characters, new ideas, new shows, and I’d wanted to do Godzilla for awhile.  I liked the monster thing, and the way it looked, and I thought we could do a lot with it.  So I contacted Hank Saperstein who was a very good friend and we got talking about it.  Then there was an executive at the network [NBC] who wanted to get into the act, and urged us to lighten the storyline up.  So, I came up with the character Godzooky, who was like his son….  The problem with the show was simply this: When they start telling you in Standards and Practises ‘Don’t shoot any flame at anybody, don’t step on any buildings or cars’ then pretty soon they’ve taken away all the stuff he represents.  That became the problem, to maintain a feeling of Godzilla and at the same time cut down everything that he did.  We managed to get a fair show out of it – it was ok. Godzooky kind of got the kids going…” Godzooky did indeed get the kids going, at least in Britain, where he was the focus of regular barracking every time he appeared onscreen.

Screenshots from the opening titles of Hanna-Barbera’s 1978 cartoon series. If you want a close-up of Godzooky find one yourself, I can’t bear to include him.

The format of the show actually drew very heavily on Hanna-Barbera’s earlier hit Jonny Quest (1964).  The storyline centred around the four-member crew of scientific research ship the Calico, led by rugged Captain Carl Majors plus his helpers Dr Quinn Darien (a lady scientist), Brock Borden (her African-American assistant) and Pete Darien (her annoying nephew).  This quartet kept Godzooky as a sort of comical pet, rather like Scooby Doo minus the charisma.  Their scientific-research trips meant they regularly encountered hostile giant monsters, but Captain Majors handily possessed a walkie-talkie-type transmitter with a big red button which when pushed summoned Godzilla from the depths, and a tepid monster battle would typically ensue.  By far the most memorable element of the show was its hopelessly catchy title-song (composed by H-B stalwart Hoyt Curtin, responsible for all their classic theme tunes): “Up from the depths / Thirty storeys high / Breathing Fire / His head in the sky / GODZILLA!  GODZILLA!  GODZILLA! / And Godzooooooky…. [brief comic instrumental]… GODZILLAAAAAAAAAA!!!”

The show was developed by producer Doug Wildey (alongside co-designer George Wheeler), and written by Dick Robbins and Duane Poole.  There were 26 half-hour episodes, run by NBC in two separate 13-episode seasons twelve months apart (Sept-Dec 1978/79).  In Britain, Godzilla was picked up by the BBC in early 1980 and screened on Monday afternoons from 31/03/80.  That week’s Radio Times listing tersely spelled matters out: “4.40 NEW SERIES  Godzilla: The Firebird.  Godzilla, the legendary prehistoric monster, comes alive again in a new cartoon series of adventure and suspense.  As a friend of all mankind, he saves the day in time of crisis.  Godzooky, a baby monster, is always close by to help.”  More provocatively, in the same issue’s humorous comment-column, John Kobal offered the following: “My childhood was enlivened by the antisocial escapes of the prehistoric Japanese monster Godzilla.  This beast, with none of the lovable qualities of King Kong but a far larger tail, first emerged from an ocean being visited by the trouble-shooting Raymond Burr.  He went to the big city where he marched through power lines and, in a classic sequence, lunched on an underground train.  The Japanese brought the big fellow back for an interminable series of sequels that included the hysterical King Kong vs Godzilla, in which two actors dressed up as the monsters fought a battle to the death that was little more than a two-out-of-three falls wrestling match.  A new generation of youngsters can see the modern adventures of GODZILLA (Monday 4.40 BBC1).  These episodes had better do the horrific dinosaur justice, or he will eat [Director General] Ian Trethowan’s house.”  Oddly enough, The Times newspaper’s TV-columnist David Sinclair took a similar line on launch-day: “The prehistoric monster-hero of the cinema of my youth returns in cartoon form to save mankind again and again.  Tonight’s story is The Firebird.” 

 Woolies used to have dozens of these in their bargain-book buckets for about 20p each.

The other (near-contemporary) spin-off was Marvel Comics’ Godzilla King of the Monsters comic-book 1977-79.  According to a launch-issue column by editor Archie Goodwin: “Welcome to the first issue of GODZILLA.  You wouldn’t think a skyscraper-size hybrid dinosaur with radiation-blast breath would have trouble getting anywhere, but it’s taken almost five years for the character to finally get into a Marvel comic.  Back in the early years of this decade, Marvel’s then editor-in-chief Roy Thomas first began trying to acquire the rights to do the adventures of the most popular movie monster since King Kong.  Legal difficulties prevented this from coming about at the time, but [publisher Stan Lee] kept trying, and I was the guy who finally got lucky: Toho Co Ltd was ready to do a Godzilla comic at the time I approached them about the possibility.  Once we had the rights, the big question was how to handle the character.  What works in a series of movies appearing a year or more apart can also become monotonous in a comic book coming at you every month.  So, for the sake of variety and continuity, we opted for new adventures rather than adaptations of the films….  Another problem in bringing the character to the comics was how to present him visually.  Movie buffs will recognise that Godzilla’s appearance varied somewhat from film to film as he worked his way through twenty years of starring roles.  Since our approach is somewhat less tongue-in-cheek than the current films, we decided to use a variation on the Godzilla portrayed in the very first movie…. While some Godzilla purists may object, we think most of you will come to know and love this version of the devastating dinosaur….”

The US original (on left) and later UK reprint (on right). Note that the art is identical apart from the inexplicably re-drawn foreground figures (though the floating hat hasn’t changed).

Goodwin was in fact being slightly disingenuous here.  Toho’s licence lasted exactly two years (hence the comic’s 24-issue run, Aug 77 – July 79), and ONLY covered the Godzilla character, so the possibility of adaptations (or occasionally including Ghidrah or Mechagodzilla etc) didn’t exist. Marvel’s solution was to incorporate Godzilla into its pre-existing Universe, so the chief continuing characters were long-established SHIELD agents ‘Dum Dum’ Dugan and Jimmy Woo, who spent the 24 issues chasing him around America.  There were also guest appearances by such favourites as the Fantastic Four, the Avengers and (in the final issue) Spiderman himself, but the results were mixed.  In the contemporary TV cartoon, Godzilla has become a “friend of all mankind”, similar to his portrayal in the later Toho films.  Marvel writer Doug Moench and artist Herb Trimpe attempted to return the character to the more animalistic, marauding presence of the original Gojira, but also showed him taking an interest in (and occasionally even demonstrating compassion for) the tiny humans pursuing him, and the inconsistencies became problematic.  Godzilla fans actively disliked it, Marvel fans found it unsatisfying, and even Stan Lee himself was apparently less than enthused. Toho did not renew the licence.

The series was never formally imported into Britain (so couldn’t be picked up in your local newsagent etc) though plenty of copies nevertheless found their way into the nation’s growing number of specialist comic shops – which in the Midlands basically meant Birmingham’s Andromeda Bookshop (when it was still on Summer Row and kept its comics stockpiled in the gloomy basement) and Nostalgia & Comics on Smallbrook Queensway.  Both of these were also reliable sources for back-issues of US monster-mags like Famous Monsters of Filmland / Monsters of the Movies / The Monster Times etc etc, and occasionally even dedicated fanzines like Greg Shoemaker’s Japanese Fantasy Film Journal (est.1968) and Mark Rainey’s Japanese Giants (est 1974).  The startling discovery that there were other enthusiasts out there writing intelligently about these films was a revelation at the time.

Classic mid-late 70’s US monster-mags. Cover-artists (from left) Ken Kelly, Bob Larkin, Basil Gogos, and Enzo Nistri (Fantastic Films is a photographic paste-up only).  

Marvel’s Godzilla strip (or at least a piecemeal version of it) DID briefly appear in Britain’s newsagents however, timed to coincide with the original’s cancellation in the States.  The Mighty World of Marvel weekly had debuted here in Sept 1972, reprinting popular 60s US strips in cost-saving black and white.  In 1978 Stan Lee had hired Dez (House of Hammer) Skinn to head Marvel-UK, and Skinn immediately revamped all the group’s existing titles including MWOM.  From issue #330 it was rebranded as Marvel Comic, and from issue #333 (14/03/79) Godzilla replaced the Hulk as the cover star and lead strip.  However, Marvel Comic itself only lasted 23 issues, and after #352 (25/07/79) was revamped yet again, this time into a monthly entitled Marvel Superheroes.  Godzilla – celebrity cover-star of twelve of the twenty UK issues in which he appeared – vanished forever, largely unmourned.

There is however one final (and iconic) spin-off that actually predates both the Hanna-Barbera and Marvel adaptations, but is ironically more affectionately remembered than either.  This is a 9″ high green-plastic model kit, and if you were a British Godzilla fan in the 1970s you HAD to own one – and ideally several.

Aurora Plastics Corp were formed in Brooklyn in 1950, and spent their early years issuing standard car and airplane models, tentatively branching out into figure kits (knights, musketeers, gladiators, vikings) in 1956, though with only mixed success.  In 1960 their Marketing Manager Bill Silverstein saw a group of kids queuing up to get into a vintage double-feature horror show, and had the unlikely idea of launching a line of monster kits.  He acquired the character-rights from Universal for next to nothing, and badgered his (extremely sceptical) Directors into launching a test-kit, Frankenstein, in late 1961.  This was sculpted by Bill Lemon and (perhaps even more importantly) featured unforgettably lurid box-art by James Bama.  Frankenstein was a hit and was quickly followed by others: Dracula, the Wolfman, the Mummy, the Creature from the Black Lagoon and so on.  In 1964 an astonishing 7½ MILLION of these things were sold across America at 98c each, and Aurora were running their production lines 24 hours a day to keep up with demand.  By 1965 a full line of twelve kits were available, of which two – The Witch and The Forgotten Prisoner – weren’t even proper monsters.

King Kong vs Godzilla had caused a big splash on its US release in June 1963, and the following year Aurora launched lively versions of its two protagonists, first advertised (NEW!  JUST ARRIVED!) in the July 1964 issue of Famous Monsters magazine.  Godzilla (sculpted by Ray Meyers) is trampling Tokyo (as usual), while King Kong stands defiantly atop Skull Island clutching Fay Wray.  Like all the rest of the line, the pair were first issued in the distinctive long boxes that showcased Bama’s full-height figure art to maximum effect, but (along with the extravagantly-detailed Witch) were priced slightly higher at $1.29 each, and for some reason these three ‘specials’ were never imported into the UK in this original format.

In August 1967 Aurora Plastics Co (UK) Ltd were established in Green Dragon House, 64-70 High Street, Croydon, recruiting Tony Perret (former General Sales Manager of Airfix) as Managing Director – the new firm initially just boxed imported kits for distribution via wholesalers, though the long-term plan was to move into domestic manufacturing.  By this point however the monster kits were already on the wane and would probably have been expected to naturally die away, until Aurora had the genius idea of reissuing them all with glow-in-the-dark parts (heads, hands, feet etc), ensuring a whole new lease of life.  To emphasise the big 1969 re-launch, different, large square boxes were designed featuring an eye-catching GLOWS IN THE DARK green splash, with Bama’s art repainted (to highlight the luminous features) by Harry Schaare.

Top-left: of the five kits shown, only the square-box Glow Godzilla was available in the UK. Top-right: Harry Schaare’s original gouache-on-board box-art. Bottom L&R: the 1972 UK-made (Bexhill) kit!

Godzilla himself reappeared in this format in 1970, and in 1972 Aurora-UK finally opened a new purpose-built factory at 16 Beeching Road, Bexhill on Sea, equipped with copies of all the original US moulds.  For the next three years (until the line’s final cancellation in 1975) Godzilla and friends were manufactured at the British seaside, hopefully allowed out occasionally with a bucket and spade to enjoy themselves.  The Bexhill factory closed in Dec 1976 (when Aurora-UK was sold to Berwick Timpo) but is still standing, now converted into a garage / car-dealership.  The model-kit wing of Aurora-US was likewise sold to rivals Monogram a year later, who gradually reissued most of the classic monster kits (including Godzilla) from 1978 onwards.  The originals are now highly sought-after collectors’ items and indeed an integral part of 60s-70s pop-cultural folklore.  Your author, along with countless others, would drift off to sleep every night with the distant glow of his hero’s spiky dorsal fin slowly fading away to nothing.

Godzilla (and Friends)—The Legacy

How are we to set about defining Godzilla’s legacy (if any) in Britain?  The first point to make is how remarkably closely the original series paralleled our own homegrown Gothic Horror cycle.  Hammer’s breakthrough The Curse of Frankenstein premiered in May 1957, a couple of months after Godzilla King of the Monsters, and their final horror (the middling Dennis Wheatley adaptation To the Devil – a Daughter) appeared in Feb 1976, a couple of months before Monsters From An Unknown Planet.  Of course, this has less to do with international artistic synergies than simple commercial imperatives. The introduction of the Adults Only ‘X’ cert in 1951 (and subsequent arrival of commercial television in 1955) meant that for about twenty years popular British cinema was driven by a wave of exploitation films (both homegrown and imported) targeted directly at audiences keen to see something they couldn’t get on TV.  Both Hammer and Toho (plus of course AIP in the States, along with dozens of other international outfits) methodically fed this reliable market with assembly-line product until all were separately engulfed by the general economic crisis of the mid-70s.  (The 1973-74 UK Stock Market crash meant Hammer’s funding dried up almost overnight, and the near-simultaneous Oil Crisis of Nov 1973 had a similarly disastrous effect on the Japanese economy).

So, stepping back a pace or two, it could be argued that the most compelling evidence of any supposed legacy would be a clearly identifiable influence on our own domestic fantasy-film boom, 1957-76.  Put simply, are there any original-screenplay British films of the period in which stuntmen in giant-monster suits rampage around miniature sets of London?  And the answer is Yes, there are three, and they are all quite wonderful.

Herman Cohen (1925-2002) was a US producer of schlock (often for AIP) including I Was A Teenage Werewolf, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein and Blood is My Heritage (effectively I was a Teenage Vampire).  In 1958 (in collaboration with AIP’s British partners Anglo-Amalgamated) he began producing his films in the UK, initially shooting a triptych of punchy horrors at the tiny Merton Park studios in southwest London: Headless Ghost, Horrors of the Black Museum, and Konga (1961).  The working title of the latter was allegedly I Was a Teenage Gorilla.

Art adapted from the US campaign by Reynold Brown.

An ambitious British botanist lost deep in the African jungle belatedly returns with both a pet chimp which he dubs Konga and a variety of enormous carnivorous plants.  Via a serum extracted from the latter, Konga is induced to swiftly grow into a full-size gorilla which the crazed scientist hypnotises before periodically sending out to murder his enemies.  He also develops a crazed infatuation with one of his glamorous young students, causing his jealous housekeeper to retaliate by furiously injecting Konga with an overdose of serum.  The results are unfortunate.  Konga grows into a 250-foot monster and goes on the rampage, throwing the housekeeper into an accidentally-started blaze, causing the student to stumble fatally into one of the carnivorous plants, and picking up the protesting scientist to carry him (still protesting) around London while crashing into Big Ben etc.  The army open fire, and the monster irritably hurls his mangled creator at them before expiring in a hail of bullets.

Konga is every bit as good as this synopsis would suggest.  Co-written with longtime collaborator Aben Kandel, Cohen’s dialogue simply has to be heard to be believed: at one point Jack Watson’s police officer gasps “Fantastic!  There’s a huge monster gorilla that’s constantly growing to outlandish proportions loose in the streets!”  As the mad scientist, Michael Gough abandons all restraint: “Konga!  Put me down!  Konga!  Put me DOWN!”.  Earlier, he’s been forced to shoot his cat (twice, with a pistol, at close range): “Even those few drops might have made Tabby swell up to huge proportions!”

Konga (1) Original 1961 silkscreen, (2) Early 70s reissue – art by Arnaldo Putzu, (3) Gorgo and Konga go head-to-head in the US (with FREE back-to-school rulers to the first 1,000 kiddies – how exciting)

Location shooting (in spring 1960) took in both Putney’s Whitelands College (as Gough’s university) and the streets of Croydon (from where, in this version of London, Big Ben is clearly visible).  For the key role of Konga, Cohen initially considered Steve Calvert (whom he’d previously worked with on Bride of the Gorilla and Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla – does what it says on the tin), but Calvert had already retired.  Cohen then approached George Barrows (Mark of the Gorilla, Robot Monster etc etc), but in the end only hired the latter’s suit, employing British actor Paul ‘Dr Blood’s Coffin’ Stockman to fill it (primarily because he happened to be a good fit).  Barrows was apparently furious when his property was later returned rather the worse for wear.  Given what must have been a fairly low budget (Cohen later claimed £180k, though we can probably knock at least £50k off that), Vic Margutti and Ronnie Whitehouse’s special effects and process work are actually not too bad.

Konga was released in March 1961 (carrying an ‘A’ cert and double-billed with period romp The Hellfire Club) and is, essentially, beyond criticism.  Nevertheless, for the record, this is the MFB’s assessment: “The picture has undeniable exuberance, but defects in the acting and [John Lemont’s] direction, slow development and ludicrously inadequate dialogue reduce the obviously intended thrills to ridicule.  Furthermore the climax, compared to King Kong, is unimpressive and the trick work is deplorable.  Though good for a laugh, the film is in every other respect a wasted opportunity.”

One important question often asked is: ‘Which bits of southwest London did Konga directly menace?’ We can now exclusively reveal these included Master John Dry Cleaner on Kingston Road (directly opposite Merton Park studios itself) and The George Inn (now Harvester) on Epsom Road in Morden.

Konga ironically ended up in direct competition with the second film of our trio, which by a fluke of timing had been released in the States almost simultaneously.  US producers the King Brothers (Frank, Maurice and financial-whiz Herman) had been packaging films since 1940, and – having successfully supervised the US version of Rodan in summer 1957 – were keen to do something similar of their own.  Their initial idea was a Japanese co-production (presumably with Toho), and in the original outline the monster is captured on Kuru Island in the South Pacific and taken to a Tokyo zoo, with the heroes being pearl divers rather than treasure hunters.  When the Japanese backers withdrew, the setting was briefly changed to Paris until it was pointed out that the city’s lack of a harbour would make the arrival of any sea monster ponderous. Finally, following a strong pitch from MGM-British Studios in Borehamwood (based in particular on Tom Howard’s state-of-the-art effects unit there) a late relocation to London was agreed in April 1959.  MGM were given US distribution, while the Kings did a separate deal with British Lion for the UK release.  Herman put together a generous budget of £230k, and Gorgo (1961) – as the project eventually became – still looks every inch a genuine blockbuster today, lush, pacy and well-acted.

An underwater volcanic eruption off the Irish coast releases a 65-foot dinosaur which is captured by two enterprising boatmen, and taken to London to be exhibited in a circus at Battersea Park. Disapproving scientists warn the creature is probably only an infant, and are soon proved correct when its 250-foot mother wades up the Thames to devastate the capital in search of her imprisoned offspring.  After knocking over every major historical landmark the city has to offer, the two creatures are happily reunited to slowly make their way back home again.

Gorgo was the fourth and final film of French production-designer Eugene Lourie, who (as he later admitted in interview) subsequent retired from directing due to type-casting frustrations.  His debut (the already-discussed Beast From 20,000 Fathoms) was followed by 1959’s Behemoth the Sea Monster, a straight UK remake shot at Elstree and featuring stop-motion work by the ailing Willis O’Brien.  On the basis of these two hits the Kings offered Lourie Gorgo, which (as previously) he co-wrote with regular collaborator Daniel ‘Hyatt’ James.  Gorgo is in fact by some way the best of the trio, but by this point its director was understandably growing weary of having to make the same film over and over again.  (One quirk of Gorgo’s screenplay is that – similar to Godzilla vs Megalon – it contains no female protagonists at all).

Principal photography began in Sept 1959 (as a chained Gorgo is being driven through Piccadilly Circus, Hammer’s The Mummy can be spotted premiering at the London Pavilion), with November locations in Dublin’s Coliemore Harbour.  Tom Howard’s painstaking effects work took months to complete however, and the film didn’t finally wrap until almost a year later.  Three identical rubber monster-suits were created, with four stuntmen involved – Mick Dillon (later a Triffid and later still a Dalek), plus Dave Wilding (doubled for Burton in Where Eagles Dare), Peter Brace (regularly beat up Pat McGoohan in The Prisoner) and Pete Perkins (doubled for Connery in FRWL’s legendary train fight).

Gorgo premiered in Tokyo in Jan 1961 and did very well, opening in the States a month later.  MGM poured a lot of money into the US launch, hiring legendary publicity-man Terry Turner to run the campaign.  Turner had a formidable track-record with sci-fi hits, having handled the record-breaking 1952 King Kong reissue, Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, War of the Worlds, Godzilla King of the Monsters and (most recently) The Time Machine.  He managed to get Gorgo onto the cover of Famous Monsters #11 – a serious coup – but the film nevertheless failed to meet Herman King’s (somewhat over-optimistic) hopes of a $6m international gross.  In the end, Gorgo made $1.3m domestic (ie in the US) and $930k overseas (including the UK).  Two frustrations the Kings faced were AIP’s simultaneous release of Konga in the US (which split the likely audience) and, in the UK, the BBFC’s unfathomable award of an ‘X’ cert for the Nov 1961 London premiere, dashing the Brothers’ hopes of a British family audience (how on earth the BBFC squared this decision with the ‘A’ they felt able to give the infinitely more sleazy Konga is a complete mystery).

Piccadilly Circus about to face significant urban renewal.

Despite all this, critical reception was favourable and the MFB were genuinely impressed: “Really rather splendid.  The colour is muddy, the back-projection in the early scenes irritating, the editing of the destruction of London a mite monotonous and the message naively expressed.  Never mind.  The film has a touch of grandeur, notably in the shots of Ma Gorgo towering angrily over Piccadilly Circus, and a highly original ending.  The mob scenes, too, are better handled by director Eugene Lourie than is usual in this kind of picture, though the script could have perhaps have worked harder exploiting the potential element of fear and horror.  The trouble here may lie with the monsters themselves: undeniably impressive, they still lack genuine personality.  It is sometimes difficult to tell if the humour is intentional or not, and the conception of the innocently wise child (Vincent Winter) is banal.  But Gorgo remains a gripping, sympathetic variation on an overworked theme with a moral no less valid and timely for all that it is trite, the whole being contained succinctly within a business-like storyline.”

Gorgo is now routinely referred to in fan-circles as ‘The British Godzilla’ and can confidently wear that badge with pride.  However the final instalment in our domestic kaiju trilogy is a different matter entirely, and the chaotic appearance (and almost immediate disappearance) of Queen Kong calls for some brief introductory context.

Dino De Laurentiis first decided to remake RKO’s King Kong in early 1975 and accordingly splashed the project in the trade press, obtaining the support of Paramount – but this immediately led to a protracted legal battle with Universal (supposedly planning their own version) which dragged on until the New Year.  With Paramount already committed to an Xmas 1976 release (and shooting frozen until the lawsuit was resolved) De Laurentiis then faced a desperate race to simply get his film made on time, and the resulting ten-month ($16m) schedule ran right up to the wire in October.  All this can hardly have improved its producer’s temper.

Queen Kong (1) Pre-production trade-ad, (2) German poster, (3) Italian 7” single.

 The high-profile international publicity generated naturally inspired opportunist filmmakers around the world to try and get in first with their own copycat rip-offs.  Egyptian director Farouk ‘Frank’ Agrama had the idea of doing a deliberately comic role-reversal ‘feminist’ spoof, and somehow secured German/Italian backing for this unlikely notion.  Queen Kong (co-written with Ron Dobrin) was shot in just five weeks over July-August 1976 at Shepperton studios, with locations at Newhaven Marina, Sussex (seen in the opening cargo-loading sequence) and Tucktonia model village in Christchurch, Dorset.  (Tucktonia was a new theme-park opened just two months earlier by Arthur Askey, its main attraction being a scale-model of London including Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace etc etc.  When the park closed in 1986 all the remaining models were apparently destroyed).

£250k has been proposed as a likely budget (though as with Konga, at least £50k can probably be shaved off this in reality).  Either way, Queen Kong is a RECKLESSLY cheap film that deliberately makes a virtue of its gleeful shoddiness.  Stars Robin Askwith and Rula Lenska claim to have been appalled when they viewed a final cut (Lenska was convinced she’d just written-off her entire career), and must have been jointly relieved when RKO and De Laurentiis promptly slapped an injunction on it for copyright infringement.  Agrama agreed to halt distribution, and Dino accordingly paid off the creditors.  Queen Kong was thus fleetingly released in Italy & Germany ONLY (in Dec 1976) but otherwise vanished into oblivion for 25 years until bootleg versions first began to circulate in 2001.

The plot is (engagingly but quite pointlessly) a scene-for-scene spoof of the original King Kong. Lenska is domineering filmmaker Luce Habit (ie Bruce Cabot) who spots beautiful blonde waif Ray Faye (Askwith) stealing a toffee-apple in Portobello Road market, and accordingly whisks him off on her boat – the Liberated Lady – to Lazanga (“where they do the Konga”) in Darkest Africa, to encounter all-female tribe the Nabongas led by queen Valerie Leon (presumably cast having played exactly the same part in Carry On Up the Jungle six years earlier).  The Lazanga village is built around a HUGE picnic table and chair (an impressive set, which must have eaten up half the budget), constructed adjacent to a giant wall – the Nabongas want to offer Askwith as a sacrifice to their goddess Queen Kong, a 64-foot female gorilla, but when the latter turns up in person the unlikely couple quickly fall in starry-eyed love (to Lenska’s jealous fury).

Terrifying monster action as Queen Kong punches a T-Rex, wrestles a Terry Wotsit, invades Tucktonia – um, sorry, Central London – and causes havoc in Shepperton Studios car park.

QK carries Askwith off into the jungle to fight a ludicrous T-Rex and Pterodactyl (or ‘Terry Wotsit’ as Askwith dubs it), but Lenska and her female crew (all sporting halter tops / hot pants, and gurning continually into camera) set off in pursuit and manage to capture the monster with gas-bombs.  QK is shipped back to England and put on manacled-display (in what looks like Shepperton car park) for the Queen (Jeanette Charles), but becomes enraged when Lenska and a reluctant Askwith perform a Native Dance on stage as part of the show, and angrily escapes to wreak havoc across London.  The police and army are called in (cue much stock-footage of the Red Arrows plus silly Airfix helicopters etc), but Askwith manages to broadcast an emotional appeal to the capital’s women to march in Feminist support of their unfairly oppressed role-model, and sympathetic placard-carrying crowds converge on Big Ben just as QK scales it.  The army stand down, and QK is shipped back to Lazanga to live happily with Askwith – a heart-broken Lenska delivers the wistful punchline: “I wonder if they’d consider a threesome?”

Queen Kong is a tricky film to evaluate.  It is DELIBERATELY cheap and stupid, so criticizing it on this basis (as many perversely seem determined to do) is completely futile.  The special effects (by Leam Neary and Jon Rees) are quite obviously FRAMED as a gag: the model village is a model village, and the Airfix kits are Airfix kits etc etc.  Indeed, everyone involved appears to be treating the whole thing as a colossal joke (as if presciently assuming it will never actually see the light of day) with half Askwith’s dialogue seemingly improvised off the cuff during post-production (when QK carries him through some decidedly plastic jungle he rhetorically enquires “Does this look like Scotland, or am I just pissed?”  Overall, the film has about enough material for a ten-minute Benny Hill sketch, which (alongside the legendary 1972 ‘Kitten Kong’ episode of The Goodies) is what it most resembles.  The only reasonable yardstick to apply under these circumstances is the quality of the jokes, and these are mixed to say the least.  In this sense Queen Kong anticipates the anything-goes style of Airplane, though lacks the latter’s underlying discipline and tight construction.  But you can’t help admiring a film this flagrantly, insolently stupid.

The music (reminiscent of the punchy pub-rock driving Askwith’s previous hit Confessions of a Pop Performer) is also terrific.  The title-track (playing under the opening credits) is particularly memorable, with Dobrin’s lyrics worth transcribing in full:  “QUEEN KONG! QUEEN KONG! QUEEN KONG! / Queen Kong is the chick with all the hair / Queen Kong, Queen Kong comes from I don’t know where / Kong Kong Kong Kong Kong Kong Kong, KONG KONG! / Queen Queen Queen Queen Queen Queen Queen, QUEEN KONG! / She’s a Genie who ain’t teeny, She’s the Queenie Queenie for my weenie / When I’m feeling Mighty Spunky, I wanna do it with my hunky monkey / Queen Queen Queen Queen Queen Queen Queen, QUEEN KONG! / Kong Kong Kong Kong Kong Kong Kong, QUEEN KONG!” etc.  Sheer poetry. This masterpiece (performed by band Pepper, a/k/a ‘Tony Mimms’, a/k/a Anthony Rutherford, a Glaswegian producer/arranger based in Rome from the mid-60s) was actually released as a 7″ single in Italy.

Read ‘em and weep. Literally.

For lovers of fine literature, all three of our British kaiju also appeared as paperback novelisations – both Konga (by ‘Dean Owen’ a/k/a Dudley Dean McGaughey) and Gorgo (by ‘Carson Bingham’ a/k/a Bruce Cassiday) were published by Monarch in the US, and are chiefly notable for lurid sex-scenes most definitely not appearing in the films themselves.  Queen Kong by James ‘Skinhead’ Moffat was published by Everest in the UK, and is chiefly notable for eight glossy inset pages of B&W stills which for a quarter of a century provided the sole visual evidence of what the film actually looked like.  The unrestrained back-cover blurbs for each can be quoted in full:

“KONGA  Professor Decker’s whole life was a series of evil secrets: There was his secretary, Margaret, who performed her official duties by day and her extracurricular duties by night.  There was the secret of his potent new serum, which was changing the tiny monkey, Konga, into a gargantuan king gorilla.  And there were the carnivorous jungle plants which could be grown large enough to swallow a man whole.  Blonde student Sandra, eager to learn in or out of class, started as a secret too.  But when Decker’s jealous lust for her and his fury at a rival scientist’s discoveries drove him to murder, he used Konga as his instrument of destruction.”

“MONSTER ON THE LOOSE  Sam Slade didn’t believe in Gorgo until he saw the monster’s hideous scaly face, its slimy green talons and the massive mouth that could swallow a killer whale.  Sam didn’t believe in love, either, until he met virginal Moira McCartin and helped her to discover the deep passions slumbering within her.  Moira taught him to love and Gorgo taught him to fear.  Spewn from some sub–oceanic cavern, the monster catapulted from the sea, threatening death for all who challenged it.  Captured, it presented even more of a problem, for deep in the bowels of the sea was a larger, more vicious monster, even now rising from the depths to rescue its offspring and to destroy everything in its path – battleships, tanks and half of London!”  

“QUEEN OF A LOST WORLD  The legend travelled far: from an unknown tropical island all the way to the heart of London.  It told of a great beast, fifty feet high, ruling a jungle where time stood still.  It told of a bizarre native sect of monster-worshippers.  It told of savage rites and human sacrifice.  The team of explorers set out to film the mythical giant, and found that the truth was even stranger than the legend.  For the beast was an ape.  A lady ape…..  QUEEN KONG”

As if this wasn’t enough, Charlton comics in the US also offered Konga and Gorgo comic-books, each running for 23 issues 1960-65.  The launch-issues were adaptations of the films themselves, while later instalments detailed the characters’ unrelated ongoing adventures.  The titles now carry considerable historical interest, as both were drawn by the legendary Steve Ditko, who a couple of years later would go on to create Spiderman and Dr Strange for Marvel.

So much for what we might describe as the Commercial legacy.  But what exactly does Godzilla mean to his British fans?  Perhaps the best way of addressing this question is to focus on the work of one particular admirer, the stand-up comedian Stewart Lee.  Admittedly, there’s no direct evidence that Stew actually considers himself an admirer, but his work to date might well be thought to speak for itself on this important issue.

Lee was born and grew up within fifteen months / fifteen miles of the present writer, so it seems reasonable to suggest some historical / geographical crossover in shared pop-cultural background. One early indication of this came when BBC2 broadcast (11/07/98) a special ‘Monster Night’ of programming (tied in with the UK premiere of the new US Godzilla remake), which at 10pm included ‘Lee and Herring’s Reasonably Scary Monsters’.  In this short (20-mins) skit, Rich and Stew sit down to watch a bargain-bucket video Rich has bought from their local newsagent: ‘The World’s Nine Scariest Monsters with Carol Vordeman’.  (He has fecklessly spent the duo’s last £10 on this, originally intended for beer and pizza to accompany the football on telly – when Rich in his defence points out that neither of them actually LIKE football, Stew wearily tells him they are male 90s comedians and must think about their careers).

Carol Vordeman‘s Nine Scariest Monsters turn out to be: (9) The Alien, (8) The Cyclops, (7) The Daleks, (6) King Kong, (5) Godzilla, (4) Frankingstein’s Monster, (3) The Kraaaaken, (2) Zombies, (1) Medusa.  Following this formidable line up (each candidate championed by an unlikely minor celebrity), Rich poses the thought-provoking question: “Who is actually the worst monster in this so-called world of ours – is it really the Medusa, the snake-haired temptress of olden times, or is it another monster Stew, a monster maybe a bit closer to home… the monster we call Man?”  Stew confirms it is indeed the Medusa.

Number Five, Godzilla, is portentously introduced by Carol: “The oriental colossus and leveller of cities – but what is the relationship between this giant beast and Japanese culture?  Chart-topper Leo Sayer” [filmed while clutching a small plastic Godzilla]: ‘You know in Japan they look on it not just as total devastation of a city by earthquakes and things like that, but they actually have a ‘Ah, a monster came and did that’ – so it’s very much like a Middle Ages religious kind of feeling where they blame everything on God’.  Rich immediately objects that Leo Sayer is far more terrifying, as he’s so massive he can apparently pick Godzilla up in one hand, until Stew explains he’s just holding a toy.  A brief discussion of how frightening a giant Leo Sayer MIGHT be then ensues, with Rich climbing on the sofa to illustrate his point:

By 2006 Stew was writing a proper grown-up weekly column for the Guardian newspaper, with one (03/05/06) instalment headed “GIVE ME GODZILLA ANY DAY” accompanied by the subtitle “What makes a truly awful movie?  It’s morality that matters, not duff production values.”  This (bang on) analysis of so-called Bad Films sets out its critical stall early:

“Ed Wood’s 1959 movie Plan 9 From Outer Space regularly features in bad-movie polls, but it displays degrees of imagination and energy absent from most Richard Curtis films.  Viva Knievel!, which was chosen for Cardiff’s Bad Film Club at the Chapter Arts Centre last month by Canadian comic Glenn Wool, at least has genuine motorcycle stunts, while Breakdance: The Movie, at the same venue this Sunday, features exciting old-skool hip-hop moves.  And Godzilla vs the Smog Monster, from 1971, is far from being a truly bad film: it is a metaphor (admittedly a cumbersome one) for environmental catastrophe, and one that the world has ignored at its peril.  Its man-in-a-rubber-suit Godzilla, meanwhile, is more charming and convincing than the CGI lizard avenger that battled Matthew Broderick in Roland Emmerich’s far more expensive 1998 Hollywood version.  All these films have something to commend them, and it is possible to imagine that somewhere along the line those responsible believed in what they were doing – otherwise we would not be able to contemplate sitting down to view them…..

The fact is that truly bad films, like undercover SAS men [Lee’s personal bete noire is 1982 thriller Who Dares Wins] hide in plain sight.  In the 1950s and 60s we knew them by their bad plotting, bad dialogue, bad acting and low production values.  Now those same faults are concealed by big budgets, professional production values, star names and skilful marketing campaigns.  Peter Biskind, in his book Easy Riders Raging Bulls, cites Jaws as the moment where B-movie aesthetics went overground on major motion picture budgets.  Now it’s harder to identify the genuinely bad film.  Does Peter Jackson’s King Kong – which achieved less with its ham-fisted direction, clanking script, emotionally manipulative score and multi-million-dollar effects than the 1933 original did with string and clay – qualify?  …..and what about the wasted franchises of Daredevil, Fantastic Four, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Batman and Robin?  I’ll take Godzilla vs the Smog Monster over Pretty Woman any day.  The bad films are out there, but often they’re right under our noses.”

Exactly five years later (on 04/05/11) the second series of his BBC2 TV show Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle returned in a slightly revised format, with c.25 mins of straight stand-up (filmed in front of a live audience) being followed by a surreal three-minute closing sketch visualising the week’s central theme.  The first episode was entitled Charity.

Stew opens by conversationally noting that his grandad always says Charity begins at Home – “But then he would say that, because he’s a Chelsea Pensioner who lives in a nest which he has woven himself entirely from the stalks of discarded Remembrance Day poppies”.  Stew assures us that he personally performs at many Charity Benefits, mostly for the free crisps which he passes on to his crisp-loving grandad.  Grandad Lee was a Japanese POW who survived incarceration by encouraging his fellow Worcestershire Regiment comrades to nostalgically reminisce with him about their shared love of crisps (despite the admittedly unhealthy saturated-fat content).  Following release he went on a wild crisp-eating binge (taking in four entire bags) but as a consequence now hates the Japanese, refusing to have anything to do with their national products, even if potentially useful.  This once resulted in an unfortunate incident in which his nest was attacked by a moth with a 400-foot wingspan and a lobster as big as a cathedral – during the ensuing mayhem, grandad took a call from a Scientist offering to help, who explained that a similarly enormous dinosaur-lizard (possessing both radioactive breath and an inexplicably human moral code) could be freed from beneath the Earth’s crust via a targeted nuclear missile to fight and drive away the moth and lobster.  Despite being initially enthusiastic, once the Scientist admitted the dinosaur was Japanese, his grandad immediately hung up.  Stew later asked him what he felt was the worst thing about growing old, to be told it was the experience of seeing all his ex-POW comrades slowly dying one by one, to which Stew commented “Well grandad, you fed them all those crisps….”

At the end of the show, a melancholy Stew is being berated by his producer for (as usual) not including enough jokes, only to take a call mid-conversation from his grandad, apparently in trouble again.  Stew (carrying his shopping) assures him he’ll be right over to sort it out:

Rare behind-the-scenes shots of Haruo Nakajima rehearsing on the set of Ebirah Terror of the Deep.  Art Director: Thorin Thompson, Costume Designer: Sam Perry   © BBC 2011.  

I suppose some readers may be wondering why I’ve bothered including all this, when its relevance might seem peripheral at best.  The answer is because it seems to me to encapsulate the appeal of these films for anyone who actually grew up with them over the 1970s.  They were strange, they were funny, they were unpredictable, they were different.  They offered an escape into another world far removed from the greyness of a decaying post-industrial West Mids landscape, and those of us who discovered them in this context have never forgotten their impact.  More generally, they provided a first, accessible glimpse into World Cinema, and the notion that films from far-off countries could be irresistibly odd and interesting.  And in many ways this is perhaps Toho’s greatest inadvertent legacy: to give a generation of young British fans an early taste for exploring beyond the safe confines of Hollywood.  Because Godzilla and co. remain – quite unmistakeably – Monsters From An Unknown Culture.

©  Sim Branaghan    May-June 2018

This essay is dedicated to the memory of Shinichi Sekizawa (1920-1992) who greatly enlivened my childhood.  Thanks mate.

Select Bibliography:

Galbraith, Stuart: Monsters Are Attacking Tokyo (Feral House [US]1998)

Ryfle, Steve: Japan’s Favorite Mon-Star (ECW Press [US]1998)

Kalat, David: A Critical History and Filmography of Toho’s Godzilla Series (McFarland [US] 2010)