EBIRAH, HORROR OF THE DEEP (1966) is one of the most 1960s Godzilla and friends I’ve seen yet. It’s drenched in it. Saturated, and I don’t just mean the colors.
It starts off with a teenager insisting that his brother, who disappeared at sea, is still alive, all evidence to the contrary. This kid, Ryota, decides he needs a boat, to go look for his brother, and he further decides the best way to quickly get the money to buy one is, obviously, and I can’t believe I even have to tell you this, because it’s the most obvious course in the history of the world, and there are no other reasonable methods of money-making available.
He tries to enter a dance contest.
Unfortunately for Ryota, the dance contest is already underway, and he can’t enter! Bummer! He meets two other guys, who I think have already washed out of the dance contest, and they all end up going to find a boat. They get on a yacht, and wake up the owner, who’s sleeping on the yacht, and he laughs and invites them to spend the night there, as you do when three teenagers board your yacht without permission.
But! Early morning plot twist! The “owner” of the yacht is in fact a safecracker who has just robbed a bank of a bunch of money, so he doesn’t belong there either! It doesn’t matter, though, because Ryota has sailed the boat off to sea in search of his brother while everyone else was asleep.
Ebirah, the giant lobster monster that everyone’s sure has killed Ryota’s brother, shows up and chops up their boat with his giant claw (sorry to whoever actually owned that thing!), but the guys escape and find themselves on an island.
And this is what all of this convoluted plot was getting us to all along. The plot continues to be somewhat convoluted, though, because after all why do we watch these films if not for the fun, so there’s a group of bad guys called Red Bamboo, and they’re doing something nefarious with nuclear weapons, but since Ebirah lives near their island, they need protection from him, so once again, they choose the most obvious course of action in the history of the world, I can’t believe I have to keep telling you these totally normal and not at all insane choices these characters are making, because you should be able to figure it out on your own, it’s all very logical.
Red Bamboo has enslaved the people of Infant Island and forces them to make a “yellow liquid” out of some kind of fruit, which they spray out onto the water around their boats, said liquid having Ebirah-repelling properties. This is, apparently, 100% effective against Ebirah.
So these four guys are stuck on this island and trying to escape from Red Bamboo, and they pick up a girl from Infant Island, who escaped somehow, and her job is mostly just to look pretty and pick up a coil of wire at a convenient moment1, which then becomes a tool to wake up Godzilla via lightning strike, because they found Godzilla sleeping in a cave and decided their best chance of escape involves siccing Godzilla on Red Bamboo. I mean, it does work, in the end.
Besides all the bright colors and beehive hairstyles and sort-of crewcuts, kicky 60s music pops in at the most inopportune awesome times, like when a bunch of jet planes are attacking Godzilla and he’s grabbing them out of the air and crushing them with his hands, or when Godzilla and Ebirah do battle underwater and Godzilla ends up yanking Ebirah’s entire claws off2.
And a giant bird shows up at one point, who I at first thought might be Rodan, but he didn’t look like Rodan, and Wikipedia informs me he is a condor named Ookondoru? But just for, like, 30 seconds? And Godzilla just shoots his radioactive breath at him and his entire body starts smoking and he dives into the water to put himself out and then sneak off for a beer because fuck this movie actually, either that or to die, one or the other. Who the fuck are you, Ookondoru?
But then Red Bamboo is going to blow up the island, and they escape on the only ship there is, but too bad for them! the enslaved people of Infant Island have made a fake batch of yellow liquid that protects them exactly not at all, so Ebirah chomps all the bad guys. Mothra finally wakes up and comes along with her fairies to save the good guys and her people, who she has just not helped at any point yet for no reason I can tell, and Godzilla jumps into the ocean to escape the island blowing up, and I don’t think a single good guy died in this entire movie?
GHIDORAH, THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER (1964) was notably mostly for the scene where Mothra tries to talk Godzilla and Rodan into pausing their petty bullshit in order to save Earth from Ghidorah, a three-headed monster from space, and they’re like, nah, why should we help humans, fuck those guys. And they’re right! Every time Godzilla shows up humans try to kill him! Either that or they’re literally electrocuting him in order to wake him up from probably a really good dream so that he’ll volley giant boulders back and forth with Ebirah.
I watched TICKET TO PARADISE (2022) when I was on a cruise to the Mexican Riviera, because it was free on my stateroom TV and I felt like I wanted to look at beautiful blue water even when it was too dark to see it outside my window, and for that purpose, it did its duty admirably.
I don’t know if we’ve all agreed that OCEAN’S EIGHT (2018) is a classic or not, but it definitely is, and Lou is what I look like on the inside. I’ve heard people complain that there isn’t enough plot, but there are plenty of movies full of dudes and low on plot and those still get watched and enjoyed, so whatever. And I dare you to watch this film and not fall in love with Rihanna (again).
Women love shiny things, I hear.
That’s where the good meat is.
I was practically howling with laughter (on the inside, because I'm currently at my Corp Hell Job catching up on my 'stack readings) reading this because I was picturing my Dad watching these cheesy-ass Godzilla movies. Ditto to humans being bullies. We're excellent at giving mixed signals. Help us. But we're going to try and kill you for helping us. Maybe it's because he destroys the city in the process of helping and we're sick of it? I dunno. Just spit balling there.
And yes, Colby, a dance contest is the most obvi way EVER to earn some quick money. Didn't you know that? EVERYONE knows that. ROFL Reminds me off those Bollywood movies I tend to watch on Netflix: The 2hr action flick where midway through it becomes a dance video and you're left wondering why? And how is it possible after they've beat the shit out of someone, they now need a dance break?
Totally agree with you about Ocean's 8... but THE 355 is much better. You wanna see some badass women go H.A.M. on the bad guys, you should check this one out.