Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster

Toho Studios in Japan created the Godzilla franchise, which, much like the fictional, radiation-breathing behemoth that emerged from under the sea, conquered the world of cinematic schlock with tabletop Tokyos, toy cars, model ships, and guys in big, honking rubber monster suits, plus pterodactyl beasties flying on fishing lines. It's all great—if somewhat redundant—fun. (No one ever accused the Japanese of not repeating a successful formula once they discovered it reaped commercial dividends. Hence, the entire manga/anime genre does suffer somewhat from this curious "sameness." But it's all so much fun that it's a minor quibble.)

Ghidra, the Three-Headed Monster (or, alternately, GhiDORA, depending, I suppose, on which spelling you prefer—though the title on the English version reads GhiDRA) was directed by Ishiro Honda, and that's about as far as I can go with the names. So, expect a cast list at the end of this review but not much in the way of difficult names up front. At any rate, without giving in to my temptation to just read Wikipedia, here goes:

A princess of somewhere—but ultimately revealed to be a "princess of Mars" (in a possible nod to Edgar Rice Burroughs)—gets her plane shot down by Japanese gangsters or flying saucer people or something. She goes through a crack in dimensional space and comes out the other end dressed like The Journey of Natty Gann or Louise Brooks when she donned Depression-Era duds and one of those old-time slouch caps and looked extremely cute. Okay, enough of that. She's a somewhat boyishly cute Martian warning the Japanese populace that Earth is in imminent danger. Not a hugely innovative plot point, but there it is.

A 1963 Japanese female reporter and her brother (or her boyfriend, I can't remember which) go around trying to protect the Martian princess from the gangsters, who hire a hitman in little square Johnny Rotten sunglasses to whack the princess. I'm not exactly sure why, but it CAN'T have anything to do with the fact that she's trying to warn the world (or at least Japan) about the coming of Ghidra, a lightning-breathing, three-headed dragon that reminds me of Tiamat from the old Dungeons & Dragons cartoon show. (That show Satanized me as a soon-to-be demonically possessed youngster.) Except that Tiamat had FOUR heads, and they were multi-colored.

A team of geologists somehow manages to raise Ghidra from his lair (or maybe it was Mothra—he's crawling through this flick too). First, their tools all become magnetized and go running away from them on stop-motion waves of magnetic pull. I'm not sure how this all fits together, but it is very entertaining.

There are also the two miniature singing "fairies," little girls who speak in a kind of echoey, reverb effect, saying the same things at the same time. They also sing, which is quite warbling and horrible, but they're a hit nightclub act, so, as the late, great Joey Ramone crooned, "Who am I, am I to say?"

We get the Giant Monster Rave-'Em Up: Mothra, Rodan, Ghidra, and Godzilla all go at it, playing dodgeball with great papier-mâché boulders, causing avalanches, and burning each other's scaly hides with radiation-breath blasts and lightning bolt barrages. Mothra, for his wormy part, shoots some icky silky web stuff, and Rodan flaps his wings menacingly, stirring up the hot winds of Hell. Great, schlocky, late-night fun.

These Toho Studios Kaiju (i.e., "Giant Monster") flicks occasionally played on Sammy Terry and Shock Theater (read: Schlock Theater). One wonders why, as besides the fact that they feature giant, nuke-belching Lovecraftian horrors from the deep, there's not a thing remotely frightening about them. (Maybe the late-night horror hosts ran out of Vincent Price flicks to run.)

Be that as it may, and besides the fact that the special effects consist of men in rubber suits crushing toy cars and model buildings while stomping across a landscape built on a studio floor, these films are major good times and great entertainments. Like professional wrestling—which the monster fights curiously remind me of—they may not be class acts, but they're heads and tails, even three heads and tails, above a lot of other dreck.

Now let's go kick some three-headed, rubber monster, flying dragon ass.

And a "good cast is worth repeating" (as is noted at the end of James Whale's Frankenstein):

Yosuke Natsuki as Detective Shindo , Yuriko Hoshi as Naoko Shindo , Hiroshi Koizumi as Professor Miura , Akiko Wakabayashi as Princess Mas Dorina Salno , The Peanuts as the Shobijin , Takashi Shimura as Dr. Tsukamoto , Hisaya Ito as Malmess , Akihiko Hirata as Security Chief Okita , Kenji Sahara as Kanamaki , Susumu Kurobe as Assassin , Ikio Sawamura as Fisherman , Haruo Nakajima as Godzilla , Masanori Shinohara as Rodan , Shoichi Hirose as King Ghidorah. Screenplay by Shinichi Sekizawa. Directed by Ishiro Honda. Special Effects by Eiji Tsuburaya.

Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster" U.S. theatrical trailer

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