Frankenstein Conquers the World -- The Monster Toho Style

Frankenstein Conquers the World, 1965, Toho, Color. Director: Ishiro Honda; Cast includes Nick Adams, Kumi Mizuno, Tadao Takashima and Kuji Furuhata. 87 minutes in most prints. Seven out of 10 stars on the Schlock-Meter.

This is a fun film that doesn't fail to deliver cheesy thrills with a fast-growing boy Frankenstein (Furuhata) eating everything in sight and battling a monster named Baragon at the end. Scientists (Adams, Mizuno and Takashima) battle to save the boy monster so he "can be studied."

The FXs are cheesy, with the boy Frankenstein looking pretty silly on miniature sets and with overhead camera shots. The battle scenes are fake but fun, with a rubber monster flipping around a lot. The dubbing is as bad as expected. The most campy dubbing involves a German scientist, who sports an accent so bogus that even "Hogan's Heroes" would be ashamed to use it.

The bizarre plot is as follows: Late in World War 2, the heart of the Frankenstein monster is stolen from the lab of Dr. Frankenstein by Axis soldiers. It makes its way to Japan, where it survives the atomic blast in Hiroshima. It then somehow attaches itself to a small boy who survives the Hiroshima blast. He grows and grows and grows. There are a lot of twists on Mary Shelley's legend: Frankenstein can never die, and if you cut off a limb, it grows again!

This film, corny as it is, can be at times compelling. It takes place in Hiroshima and the horror of the Hiroshima bombing hangs over the plot. Star Adams's doctor is an American so horrified by what happened in Hiroshima that he's chosen to travel across the world and treat those still suffering. Frankenstein Conquers the World, while a misleading title, is a silly film, but it's a cut above its genre. The wild plot and classic Toho effects make it worth a rental and a tape if you can catch it on TV. I saw it on American Movie Classics.

Notes: According to an article in Cult Movies magazine, stars Adams and Mizuno had a brief affair; The film was released in the USA by Henry Saperstein's UPA company; There was more than one ending filmed (the ending for this review has the monster sinking into the earth); Toho made one more film with the Frankenstein monster, War of the Gargantuas, starring Russ Tamblyn.

-- Doug Gibson

Review: Die Monster Die!

1964, 80 minutes, color, American International Pictures. Directed by Daniel Haller. Starring Boris Karloff as Nahum Witley, Nick Adams as Stephen Reinhart, Freda Jackson as Letitia Witley, Suzan Farmer as Susan Witley, Terrence De Marney as Merwyn and Patrick Magee as Dr. Henderson. Schlock-Meter rating: 4 stars out of 10.

Die, Monster, Die! is one of the more lackluster of AIP’s 1960w Poe/Lovecraft adaptations. The film is supposed to be based on a H.P. Lovecraft’s story Color of Our Space, but really bears no resemblance. There’s virtually no suspense in this slow-moving clinker, but a lot of unintentional laughs as mumbling Nick Adams arrives in England from America to visit his English girlfriend (Farmer) at her forbidding castle with her creepy parents (Karloff and Jackson). It seems that Father Witley (Karloff) has been conducting experiments with radioactive stones, with disastrous results.

The movie starts out with promise. Adams arrives in a small town and can find no one in a tiny English village who will take him to the Witley house. In fact, these villagers are downright rude to old Nick! So, he takes a long walk to the house, and there’s some good atmospheric scenes as Adams passes decayed forests, creepy fences, gates, and is watched by a specter in black. At the house, he’s greeted coldly by a forbidding Karloff, playing his role in a wheelchair.
Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, appears the bubbly Farmer, looking like she just stepped out of an AIP beach movie. She’s totally wrong for the part (there’s no way this vivacious blonde would be the daughter of the dour Karloff) and her presence kills the atmosphere and hope of sustained suspense. Director Haller, who does a competent if uninspired job, tries to substitute shocks for suspense, but even those are weak. Viewers are treated to a black, homicidal specter, hanging objects in the castle that are supposed to be scary, lots of fog, mutant plants, and radiation-mutated humans, including Mother Witley (Jackson) who for no reason turns maniac late in the film.

he best scene in the film shows a mutated tree attempting to encircle a surprised Farmer in his branches, but even that was done a lot better two decades later in Evil Dead.

Adams is also wrong for the part. He reminds me of a Marlon Brando wannabe. He would seem more comfortable battling Johnny Friendly on a loading dock than matching wits with mad scientist Boris Karloff. Karloff is fine, but isn’t really given much to do. He’s in a lot less scenes than Adams and he mostly whines, threatens or talks of his need to see his wife. The final scene, where a green, ringing, radioactive Karloff rises from his wheelchair and goes after Adams and Farmer is pure camp and will inspire a lot of chuckles from viewers.

Be forewarned: There’s no scares in Die, Monster, Die!, but if you are a fan of AIP horrors or Karloff, it will hold your interest, barely.

-- Doug Gibson

Review: Frankenstein Conquers the World

Frankenstein Conquers the World, 1965, Toho, Color. Director: Ishiro Honda; Cast includes Nick Adams, Kumi Mizuno, Tadao Takashima and Kuji Furuhata. 87 minutes in most prints. Seven out of 10 stars on the Schlock-Meter.

This is a fun film that doesn't fail to deliver cheesy thrills with a fast-growing boy Frankenstein (Furuhata) eating everything in sight and battling a monster named Baragon at the end. Scientists (Adams, Mizuno and Takashima) battle to save the boy monster so he "can be studied."

The FXs are cheesy, with the boy Frankenstein looking pretty silly on miniature sets and with overhead camera shots. The battle scenes are fake but fun, with a rubber monster flipping around a lot. The dubbing is as bad as expected. The most campy dubbing involves a German scientist, who sports an accent so bogus that even "Hogan's Heroes" would be ashamed to use it.

The bizarre plot is as follows: Late in World War 2, the heart of the Frankenstein monster is stolen from the lab of Dr. Frankenstein by Axis soldiers. It makes its way to Japan, where it survives the atomic blast in Hiroshima. It then somehow attaches itself to a small boy who survives the Hiroshima blast. He grows and grows and grows. There are a lot of twists on Mary Shelley's legend: Frankenstein can never die, and if you cut off a limb, it grows again!

This film, corny as it is, can be at times compelling. It takes place in Hiroshima and the horror of the Hiroshima bombing hangs over the plot. Star Adams's doctor is an American so horrified by what happened in Hiroshima that he's chosen to travel across the world and treat those still suffering. Frankenstein Conquers the World, while a misleading title, is a silly film, but it's a cut above its genre. The wild plot and classic Toho effects make it worth a rental and a tape if you can catch it on TV. I saw it on American Movie Classics.

Notes: According to an article in Cult Movies magazine, stars Adams and Mizuno had a brief affair; The film was released in the USA by Henry Saperstein's UPA company; There was more than one ending filmed (the ending for this review has the monster sinking into the earth); Toho made one more film with the Frankenstein monster, War of the Gargantuas, starring Russ Tamblyn.

-- Doug Gibson

Review: Godzilla versus Monster Zero

Godzilla versus Monster Zero, 1965, directed by Ishiro Honda, color, 93 minutes. Starring Nick Adams as Astronaut Glenn, Akira Takarada as Astronaut K. Fuji, Yoshio Tsuchiya as Controller of Planet X and Kumi Mizuno as Miss Namikawa. Schlock-meter rating: Eight and one-half stars out of 10.

This is an extremely enjoyable, very campy monster-fest with shoddy but fun special effects as Godzilla and Rodan team up to defeat Monster Zero (also known as Ghidorah) and thwart the plans of the controller and the rest of the evil baddies who rule Planet X in a galaxy far, far away. Also, vampy Asian Kumi Mizuno plays a semi-robot spy who gets the hots for mumbling Nick Adams, the Marlon Brando of low budget shockers.

As is often the case with these wonderfully kitschy Japanese monster films, the plot seems to have been hatched out after an all-night mushroom party. Astronauts Adams and Takarada explore Planet X. There, they are told that Monster Zero threatens that planet and Godzilla and Rodan are needed on loan to beat him. The Planet Xers, to get Earth to help, offer a cure for all diseases as a swap for the muscle-bound monsters. Earth agrees but after the monsters are delivered, the baddies of Planet X pull a fast one, telling earthlings that unless they agree to be colonized, the three monsters will destroy Earth. Chaos results with lots of stock footage of wars and riots. All looks grim, but eventually hard-working scientists learn that a recently invented tinny sound can render the Planet X baddies insensible; also an electronic ray is invented to free Godzilla and Rodan from the computerized clutches of the Planet Xers, who are controlled by computers themselves.

The dubbing is surprisingly well done in the American version on AMC. Adams' Jersey persona is in great form as he utters lines like "dirty double crossers," "you rats," and even "baby!" during his romance with the spy Mizuno's Miss Namikawa. Notes: Adams and Mizuno were briefly lovers off the screen. They also starred together in Frankenstein Conquers the World. In 1968, Adams, who had once been nominated for an Academy Award before his career slipped, died of a drug overdose.

-- Doug Gibson