Japanese Monster Movies

by David Thornbrugh

The great Toho Studios monster movies begin in storms, seawall-smashing waves foaming out of the deep and sweeping away seaside towns, drowning obvious models of telephone poles, houses, temple walls. The hero, usually an earnest assertive newsman and his squeaky-toy cute female sidekick, show up and discover radioactive toenails the size of surfboards that no one recognizes. Scientists in business suits poke around taking samples and saying Don't bother me, as the reporter questions the origin of the egg the size of the Goodyear blimp washed up on the beach by the storm. It's just there, that's all, and will make a profitable tourist attraction. There will be comic relief, such as the camera man who's always eating hardboiled eggs and doing double takes. Evil entrepreneurs who smoke cigars and mistreat the simple fishermen monopolize the giant egg and refuse to return it to the tiny singing girls who wear Angora collars even though they live on a tropical island that's been used for atomic bomb testing. All the great Japanese monster movies of the 50s and 60s have an obligatory scene denouncing nuclear weapons and wishing for universal peace and brotherhood before the monster shows up and begins stomping miniature houses and replicas of castles but never any people.