The US version also used some library music we've all heard elsewhere in movies and TV from the 50s, notably in the climactic sequences of the military moving into position to bombard the Rodans. I thought this was juxtaposed quite effectively with Akira Ifukube's score. The American music complements, but does not supplant, Ifukube's music. (And he got sole music credit on the American release.)
On that subject, I recently bought the original motion picture soundtrack to Sora no daikaiju Radon, a CD made in Japan (I found it on SAE). (The CD is a set, with a second disc of the soundtrack of Yog, Monster From Space.) This rounds out my CD collection of music from kaiju films to three: Gojira, Mosura, Radon. Only trouble is most of the information (cover, liner notes, and so on) is in Japanese..but what are you gonna do? Anyway, worth getting if you can.
When, years ago, I finally recognized George Takei's voice -- voices, actually; I think he dubbed several actors -- in Rodan, it was a pretty cool revelation. Some time afterward I stumbled across Takei's autobiography in a book store (remember those?) and looked up the section on Rodan...and, sure enough, got confirmation of my belief. (This was pre-IMDb.) As Takei bascially said, you have to start somewhere, although I gather his father wasn't thrilled with his choice of career or how he got it started, at age 20.
(At least George is of Japanese descent. I always felt using dubbed voices with a Japanese accent was vastly superior to having standard American voices dubbing Japanese or Chinese actors, which looks utterly inane. But I do like the story that, in the Americanized version of the 1960 Toho war film Taiheyo no arashi/Storm Over the Pacific, retitled I Bombed Pearl Harbor, the great voice actor Paul Frees apparently dubbed every Japanese actor's lines (except the few women)! He frequently dubbed people like Toshiro Mifune as well, as in Midway and other movies. Frees was normally a very effective mimic, but in things like this, boy, he sounded fake.)
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Big G-2
13 years ago
Some time afterward I stumbled across Takei's autobiography in a book store (remember those?)
What is a book store? .
Seriously on the day you said those words, I was a our local Borders and it was like Black Friday. People grabbing what they can and waiting in long lines (I was looking for a book about the history stop-motion animation which I had seen there the previous week, but unfortunately, someone already grabbed it).
In regards to Paul Frees, Rhodes Reason once said that while doing the post-production dubbing for KING KONG ESCAPES, Frees jokingly told Reason that he didn't need to be there and to go home, because he could be doing his dubbing as well! But yes, in movies like RODAN, you could hear Frees (and Keye Luke) doing multiple characters, like the police chief, and air force pilots (although Frees was a little better than Keye Luke, I thought, in disguising or changing the tone of his voice).
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hobnob53
13 years ago
They used only two actors to dub the various Japanese male characters in the Americanized Godzilla -- James Hong, who's gone on to be a frequent supporting actors in films and on TV (still working), and Sammee Tong, most famous for playing John Forsythe's houseboy in Bachelor Father. You can hear each man talking to himself as he switches between dubbing one character and another!
Hong and Tong: voice artists to the world.
If I remember correctly, Sammee owed a lot of money to Chinese bookies or someone, and they murdered him around 1964 for non-payment of debt. Guess those Godzilla residuals didn't amount to much, or at least enough!
Sad about Borders. I suppose I'll be obliged to join in the throng at some point, for whatever it's worth. Meantime, Barnes & Noble is holding its twice-yearly Criterion sale (50% off) through August 1, always a good deal.
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Big G-2
13 years ago
Yes indeed about the Criterion sale. I just got Carol Reed's NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH for particularly nothing.
I have Mr. Hong's autograph and it is great to see him always working. But it was unfortunate about Sammee Tong.
In getting back to RODAN, I had wished that the English-language version would have come in a better print. If you've noticed there are scenes that look washed-out, or rather faded (which I also noticed when TCM showed the film back in June). I guess if I want to see a good looking print, it will have to be the Japanese version.
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hobnob53
13 years ago
Yes, I don't think they really bothered to restore the print of the American version, and I even wonder whether the Japanese version has had much work -- not because it looks bad, but because I'm not sure how much effort anyone put into this set. But Toho usually seems to keep its library in pretty good shape, and the American print isn't so bad anyway. Some people complain that the print of Gojira doesn't look good (speckling and so forth), even on Blu-ray, but I don't think this is distracting and in fact I think it gives it the documentary-style, film noir-ish appearance that is one of that film's strengths.
Speaking of Criterion, did you ever buy their "Monsters and Madmen" set? It's got two late 50s horror movies starring Boris Karloff (Corridors of Blood, The Haunted Strangler) and two sci-fi films (First Man Into Space, The Atomic Submarine). It's a straight Criterion set (not Eclipse), and a lot of fun. Ordinarily it retails for $80 but at half price it's only $10 per title. If your B&N doesn't have it they can order it for you and you'll get the 50% off if you prepay at the store (just like ordering on line). I have a soft spot for Atomic Submarine especially...though I'm always amused by the way they try without success to pass off a forest in England as the deserts of New Mexico in the British-made First Man Into Space (not to mention the plainly English architecture and all the British spellings on signs). The two Karloff films are good too.
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Big G-2
13 years ago
Yes, got the MONSTERS AND MADMEN set around two years ago. I got it because I wanted the DVD of THE ATOMIC SUBMARINE (and it was interesting to see a now old Brett Halsey on the special features). And I actually never saw the Karloff movies before I bought this set. CORRIDORS OF BLOOD, I thought was one of his more interesting features. It did make me think about anesthesia, a subject that never really crossed my mind before! FIRST MAN was also interesting. Poor Marshall Thompson seems to always play the victim, the loser, the guy who really doesn't deserve it!
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hobnob53
13 years ago
But Marshall was the hero of First Man -- it was his arrogant astronaut brother who became the titular Man and subsequnetly the Monster. But your description of him has some appropriateness to his career!
Corridors of Blood was actually made in 1958 but for some reason not released till 1962. I thought its subject matter was very interesting too. The opening scene was pretty chilling for its historic realism on how doctors "prepped" for surgery.
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Big G-2
13 years ago
Hobnob, you are right about Marshall Thompson. My mistake! (it has been two years since I last saw it, and for some reason, I kept it in my head that Thompson became the monster rather than his brother).
I've guess I've seen too many of Thompson's features where he played the hapless fellow like in IT, TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE, where he was accused of killing his crew, and taken prisoner (and treated rather poorly by some) when it was the alien creature that did it. Or AROUND THE WORLD UNDER THE SEA, where his girlfriend is Shirley Eaton (!), yet she somehow dumps him for the rather annoying Brian Kelly character.
And I guess the next time I go to the dentist and have something anesthetized, I will be thinking of CORRIDORS OF BLOOD!
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hobnob53
13 years ago
M.T. was just too bland a "nice-guy" actor to be a real hero figure, though he did get the girl sometimes, as in It! TTFBS. (Shawn Smith: previously seen canoodling with the stalwart heroes of World Without End and The Land Unknown, switching from redhead to blond in between.)
I liked Arthur Franz having to go out on sub patrol in The Atomic Submarine after almost undressing Joi Lansing on his couch. Of course, she needed someone in her life at that point as her previous boyfriend, Patrick Walz, had been stranded on Venus the year before (with a new-found, if slightly alien gal-pal) in Queen of Outer Space. I mean, a girl can only wait so long.
But, to drag this back to Rodan, I'll take Yumi Shirakawa over any of the above. She was beautiful and classy.
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Big G-2
13 years ago
Regarding Yumi Shirakawa, I once read one of Stuart Gailbrath's older books, stating that Yumi and her co-star Kenji Sahara were actually married. I think it was a case of misinterpretation, because I don't believe the two were married to each other (but then again, I could be wrong). Regardless, they made for a great couple in RODAN, THE MYSTERIANS and THE H-MAN. Yumi is at her most sexy in THE H-MAN, I thought. However, I think her best performance in a kaiju was GORATH, as the one who always maintained a glimmer of hope and try to ease others like her boyfriend scientist Ryo Ikebe and girlfriend Kumi Mizuno (and it was this movie that made the transition of making Kumi Mizuno Toho's leading leady from that point on, where as before it was Yumi).
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hobnob53
13 years ago
Yumi and Kenji were never married, though it wouldn't surprise me if they dated. I actually looked up her page here on IMDb a few days ago (and just again now) to get the name of her husband -- someone called Hidaeki Nitani, to whom she's been married since 1962. (She'll turn 75 in November.)
I agree, and said so on its site, that Yumi looked her most fetching in The H-Man/Bijo to ekitainigen. She was really very sexy in that role. Interesting how she was cast in so many Toho sci-fi pictures. She was also in The Last War and Toho's all-star epic Chushingura in 1962, but as you say around then the 26-year-old began to be eclipsed by newer Toho stars, including also Akiko Wakabayashi and Mie Hama, who made several sci-fi films as well (King Kong Vs. Godzilla, Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster, etc.) and were a kind of unofficial "team" in a number of Toho's films. They also played James Bond's two Japanese gal-pals in You Only Live Twice in 1967.
Of course, in their era Japan still had a rigid studio system -- much more restricted than even Hollywood's -- so actors performed in whatever films they were assigned. Hence, Takeshi Shimura going from Stray Dog, Ikiru and Seven Samurai to Gojira, Mosura and Chikyu Boeigun/The Mysterians. This was quite normal back then.
Incidentally, about yummy Yumi again, I noted that she basically stopped making movies after 1970, and since then has been seen exclusively on television, with the single exception of an isolated film appearance in 1983. She appears still to be working today (summer 2011, for all you later readers). I'd like to see how she looks now, in her mid-70s. I also wonder whether she ever got fan mail from the States or elsewhere outside Japan, and whether she ever went abroad, other than as a private citizen, to any premieres or on publicity tours. (Doubtful.) I think her daughter may also be an actress.
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Big G-2
13 years ago
I once read somewhere that Takashi Shimura was freelance and wasn’t necessarily under contract at Toho (though obviously, that is where he did most of his work). I have the movie THE WHALE GOD, from 1962 produced by the Daiei Studios (Gamera’s home), which prominently features Shimura and Daiei’s leading man at that time Kojiro Hongo. The movie itself is an interesting take on the MOBY DICK scenario.
It is funny that half of me is curious to see what Yumi looks like today, but the other half doesn’t want to see an old Yumi and would rather have that image from her youthful days like in RODAN. She was what 19 or 20 years old when she did that movie? And I also wouldn’t be surprised if she and Kenji Sahara dated (if so, then lucky Kenji!). They were a great and natural couple in the three movies they had the star billing in.
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hobnob53
13 years ago
Takeshi Shimura was perhaps the most popular actor in Japan from the 40s into the 60s, even more than his frequent co-star Toshiro Mifune. He was a Toho contract player, though like many others he was sometimes loaned out to other studios. When Toho was shut down by a strike in 1949-50, Akira Kurosawa and other filmmakers went over to Daiei and made a few pictures there, and Shimura and Mifune, among other actors, went with them. It was at Daiei that that trio made Scandal and the movie that put them on the international map, Rashomon. RKO had a distribution agreement with Daiei (which at that time basically meant that Daiei released RKO films in Japan, but RKO rarely released a Daiei movie here), and because of the fortuitous fact that the film was made at Daiei and not at Toho, RKO decided to try for a "prestige", "art house" release and gave Rashomon some play in the US. The film was already being circulated in Europe and won the Venice Film Festival prize and eventually the Foreign Language Oscar. RKO's decision helped make Japanese films, particularly Kurosawa's, known in America.
Shimura actually made more films with Kurosawa than the more celebrated Mifune. Mifune started out with The Quiet Duel and Drunken Angel in 1948, but Shimura had been in Kurosawa's first film, Sanshuro Sugata (1943), and appeared in every one thereafter until both their Toho contracts ended in 1965. But the size of his roles varied widely. They went from the lead role in Ikiru (1952) (without Mifune) to a 90-second bit in their last Toho film, Red Beard (1965). Kurosawa brought Shimura back for a final role in Kagemusha in 1980. Shimura died in 1982.
In trying to think of an American actor whose film persona and public image to Americans were roughly similar to Shimura's with the Japanese, I thought of Walter Huston: sort of a character lead. But there may be a better analogy.
I take your point about Yumi. Alternatively, it might be interesting to see her in the 1970s, when she was in her late 30s and early 40s -- a bit more mature, but hardly old. Too bad she didn't appear in one of those surprisignly skimpy bikini-like showgirl costumes in The H-Man, though she looked fetching enough in those dresses she wore while singing.
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Big G-2
13 years ago
It is funny that in the past, I've heard some (in trying to put down a kaiju in ever which way), say those movies are filled with "bad" acting and "bad" actors, and of course at the same time praising Kurosawa films!
And actually, I always tend to think of Shimura as the Henry Fonda of Japan (maybe because they were both born in 1905). Sure, Fonda had more bigger parts, but Fonda, like Shimura was adept at playing character parts, and certainly played those during the latter half of his career.
And it would have been interesting to see Mifune in a mainstream kaiju (aside from THE THREE TREASURES and his "Sinbad" or "Samurai Pirate" features). I'm sure you've heard the story of how the Captain Shinguchi character in ATRAGON, was written specifically for Mifune, but Mifune was unable to do the part, because of his involvement in RED BEARD (subsequently, Yoshio Tsuchiya was to play the part of the assassin Malness in GHIDRAH, THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER, but he couldn't do that because of his commitment to the same RED BEARD).
And in all the talk about Yumi, it was interesting seeing CHUSHINGURA and how she was a villain! From a sweet girl in RODAN to this, it just knocked my mind!
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hobnob53
13 years ago
Well, Yumi is a versatile actress. Perhaps her Chushingura villain was a case of casting against type, and it worked.
The other part about people being critical of kaiju is that usually they're complaining about dubbed performances! Plus they often don't understand the differences in acting styles, a cultural as much as thespian factor.
Interesting analogy between Shimura and Fonda. They were not only born the same year, they died the same year too (1982), Shimura about seven months before.
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Big G-2
13 years ago
After I wrote about Shimura and Fonda being born in he same year, it only later dawned on me that they also died the same year! I completely forgot about that!
And as I said, both were adept at playing lead and character parts (though Fonda did have more lead parts).
In CHUSHINGURA, I could picture Kumi Mizuno playing that type of role, but in some strange ways, I'm glad it was Yumi. It added an element of surprise that made it more fascinating (and it might have been something Yumi was yearning for as well).
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