Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)

Godzilla vs. Hedorah (ゴジラ対ヘドラ Gojira tai Hedora), is the eleventh film in the Godzilla series from Toho Studios. It was produced by Tomoyuki Tanaka, directed and co-written by Yoshimitsu Banno, with special effects by Teruyoshi Nakano.

The film was released theatrically in Japan on July 24, 1971 as part of the The Champion Festival. It was subsequently released in the United States in July of 1972 by American International Pictures under the localized title of Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster.

SYNOPSIS
Marine biologist Dr. Yano and his young son Ken discover a microscopic alien lifeform, dubbed Hedorah, which feeds on Earth's pollution. Hedorah eventually metamorphoses into a triphibian form, allowing it to move onto land and fly through the air seeking out additional sources of pollution. Eventually, Hedorah is confronted by Godzilla who easily overpowers the Smog Monster which retreats into the sea.

Hedorah eventually returns and kills thousands of people and manages to overcome Godzilla in a second confrontation. As hope sinks, Dr. Yano's brother Yukio Keuchi decides to throw a Woodstock-style party atop Mt. Fuji to celebrate one last day of life before humankind succumbs to Hedorah. Ken, however, holds out hope that Godzilla will defeat Hedorah in a final confrontation.

Dr. Yano has also been working on a means to stop the Smog Monster and has determined that it can be done by drying out Hedorah's body. The JSDF construct a pair of gigantic electrodes are errected for this purpose, but the power is cut off. Godzilla energizes the electrodes with his atomic ray, dehydrating Hedorah's outer body. Hedorah sheds this outer body and takes flight to escape, but Godzilla propels himself through the air with his atomic ray to give chase. Godzilla drags Hedorah back to the electrodes and continues to dehydrate it until Hedorah dies. Godzilla tears apart Hedorah's dried-out body and dehydrates the pieces until nothing remains but dust.

Godzilla then returns to the sea, but not before glaring threateningly at the surviving humanity whose pollution spawned Hedorah.

PRODUCTION
Conception

Godzilla vs. Hedorah was directed by Yoshimitsu Banno who co-wrote the film with veteran kaijū -movie scribe Takeshi Kimura (working under the pseudonym Karou Mabuchi).

Banno graduated from Tokyo University in 1955 and began working at Toho Studios soon after. Like director Ishirō Honda, Banno began his directing career as a second unit director working with Akira Kurosawa on such films as Throne of Blood (1957), Lower Depth (1957), The Hidden Fortress (1958) and The Bad Sleep Well (1960).

Banno’s first solo directorial effort was The Birth of the Japanese Islands (1970) which went beyond a mere film and was a sort of multimedia 3D event in which the audience was made to feel as if they were actually experiencing what was happening on screen through a variety of parlor tricks. The Birth of the Japanese Islands premiered at the Osaka Mitsubishi Expo and was a smash hit. Toho producer and Godzilla creator Tomoyuki Tanaka found himself taken in by the level of energy and creativity displayed by the first time director and asked Banno if he would be interested in directing the eleventh film in the Godzilla series, a request to which Banno quickly agreed.

From the beginning Banno has a vision for what his Godzilla film was going to be; a movie with a message. “There was a message in the original Godzilla,” said Banno, “I wanted to have him [Godzilla] battle not with some giant lobster, but the most notorious thing in current society.” For Banno, and a growing number of Japanese citizens in the 1970s, that “notorious thing” was the threat posed by industrial pollution. Japan had rebuilt itself so quickly and so successfully after the end of WWII that it had failed to take stock of the damages been wreaked by such large scale and over-night industrial growth. Through the end of the 1960s and the early 1970s, Japan found itself the victim of its own industrial waste. Beaches and major water sources were polluted, fish were dying, the air in major cities was chocked with smog and an alarming number of people were coming down with a variety of pollution related diseases including mercury and cadmium poisoning and smog induced asthma. One news report from the time told about a how in Tokyo's Suginami Ward a group of school girls had gone outside for P.E. only to collapse as a result of the heavy smog - an incident which directly inspired a similar scene in the film. Banno himself recalls a trip he made to a beach near Yokkaichi which had become so polluted from the nearby oil refinery that the entire place "smelled like rotten eggs."

All of this helped inspire Banno to create the pollution-based kaijū of Hedorah as Godzilla’s newest enemy. Banno was determined to use his entry into the Godzilla franchise to show the long term and destructive effect industrial pollution could have on the world. Banno derived Hedorah’s name is from the Japanese word hedoro which means “sludge” and refered to the heavily polluted sediment which could be found in the Tagonoura Port at the time and which had become a major environmental issue.

Banno also designed the look of Hedorah’s eyes, using the female genitalia as his principal inspiration. In an interview with the Japanese film magazine Movie Treasures, Banno recalled that he “…drew the kind of crude picture you find on the walls of a public toilet and handed it to the modeling staff. I said, ‘This is what I want Hedorah’s eyes to look like.’ Well, come on, vaginas are scary!” However credit for the final appearance of Hedorah, in all its various forms, goes to art director Yasuyuki Inoue (b. 1922); a Toho Studios veteran since 1948. 

According to Banno the idea of defeating Hedorah via electrodes was suggested to him by science-fiction author Masami Fukushima who had heard about farmers using "electrodes to dry up rice paddies in Hokkaido."

 Set Design 

One of the most striking sets in the film in the warehouse/dance club where Yukio Keuchi spends his time drinking and hallucinating while his girlfriend Miki dances on stage bedecked in a psychedelic painted body-suit. According to Banno this club was based off several real life ones which he had visited. One was a very famous rock-music bar in Tokyo's Akasaka district called Mugen "where crowds of young people would dance jammed together in a heaving swirling mass" and where "girls in miniskirts would be writhing to the music" on platforms set up front. The other real-life club which served as inspiration was called Juliana's in which "girls stood on boxes dancing and shaking their hips."

The third club, and the source of the pulsating amoebas seen in the background of the club in the film, was actually a gay bar in Chicago USA. According to Banno the amoebas for the film were created “by applying salad oil to a small plate. Then we added the red or yellow coloring and applied a strong light. That image was projected onto a back screen behind her [Mari] with the plate being twisted according to the music's rhythm. It was the same technique for how we used to create a moving background in car driving scenes."

Despite the psychedelic nature of the club and the scenes that take place in them, including Yukio's hallucination in which all the members of the club suddenly sprout fish-faces, "Banno denies that the sequence was influenced in the least by drug use" saying instead he simply "had a lot of interest in new expression. I liked the movie 'Woodstock.' It was a very emotional movie for me."

 SFX Production 

Because of the films' low-budget and tight schedule it was not possible for Nakano to direct all of the film's SFX sequences, necessitating for Banno to shoot some himself.

Like nearly all Japanese movie monsters, Hedorah was brought to life via “suitimation”; an actor in a rubber monster costume. The Hedorah costume itself weighted a total of 330-pounds and was difficult to put on and take off again. Shooting For Godzilla vs. Hedorah, Banno was given a budget of 90,000,000 yen ($250,000) and the span of 35 days to shoot the film.

Banno also received input from none other then director Ishirō Honda who Banno invited to view the film's rushes. According to Banno, Honda approved of what he saw, which encouraged him to keep shooting.

Godzilla Takes Flight
Undoubtedly the most infamous scene in Godzilla vs. Hedorah is where Godzilla - in a desperate attempt to catch up with the fleeing Smog Monster who has metamorphed into his flying form - tucks his tail between his legs and uses his radioactive breath to propell himself through the air backwards after Hedorah. For a few brief moments Godzilla flies.

According to SFX director Nakano there was no flying sequence in the original script for the film. Rather the sequence was one which Banno made up on set.

Banno the idea for Godzilla's means of taking to the air was inspired by seahorses which propel themselves through the water from their mouths like a jet and swimming backwards.

CAST
While the Godzilla films of the 1950s and 60s boasted casts of A-list Japanese actors and actresses, the films of the 1970s featured lesser known, often C-list, actors and actresses due to, again, the dwindling budgets afforded to the Godzilla series at this time.
 * AKIRA YAMAUCHI as DOCTOR TORU YANO
 * HIROYUKI KAWASE as KEN YANO
 * TOSHIE KIMURA as TOSHIE YANO
 * TOSHIO SHIBAKI as YUKIO KEUCHI 
 * KEIKO MARI as MIKI FUJIYAMA 
 * HARUO NAKAJIMA as GODZILLA
 * KENPACHIRO SATSUMA as HEDORAH

Akira Yamauchi, who had mostly worked at Toei and Daiei prior to this, portrays Dr. Toru Yano and does a serviceable job. With one eye concealed beneath bandages and a tank of tropical fish his character seems to channeling a bit of 1954's Godzilla's Dr. Daisuke Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata).

Child actor Hiroyuki Kawase plays <span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-ansi-language: EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">kaijū -loving Ken Yano, a character archetype common in Japanese monster movies of this decade and one he would reprise for Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973). The child actor is notable for having stared in Akira Kurosawa’s Dodes’ka-den (1970) as well as the Tsuburaya Pro. sci-fi television series Saru no Gundan (Army of Monkeys, 1974). Despite attempts to locate Kawase as recently as 2012 the actor's current whereabouts remain unknown.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Toshio Shibaki plays Dr. Yano’s 20-something younger brother Yukio Keuchi, who believes that the best way to stop the Smog Monster is to throw a Woodstock-style concert party right in its path, and comes across as acceptably foolish. Shibaki would go on to star as the lead character in the 1971 Japanese superhero TV series Silver Mask (シルバー仮面 Shiruba Kamen) and is still a TV actor in Japan today.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> The actor inside the Hedorah suit is Kenpachiro Satsuma (b. 1947) working here under the pseudonym Kengo Nakayama. Satsuma began his acting career playing bit parts in various films but was unable to get speaking roles due to his thick Kyushu accent which was deemed unattractive. Possessing a background in martial arts Satsuma was however in pique physical condition and deemed an ideal candidate for suit acting by SFX director Nakano.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Satsuma recalls that in his first meeting with Nakano he wasn’t told until the very end that he was being scouted to play a monster. Though initially “extremely disappointed” to learn that his breakout leading role would be inside a rubber suit, Satsuma ultimately embraced suit acting and returned for the following two Godzilla films in which he portrays another one of Godzilla’s classic foes; the cyborg space monster Gigan. In 1984 Satsuma was given the opportunity to play Godzilla himself in Toho’s franchise reboot The Return of Godzilla. Satsuma went on to portray Godzilla in all seven Heisei Era Godzilla films made between 1984 and 1995.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">According to an interview with Guy Marriner Tucker, Satsuma was struck with appendicitis during the filming of Hedorah. Because of the length of time it would take to remove the monster costume and urgency of the condition, doctors were forced to perform Satsuma’s appendectomy while he was still wearing the Hedorah suit!

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> Godzilla is once again portrayed by veteran suit actor Haruo Nakajima (b. 1929) in his eleveth outing as the King of the Monsters. In addition, Nakajima also recieves an out-of-suit cameo in Hedorah during the scene in which multiple talking heads appear on televsion screaming incoherently about the Smog Monster crisis. Nakajima's face can be seen on the second row from the top, dead center.

SCORE
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The score for Godzilla vs. Hedorah was written by Japanese film composer Riichirō Manabe (1928-1999), one of two Godzilla films he scored, the other being 1973’s Godzilla vs. Megalon. For Hedorah, Manabe composed a new theme for Godzilla, in order to replace the standard theme composed by Akira Ifukube. Manabe's Godzilla theme is in fact a modified version of a theme from The Militarists, a 1971 war picture Manabe also scored, and would be further modified for ''Megalon. ''This theme consists primarily of "trumpet fanfare" similar to what might be heard in a film to signal the arrival of a bumbling drunk. For this reason, amongst others, Manabe's score for Godzilla vs. Hedorah is "almost universally reviled."

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Conversely, the opening theme song for Godzilla vs. Hedorah is a fan favorite, in both its Japanese and American incarnations. The original Japanese version is called “Bring Back the Sun!" and was written by director Banno himself drawing inspiration from environmentalist Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring. "Bring Back the Sun" was performed by actress Keiko Mari, who portrayed Yukio's psychedelic body-painting wearing girlfriend Miki Fujiyama in the film.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">For the original U.S. release of the film the song was translated and rerecorded as “Save the Earth,” marking the first and only time this would be done for a Japanese language song featured in a Godzilla movie. The lyrics for "Save the Earth" written by Guy Hermic and the vocals were sung by then AIP secretary Adryan Russ, who would later go on to a career as a multi-ASCAP award winning singer/songwriter. While at AIP, Russ also did dubbing work on the Tōei Dōga anime films Jack and the Witch  (少年ジャックと魔法使い, Shōnen Jakku to Mahōtsukai) and Little Norse Prince  (太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険, Taiyō no Ōji: Horusu no Daibōken ).

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Though the AIP-version of Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster is current only avalible commercially on VHS and laserdisc, fans can still hear "Save the Earth" via a bonus track on the 2001 CD Everyone Has A Story: The Songs Of Adryan Russ (LML Music), though the quality is notably poor due to it being sourced from a cassette tape found in Russ' personal collection.

TARGET AUDIENCE
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Godzilla vs. Hedorah not only features some of the most bizarre imagery ever featured in a Godzilla movie but also some of the most unpleasant and simply freighting imagery as well. The scene in which Hedorah flies over the city spewing acid mist which reduces fleeing citizens to bare bones all as young Ken attempts to seek cover is still amongst the scariest moments ever to be featured in a Godzilla movie.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Because of such imagery it is often surprising for some people to learn that Godzilla vs. Hedorah’s target Japanese audience wasn’t teens or adults (to whom the film was marked in the U.S.) but elementary school children via the Toho Champion Festival; a summer film festival targeted at elementary school children which ran back-to-back monster movies, cartoons and even TV shows projected on the big screen. Godzilla vs. Hedorah was released exclusivly through this venue on a double-bill with the film The Return of Ultraman (1971) which was in reality just a clip-showed edited together from different episodes of the current Ultraman TV series.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">This fact, that Godzilla vs. Hedorah always was and is a children's movie, helps to explain some of the film’s peculiarities such as the addition of animated segments. According to director Banno the animated comic book-style segments were included due to the rising popularity of manga amongst Japanese children in the early 1970s. Initially, Banno had approached avant-garde mangaka Yoshiharu Tsuge to do the animation after being impressed with his manga Sanshouo, but the artist turned him down due to a dislike of working in groups.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Other more comedic elements (such as Godzilla scratching his nose like pop-star Yuzo Kayama) were introduced by SFX director Nakano who felt that the overall tone of the film under Banno’s direction was becoming too “cruel and heavy-handed.”

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Though originally given a G rating by the MPAA upon its U.S. release in 1972, theundefined2004 Sony DVD carries an upgraded PG rating.

ENGLISH VERSIONS
Like at that point many of its predecessors, it received only slight reworkings when brought to U.S. shores, this time by American International, who had previously distributed Godzilla vs. The Thing and Destroy All Monsters. An English language international version with Hong Kong commissioned dubbing was also created and eventually saw an American home video release by Sony in 2004, with minor changes.

Alterations (AIP)

 * As is common practice with AIP licensed films, the "Toho logo" notes of the Main Title cue were removed, and instead the film starts with the AIP logo superimposed on the opening smokestacks shot.
 * In the Japanese and international versions, "Godzilla" appears first, followed by "vs.", then followed by "Hedorah". AIP's title card appears singularly with no such animation.
 * A new English theme song sung by Adryan Russ, Save the Earth!, replaces Give Back the Sun!. The male choir version used during the climax remains in Japanese, however.
 * The shot of Hedorah flying through a skyscraper's scaffolding is audibly modified, with added sound effects and music (The main title cue is recycled here), while the Japanese version is completely silent.
 * Hedorah is consistently pronounced as "Hee-drah" in Titan Productions' dubbing for the film.
 * The hiragana text "Cheerful" during the first animated segment is replaced with the text "Hedora" (or possibly Hedorah, as the scene is cropped on the Orion LaserDisc). The original Japanese text remains intact in 16mm prints, however.
 * A scene of a newscaster reporting the damage caused by Hedorah in Fuji City is replaced by a tracking shot of an English equivalent of the map in the background of the original shot. As with the "Hedora" alteration, it is absent in 16mm prints.

Dubbing cast (Titan)

 * Dr. Yano (Akira Yamauchi) - Bernard Grant
 * Toshie Yano (Toshie Kimura) - Lucy Martin
 * Yukio (Toshio Shiba) - Peter Fernandez

PROMOTION
When released stateside, Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster's pressbook featured many of the usual outlandish marketing tips common to the exploitation circuit during those decades including suggestions to run "an anti-pollution drive" in conjunction with "local boy and girl scout headquater officals and Four H-Clubs" in which Godzilla was featured as a "Smokey the Bear"-style mascot, set up a display in theater lobbies showing Godzilla and Hedorah battling over a pile of real garbage, screening the film for local educators so that they might arrange school trips to see the film in order to teach children about the dangers of pollution, and collaborating "with local natural gas supplier and muncipal and state agencies" to promote the enviromental benefits of natural gas.

Other suggestions had nothing to do with enviromentalism, including an idea to have local bars created a "Godzilla Cocktail" which will help clear "that five o'clock smog from from your brain."

As always it is questionable whether any of these suggestions actually came to fruition around and inside theaters showing the film.

For televised and theatrical marketing, AIP made three TV spots (One running a minute, another 30 seconds, and finally, a brief 10 second spot), and a standard flat ratio (1.85:1) theatrical trailer running a minute and a half. Unlike previous campaigns, AIP saw no need to completely amp up the ballyhoo, as the film itself was very exploitable, and the trailer and TV spots provide a very accurate assessment of the film's story and content.

RECEPTION
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Godzilla vs. Hedorah managed to bring in 1,740,000 viewers which was slightly better than the previous film in the series; All Monsters Attack (1969).

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Critically the film was panned both in Japan and America. According to Banno in Japan, "only the Yomiuri Shimbun offered a good review." In America, the film has often been derided as one of the worst movies ever made. Only a few years after it was released writer Harry Medved included Godzilla vs. Hedorah in his 1978 book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time, listing it as #16.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">With Hedorah, Banno had crafted what is quite possibly both the most conscientious and grim Godzilla movie to be made since 1954’s Godzilla. Yet it was a film that would ultimately cost Banno his job as a feature film director. For reasons that have never been fully explained - some say it was the flying scene - Godzilla creator and producer Tanaka was so appalled by the film Banno had made that he barred the director from ever directing another film at Toho again. The closes Banno would ever get was co-writing and then serving as the assistant director on the 1974 Toho disaster movie ''Prophecies of Nostradamus. ''

SEQUEL
Banno had originally hoped to direct a sequel to Godzilla vs. Hedorah in which Godzilla would have traveled to Africa and battled a second Smog Monster. According to the director, the idea to set the film in Africa was inspired by the success of the 1966 Italian documentary-turned-explotation film Africa Addio (Africa Blood and Guts in the US and Farewell Africa in the UK).

In 2003 Banno wrote a treatment for a new Godzilla film entitled “Godzilla vs. Deathla To The Max”, a globe hopping narrative which would pit Godzilla against a another environment destroying kaijū and would be made specifically for JAPAX (Japan's version of IMAX) theaters. To date Banno’s “Deathla” is yet to materialize.

LEGACY
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Despite only appearing in one highly contested film, Hedorah has gained an enduring place in the hearts of Godzilla fans the world over and was given a cameo appearance in Godzilla’s 50th Anniversary film Godzilla: Final Wars (2004). The Smog Monster has even popped up in some highly unlikely places over the years including on the cover of musician Frank Zappa’s 1979 album SLEEP DIRT.