Kiss of the Pterodactyl

I know what you’re thinking: what’s with all the reviews of Godzilla movies at the moment? That’s not what I come here for. I come here for vaguely insightful reviews of new movies laden with bad puns, complaints about the current 40K metagame, and ramblings about how Doctor Who isn’t as good as it was when Rusty was in charge. All right, all right: we’ll take a break from Godzilla for a bit, I promise. So, today, it’s Ishiro Honda’s 1956 movie Rodan!

(All right, so it’s not a complete break from Godzilla. But it’s not as if you’re paying for this stuff.)

Honda’s movie opens amongst the salt-of-the-earth coal miners of Kyushu, in western Japan. All is well down the mine – the odd spot of tension between a few of the men excepted – until there is an accident and the works are partly flooded. The rescue party sent down to look for survivors is saddened to find a corpse in the tunnels – but, strangely enough, the man doesn’t appear to have died in the accident. Instead, he has been savagely nibbled to death by something unknown.

Cripes! Speculation and gossip as to who could be responsible for the killing spreads like wildfire amongst the local workers. This gives the film the opportunity for some rather soapy goings-on between some of the characters, but this never gets the chance to become tedious: one of the soapy confrontations is rudely interrupted by the appearance of… oh, I don’t know, a giant grubby caterpillary thing. Given Toho Studio’s interest in monsters with catchy, easily-trademarked names, it is not surprising that ‘giant grubby caterpillary things’ is not how the local boffins opt to refer to the creatures, instead opting for Meganurons.

The police and army pursue the Meganurons into the mine workings, where a collapse seals one of their number, Shigeru – I suppose he qualifies as the hero of the film – in with the creatures. Things look bad for Shigeru, but following an earthquake which happens shortly afterwards, he is discovered wandering the countryside with amnesia.

This amnesia proves fairly convenient when it comes to preserving dramatic tension, as Shigeru has clearly seen something horrible down the mine but no-one has any idea what it is. At the same time, a UFO has appeared over Kyushu, causing all sorts of trouble (eating planes, that sort of thing), and no-one has any idea what it is. Could the two things possibly be connected?

Well, of course they are. Shigeru’s memory comes back and he recalls being present at the hatching of a giant egg down the mine, from which emerged a giant reptilian chick. The chick proceeded to eat the Meganurons, which is a positive, but, having grown, has now dug its way out of the mine and is flying about at supersonic speed terrorising the place.

The boffins christen the flying monster Rodan (the name is from pteranodon – quite a long way from pteranodon, if we’re honest, but…) and the model planes and toy tanks of the Japanese Self-Defence Force wobble into action. Giant mutant nuclear dinosaurs… enormous supersonic pterodactyls… it’s all in a day’s work for the JSDF.

Well, there’s what I suppose we must call a twist towards the end, and then a not especially cunning plan from the scientists and army, and a climax which has a vague air of damp squibbiness about it, and in the end the Rodan menace is well and truly ended once and for all. Provided you overlook the other five movies in which Rodan reappears, anyway…

Rodan is a movie which has acquired a certain sort of historical significance since it was made – not only was it the first kaiju movie to be made in colour, but in retrospect it marks the creation of a wider Toho universe – Rodan himself crossed over into numerous Godzilla movies, occasionally as an opponent, more usually as one of Godzilla’s main allies. Which is why it’s rather sad to have to report that Rodan itself inescapably feels slightly disappointing.

I suppose part of the problem is that Rodan is only really in the movie for the last half hour. This is not a long film, but even so: the first half is much more about the Meganurons, which are a rather less interesting and gripping monster (even they eventually got a return appearance, taking on Godzilla himself in Godzilla Vs Megaguirus). I’ve read that this movie was supposedly closely modelled on Them!, but I really can’t see much sign of it beyond giant insect monsters being chased about by the army in the first half.

The movie looks good, with bright, crisp cinematography, and it’s a world away from the two murky and primitive Godzilla movies which preceded it – unfortunately, the tone of the film is completely different too. The inspiration for the first Godzilla, as surely everyone knows by now, was the atomic bombing of Japan at the end of the Second World War. Rodan, on the other hand, appears to have been inspired by urban legends about live pterodactyls being unearthed in coal mines, a rather less resonant source for a movie. There’s a throwaway line about how atomic radiation may be responsible for Rodan’s appearance, but you can tell the film’s heart really isn’t in it. This is a meat-and-potatoes monster movie and nothing more.

That said, for the mid-50s, this is a pleasingly proficient monster movie – the model work and miniatures really do look excellent, and the scenes of Rodan laying waste to cities are quite impressive. But the human characters are utterly one-dimensional, the climax really is quite weak and I suppose I’m just biased – I’m always going to prefer a movie with a proper kaiju battle at the end of it. Historically, Rodan is an interesting movie, but on its own merits it doesn’t have a great deal to recommend it.