Japanese monster movie "Gamera" is re-edited into US-Japanese monster movie "Gammera" about a giant, fire-eating prehistoric turtle that wreaks havoc across the globe after it's awoken by an atomic explosion. US and Japanese co-operation manage to corner the beast, but attempts at its defeat prove unsuccessful. Amid all the chaos, a turtle loving pre-adolescent Japanese boy finds a soft spot for the misunderstood turtle after Gamera saves him from death.
Brian Donlevy and Albert Dekker are the principal American actors in the re-edited version, playing Pentagon top brass sitting around a boardroom table, debating foreign policy and protocol, while Dick O'Neill has a meaty role early in the picture barking orders at his military comms unit that includes burly John McCurry in an early role, and TV actor John Baragrey among less familiar faces. Alan Oppenheimer has an hilarious cameo as an over-zealous zoologist open to initial speculation on the identity of the giant, flying turtle despite professional ridicule.
Gamera gets the pop-culture treatment in one scene where nightclub revellers ignore warnings to evacuate, instead preferring to get down and boogie to the hit song "Gamera" (rhymes with camera), until Tokyo crumbles down around them. As with other Japanese monster movies, there's some clown in a rubber suit, stumbling about like a drunk, tripping over miniatures and getting angry with train sets that should make you laugh, but despite a heavy-heaping of political metaphor, "Gamera" remains mostly light and uninhibited. Probably one for fans of the sub genre only.
Brian Donlevy and Albert Dekker are the principal American actors in the re-edited version, playing Pentagon top brass sitting around a boardroom table, debating foreign policy and protocol, while Dick O'Neill has a meaty role early in the picture barking orders at his military comms unit that includes burly John McCurry in an early role, and TV actor John Baragrey among less familiar faces. Alan Oppenheimer has an hilarious cameo as an over-zealous zoologist open to initial speculation on the identity of the giant, flying turtle despite professional ridicule.
Gamera gets the pop-culture treatment in one scene where nightclub revellers ignore warnings to evacuate, instead preferring to get down and boogie to the hit song "Gamera" (rhymes with camera), until Tokyo crumbles down around them. As with other Japanese monster movies, there's some clown in a rubber suit, stumbling about like a drunk, tripping over miniatures and getting angry with train sets that should make you laugh, but despite a heavy-heaping of political metaphor, "Gamera" remains mostly light and uninhibited. Probably one for fans of the sub genre only.