Film #126 - Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964)
Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster us best known for serving as the turning point of the original series as far as Godzilla is concerned. He makes the turn from villain to hero in this film, teaming up with established characters Mothra (already a hero) and Rodan (villain of his own film) to defeat a new and more powerful enemy, Ghidrah. (Or Ghidorah or King Ghidorah, depending.)
The film stars Yosuke Natsuki as Detective Shindo, Yuriko Hoshi as his reporter sister Naoko, Hiroshi Koizumi as her love interest Professor Miura and Akiko Wakabayashi as Mas Selina Salno, a princess.
It begins with Detective Shindo assigned to protect the princess, who is to visit Japan. Unfortunately, enemies of her country blow up her plane in mid-flight, apparently killing her. But she re-appears in Tokyo, making predictions of disaster and declaring herself to be from Mars. Her predictions prove true, as Rodan re-appears and a boat she declares will sink goes down. Naoko takes her into her care, at first just hoping for a big story, but ultimately for her safety. Meanwhile, Professor Miura has discovered a strange meteorite that glows. Eventually, Ghidrah, a giant, three-headed dragon appears and begins destroying all in sight.
Detective Shindo takes on the protection of the princess, whose life is still in danger from her enemies, while Naoko and the professor try to solve the problem of Ghidrah. With the aid of the Twin Fairies (Emi & Yumi Ito), they convince the world governments to allow them to get Mothra to convince Godzilla and Rodan (then engaging in an all-out knock-down drag-out fight) to put aside their differences for the good of all. It all concludes with a giant four-way fight between the monsters as the princesses enemies make one last-ditch effort to eliminate her.
Ghidra is the kind of Godzilla film I like. While it spends a good deal of time on the monsters, they are not really the focus of the film. The focus is, instead, on the princess and her situation, both as a conduit for the aliens trying to help Earth and as a target for the assasination attempts. The monsters are used as a backdrop to events and as a means to an end.
As the first Godzilla film to “humanize” the big guy, it would eventually lead to much sillier films, but here it is a good balance. Godzilla helps the Earth because it is in his best interests, not because he is yet the hero of Japan he would later become.
Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster is right up there for me mostly on the strength of the relationship between Detective Shindo and the princess. Yosuke Natsuki and Akiko Wakabayashi have great chemistry in their few scenes together and it is the odd, strained, distant nature of their relationship that makes it stand out for me. To date, I haven’t seen the Japanese version to see if there are many changes, but even in it’s U.S. form, it’s one of the best of the original series.