Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964, American title Godzilla vs. the Thing, and included extra footage – this may be the version I saw) contains the elements of a good film, mixed together with a potato masher, and laid out for all to see. A giant egg has floated into the fishing village’s harbor as part of a destructive typhoon. The village mayor claims it and then sells it to a notorious entrepreneur and his shadowy backer, forcing the scientist and journalists who come to examine it to leave. The egg is placed in a huge hot house where it’ll be exhibited for crass commercial purposes.
Two tiny people appear to claim the egg, but their supplications for its return fall on the deaf, greedy ears of the owners, and they reluctantly leave; as they go, the journalists get a glimpse of the Thing, a gigantic butterfly whose egg it is.
As the ground is cleared for a project of some sort (I forgot what), from the muck and mud appears GODZILLA, who proceeds to do what GODZILLA does – stomp the village flat. The Japanese defense forces rally to cast Godzilla forth, but fail. The US Navy is called in, but, in an incoherent sequence, they fail as well (although, unlike the home-town Japanese, they suffer no casualties – a lost opportunity for the film makers, who could have had Godzilla clutching plastic model ships to his breast – throw in another typhoon at the same time and the visuals would have been stunning).
Goya’s Colossus
It’s worth taking a break from the summation to note that some fairly awful special effects produced a sharply focused city-scape in the foreground, with a mobile, fuzzy, faded-out Godzilla in the background, resulting in a surprisingly effective & creepy sequence of Godzilla moving through a city proper. In some bizarre manner, it reminds me of the great Spanish artist Goya’s painting Colossus1, a mundane village in the foreground, a monstrous, sketchily seen creature passing in the night … although Godzilla wasn’t exactly passing peacefully.
In any case, as towns and villages fall to the monster, a deputation is sent to the island of the two tiny people who claimed the egg, asking for assistance in killing Godzilla. After a brief squabble or two, the Thing agrees to help, as its final act. At this juncture we see a gesture to the nature of Evil, as the entrepreneur, suddenly destitute, beats his shadowy backer up and then steals the money from the backer’s floor safe. With money-lust in his eyes and Godzilla literally looming in the distance, as seen (quite effectively) through a window, he turns his back on the backer, who pulls a gun and shoots him dead. Then the backer grabs the money, but Godzilla, who apparently really zips along, smashes the building, ending the life of the backer. Thus does evil always destroy itself in its unbridled lusts. Godzilla is often a morality play.
Godzilla menaces the egg, but the Thing arrives just in time to distract Godzilla (I hesitate to guess Godzilla’s gender, if I may be so irrelevant), engendering an epic battle (the Thing generates tremendous blasts of wind, confusing Godzilla …) which sees Godzilla distracted, and the Thing dead. Somehow, Godzilla knows that an island just off the coast has a collection of teachers and children Who Must Be Destroyed, and so he abandons his mission to destroy the egg to swim to the island in search of his prey. This gives the little people time to sing to the egg, causing it to burst and give forth …
Mothra larvae (from MothraKingdom)
TWO MOTHRAS! (Larvae?)
Yep, that’s your plot twist of the day. They plunge into the sea in pursuit of Godzilla, catch up to him on the beach, ensnare him in what appears to be spiderweb; Godzilla rolls off a cliff (wait, they’re on the beach, right?) and falls into the sea.
But is he dead? Have they failed in their mission?
The movie suffers from continuity problems, dialog problems, stereotype problems, special-effect problems (it was particularly deflating to see Godzilla’s breath literally melting the scenery as well as the military’s tanks), problems, problems, problems. But there’s a tangible plot, with some real cause and effect results, and if Godzilla’s appearance is less traceable to events and more to metaphorical requirements, well, take your complaints to the Customer Service desk.
You know who will be manning it.
1Colossus may have been painted by an apprentice of Goya.
