Gammera the Invincible (1966)

Strong and Moving!

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

good back-story, and good acting

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

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.

Gammera The Invincible set the famous prehistoric flying turtle on the same road as Godzilla. First this film like Godzilla was created out of another Japanese film with simply adding the footage with Raymond Burr to make a different story. Here a whole slew of Occidental players like Brian Donlevy, Dick O'Neill, and Albert Dekker were used.Secondly however where Godzilla starts out as a fire-breathing villain in later films he becomes a monster hero as more terrifying monsters invade earth and we need our home grown monster to defeat them. The producers here foresaw that possibility and left it open to happen, they were better concerned with continuity.Having said all that Gammera The Invincible is like all these other Japanese monster flicks great fun, not to be taken too seriously. He's a sulfur eating creature and there's a great scene of him chowing down on a train tanker car eating it like a hot dog. And he's full of tricks. Foolish humans who think that because they get this turtle on its back he's down for the count. One of the great scenes of Japanese horror films is when on his back he lifts off and flies like the proverbial flying saucer.Cheesy special effects, Occidental actors looking like they're waiting for their paychecks to clear, but still lots of fun.

"After the atomic bombs carried by a shot-down Soviet bomber explode in the Arctic, the creature 'Gammera' is released from his hibernation. The giant prehistoric turtle proceeds on a path to Tokyo and destroys anything in his path. The military and the scientific community rush to find a means to stop this monster before Tokyo is laid to waste," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis. The re-produced for American audiences version of this, the first film in the "Gamera" series, adds English language material that is even funnier than the regularly dubbed Japanese fare. Clearly, the monster is following in the footsteps of "Godzilla". Taking his cue from ABC's faddish "Batman!" TV series, musician Wes Farrell's ludicrous theme song heightens the US version's camp appeal.*** Gammera the Invincible (12/15/66) Sandy Howard, Noriaki Yuasa ~ Dick O'Neill, Brian Donlevy, Albert Dekker, John Baragrey

The American distributor thought an American audience would not believe in smart people from anyplace but America. The job they did reflects doubtfully on their reasoning. What can be said for a hatchet-job that goes so far as to misspell the monster's name in the title? Oh, right, we did that with Gojira too. At least we only gave Gamera an extra M. One might assume that Japanese scientists, by 1965, were among the most qualified in the world to deal with gigantic reptiles. However, though of course aided by some nifty electronics, they are once again incompetent to the task. In what must be the tiniest office in New York City, a guy in a fez and an unspecified African in a dashiki indicate that we are at the United Nations. This small meeting in a closet bravely but silently tries to help out with the 200 foot fire-eating turtle, when fortunately a white person starts talking.Veteran Caucasian Brian Donlevy stars from a chair as the voice of reason. A military man in a corset that constricts his breathing, and dentures that slur his speech, he rattles off arcane theories about the composition of the earth's atmosphere 200 million years ago, and offers the startling opinion that animals alive at the time breathed sulfur. Only in a rubber monster movie would he not be placed in restraints; only in a World Entertainment release would he be placed in charge. The United Nations votes for joint action, but, typically, remains seated, implicitly detailing the Japanese to deal with Gamera themselves. After all, rubber monsters only attack Tokyo, right? Then Donlevy, or the Japanese, or the entire world - it's hard to tell in the American version - come(s) up with Plan Z. This plan is well-named, as it is the very last thing I would think of. It consists of setting a refinery on fire, feeding Gamera all the flaming gasoline he can stomach, luring him into the first space capsule ever launched from a missile silo, then sending him to Mars in a rocket that looks suspiciously like a personal vibrator. So that's why every alien abduction comes complete with an anal probe - it's Gamera's revenge.