Frankenstein conquiert le monde

Here's a movie about a radioactive child growing into a large, homeless 100 foot tall looking brute who grunts, and then fights a nappy looking dinosaur. Okay, it's not Ingmar Bergman, but damn, is it silly, fun and entertaining. It's chock full of cliches, but the pace is amazingly fast. One of the best elements of this happy cinematic misfire is actor Tadao Takashima. His normally bland white-lab coated scientist has some fascinating charcater elements (He's an alky, and has an interesting dark streak) The VHS copy I have has tacked on the ending where Frankenstein vs. A-Big-Octopus-That-Comes-Out-Of-Nowhere. Silly, and fun. Cool party movie.

This is one of the more entertaining (and yet still bonkers) Toho monster rallies and at some points you can actually feel your grip on sanity beginning to weaken. Like many Frankenstein movies you do feel a certain amount of sympathy for the monster (not Baragon though, who looks like he escaped from a toy shop) and actually wish he would deliver a massive ass-kicking to the immaculately dressed, white gloved troops who are shooting at him. Baragon spitting feathers and the pig-on-rails scenes alone are worth the admission price. The sheer lunacy of this movie even exceeds that of King Kong Lives! Sadly the best scene is missing: the one in which Nick Adams' agent persuaded him to turn up for this particular engagement.

Well, he may not exactly conquer the world in this picture, but at least he gets off his usual home turf! In the very imaginative opening of "Frankenstein Conquers the World" (1965), you see, the living heart of the Frankenstein monster is taken from Germany at the end of World War II and transported by submarine to Japan, where it is promptly exposed to A-bomb radiation at Hiroshima and eventually grows, to become a giant, gap-toothed male waif. This lumbering doofus (who ultimately reveals himself to be the nimblest, most energetic Frankenstein ever shown on film) soon has a dukeout royale with Baragon, a sort of giant, spiny-backed, (heat?) ray-spewing, burrowing armadillo dinosaur, with no holds barred and no quarter given. Anyway, this picture strikes me as being several cuts above the usual kaiju eiga. It has been fairly handsomely produced, features very adequate FX (despite the Maltin book's claim to the contrary; well, that bucking horse excepted), and makes excellent use of its CinemaScope frame. Director Ishiro Honda, composer Akira Ifukube and the great actor Takashi Shimura, who all contributed so much to the original "Gojira" film in 1954, here bring their talents together again, with highly entertaining results, and American actor Nick Adams does his best playing Dr. James Bowen, a scientist working at the Hiroshima International Institute of Radiotherapentics (sic). The picture offers several striking visuals, none perhaps as impressive as the awesome spectacle of Franky and Baragon going at it with a flaming forest as a backdrop. The pristine-looking DVD from Media Blasters that I just watched offers both the "international" and the "theatrical" versions of the film, which differ only in the final five minutes. I much prefer the "international," if only because we get to see Franky (ridiculously) battle yet another monster in it. Either version, however, should provide an evening's worth of good mindless fun.

This movie seems like a silly project on paper but the eventual movie is nevertheless still quite fun to watch.

This movie is a Japanese attempt to blend in the Frankenstein creature with the Japanese monster movie-genre. It's like Frankenstein meets Gojira, only the creature in this movie is named Baragon, who looks like a giant armadillo, or of course better said a guy in a rubber suits that looks like a giant armadillo.

It's all quite silly of course but yet the movie works on a certain level of entertainment. You could basically say that this movie is just as good and fun to watch as basically any other Japanese monster movie from about the same time period.

You could tell that in the first halve of the movie they somewhat tried to remain faithful to the Frankenstein movie. They also tried to give the character a heart and let him struggle with the same emotions and difficulties the character has always struggled with in the Mary Shelley novel and all of the Frankenstein movies and tried to make the movie somewhat intelligent and scientific. It's not like it ever works out well enough or becomes believable but this is mostly because they did not go all the way with it. After all, it seemed more important for them to make a monster movie, so here we have a Frankenstein creature that suddenly starts to grow 4 times his normal size and battles Baragon, a prehistoric creature from the depths of the Earth, who has been awakened by oil drillers.

Therefore the lovers of these Japanese monster movies will be the ones to most likely enjoy this movie. It all builds up to its obvious ending, in which the Frankenstein creature battles the man in the rubber suit. The fight is literally laughable to watch but this is of course also part of the charm of movies such as this one.

It's all pretty silly but it was fun to watch!

6/10

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Deep within the heart of me exists a love for films featuring giant creatures battling it out for supremecy in the streets of Tokyo. I just remember watching them with anticipation as a small child, waiting in anxiety to see who the victor would be of these mommoth clashes. Of course, with familiar characters like Gamera, Rodan, Mothra, Ghidra, Gigan, Baragon, King Kong, and, of course, Godzilla stomping Tokyo in each film, this one, titled "Frankenstein vs. Baragon" here in the U.S., takes the cake for taking the most risks.

This film sets up many important things for the Toho universe: It introduces Baragon, who would later become a favorite of the genre. In additon, it makes political statements on nuclear testing. Oh, and on a side-note, it also *takes Frankenstein's monster, grows him to giant heights, pits him against Baragon, and puts a classic Gothic monster's face into the gallery of gigantic monsters to rummage Japan.* If you aren't impressed by the first two factors, at least appretiate the third one simply for its camp value.

AND WHAT CAMP VALUE IT IS! The fights in this are some of the best of the Toho universe. Frankenstein looks like an overgrown caveman, and Baragon is effectively established as a leading monster. And while most of the battles simply take place in a few mountains outside of-- you guessed it-- Tokyo, the fun still exists, and its as just as a good time as you'll find in any given Godzilla or Gamera flick.

Silly, cliched, stupid, pointless...and one heckuva good time! LOOK OUT FOR THE BEATING HEART OF FRANKENSTEIN! AND WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T EAT IT!

*** out of ****