RODAN, THE FLYING MONSTER
A film review by Jim Mann
Copyright 1993 Jim Mann
RODAN, THE FLYING MONSTER (1956)
RODAN was Toho's second entry into the monster movie genre, following quickly on the heals of their successful Godzilla. While not as successful, either artistically or financially, as GODZILLA, it remains a good movie, and one of the better monster movies.
The movie starts out (after the obligatory prologue, showing H-bombs blowing up Pacific islands), with a mine cave in. In the mine, a worker is mysteriously killed. It turns out that a giant insect is loose in the mines. However, what has really been resurrected is far worse: one worker is trapped in the mines and stumbles onto two giant eggs. As he watches, one hatches, and the monster that emerges is so large that it easily feeds on the giant insects. The monster, of course, is Rodan, a giant Pteranadon.
Rodan destroys the countryside not by trampling buildings (though he does a little of that) but simply by flying over it. The huge creature, flying at supersonic speed, generates typhooon force winds. Worse yet for the humans: there is not one Rodan but two.
There are some good special effects (at least for the day). The scenes in which Rodan descends upon the city and is confronted by the military are very good. And the climax at the volcano is spectacular.
The sets are also good. The details around the mine, for example, are nicely handled. They give a good feel for the area, and thus make the whole film a bit more realistic. The photography is also nice: I believe that this is Toho's first color effort.
The biggest negative in the film is the way the whole thing takes a while to get going. The giant insect/mine disaster subplot seems to drag, and it's not until Rodan shows up that the film really begins to move.
By the way, the costume used for Rodan in this film is reasonably realistic. Right after watching this movie, my daughter and I watched the second movie Rodan appeared in: GHIDRAH, THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER. The costume in their is much worse. (Of course, the Godzilla costume in that movie is also much worse than that used in most of the previous "Godzilla" films.) The eyes, in particular, look phony in the latter film.
In summary, this is a good film. It is one of the better films of its genre, and ranks as one of the top 5 monster films from Toho (along with GODZILLA, GODZILLA RAIDS AGAIN, GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA (1964), and MOTHRA).
-- Jim Mann Stratus Computer jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com
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