Thanks to the vagaries of the international postage system, the film I planned to review hasn’t arrived yet; as a consequence, the little history lesson I had in mind is now emerging out of order. However, I figured any posting was better than none…literally none, since everyone else seems to be suffering from PBFLD (Post-B-Fest Letdown Disorder). I, alas, haven’t that excuse. So—

THE PHANTOM FROM 10,000 LEAGUES (1955)

Even as early as 1955, even before there was such a thing as AIP, its progenitor company was churning out films with what would soon be recognisible as its trademarks: outrageously inaccurate advertising, threadbare production values, a half-baked screenplay and a crappy, crappy monster. Just how crappy? Let me put it this way: this one was evidently arrested and charged with impersonating a sea-serpent.

It’s roundtable time again. But having the independent spirit that comes with reviewing unknown movies, I have decided to not put up my choice for the A.I.P. roundtable right now. (Just let me polish my review – it’ll be up in a couple of weeks.) Instead, I will give readers a review of a major studio movie that was barely released, My Man Adam. It seemed like an appealing movie when I found it – an ’80s movie (I grew up in that era) about a non-conformist who has a wild imagination. But it didn’t take me too long to find out why the movie was barely released. Read and learn why, and also learn why you should be wary of anything released on Key Video.

GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER
Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, viewed today, seems like it was inevitably the Godzilla movie that was going to get made in 1966. This was, after all, the year in which the author of James and the Giant Peach was commissioned to write a James Bond movie in which spaceships eat other spaceships and a villain’s space-age compound is housed within a hollowed-out volcano. The collision between the stodgy, adult-driven popular culture of the early sixties and the encroaching influence of sixties youth culture and it’s defining mistrust for authority had resulted in camp becoming the dominant aesthetic in seemingly every pop culture producing country in the world, and it was no longer safe for any pop icon born of the old order to be presented without a conspicuous display of tongues being placed firmly in cheek. Also, recent years had for the first time seen the vast majority of Television shows and movies being produced in color, something that producers were demonstrably eager to exploit via the widespread use of pop art-inspired, comic book-like palettes of bright primary colors, a tendency that is well in evidence in some of Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster’s sets. Lastly, the influence of the aforementioned Bond films had reached critical mass by 1966, which makes it unsurprising that Godzilla’s handlers would draw upon their tropes as well. In short, all of these trends listed above come together in Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, resulting in it being probably the most overtly comical, modish, and giddily irreverent film in the Godzilla series.