Admirable film.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

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.

*Spoiler/plot- 1966, Gamera the Invincible, Gamera is unleashed from hibernation below the Arctic ice by a nuclear blast. The legendary rocket flying turtle seeks fire energy for sustenance creating havoc across the plant Earth. Scientists work feverishly to stop Gamera with the aid of a young boy. This boy has empathic link with the mega creature. The Japanese country side takes a destructive hit by the creature until stopped by being shot into outer space. *Special stars- Long time great US actors, Brian Donlevy and Albert Denker find themselves as a Secretary of State and General in the American scenes that meld well into the Japanese plot scenes. Much better that those American ones in the first Gozilla films. *Theme- Mother Nature throws a curve to Mankind, but Mankind wins out with a little boys's innocence and help. *Based on- ???? *Trivia/location/goofs- The first adventure of the child-loving super prehistoric turtle films. In sequel films, the main turtle character's nature changes 'sides' to help the Earth against others monster baddies. *Emotion- An unexpected decent film when compared to the B&W film schlock in this Japanese genre.

Gamera the Invincible (1966) ** (out of 4) The stupid American government drops an atomic bomb at the North Pole and soon the gigantic turtle named Gamera is set free. He flies across the world before landing in Tokyo to destroy the city. I'm not a huge fan of these Japanese monster films but this one works….a little. Some of the special effects are nice including one scene where Gamera destroys a chemical plant but there's some laughable moments as well. I watched the English dubbed version, which gets a few more laughs due to the silly track.

Gammera, one of the most famous Japanese monsters to hit the big screen in the 1960s makes his debut in this zero-budget, politically charged monster thriller. It is interesting to consider the tensions that were taking place between certain nations at the time that the movie was made, especially between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. There is no effort made to disguise the animosity that existed between the two, more than likely since that bitterness was needed as a catalyst to bring Gammera back from 200 million years of hibernation. The U.S. shoots down a suspicious bomber, which turned out to be Russian, over the arctic region. As is to be expected from those sneaky Russians, the bomber was loaded with hydrogen bombs which, upon impact, explode with sufficient force to not only thaw but also infuriate the sleeping Gammera. Lots of havoc is wreaked upon poorly constructed models of cities and airplanes and landscapes and such, and there is some strange subplot about a little boy obsessed with turtles who wants to expose Gammera for the gentle creature that he really is. Inspiration for the Iron Giant, maybe? The special effects are astonishingly bad, but there was no budget and in the movie's defense, I have to say that the people involved in making it knew that they had no budget but they took very seriously their task of doing as much as they could with as little as they had.Classic Japanese monster fare.