All Monsters Attack. Aka Godzilla's Revenge. The most reviled Godzilla film of the Show era, and yet it's a personal favorite. To me, I have never understood the outright hatred for this film. Sure, it recycles monster footage from a number of earlier films. But as a kid growing up in the pre-home video days, (a) you appreciated what you got when you got it, and (b) it plays like a Godzilla's Greatest Hits — a little bit of Son of Godzilla, a splash of Godzilla vs the Sea Monster (aka Ebirah, Horror of the Deep)... and a brand new Kaiju in Gabara, who's got a killer hyena-like laugh/roar.
The soundtrack is not by master composer Akira Ifukube, whose scores/themes elevate every Godzilla film they appear in, up to and including Godzilla -1.0, 17 years after his death!
No, this comical score is by Kunio Miyauchi, but it fits the film's theme perfectly. A latchkey kid dreams of hanging out with Godzilla and Minya (Godzilla's son) on Monster Island, and basically learns how to deal with the bullies that he faces every day.
Here's a small tase of Miyauchi's score:
This is one Godzilla film I will always prefer in its dubbed American version. Primarily because Minya speaks to the kid! So his English voice is forever engrained in my head. But the English version (Godzilla's Revenge) also has a different title track!
Thankfully, I was able to track down a CD with the library cue used for the American opening.
The track is called "Crime Fiction," and it's composed by Ervin Jereb. And man is it cool.
You can give it a listen here. You sadly won't find this in the Criterion Godzilla Showa Blu Ray set — but the English language version exists on the Classic Media DVD release, which is obviously worth hanging on to!
Be here next week for something else from my Godzilla collection!
