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THE HISTORY OF GAMERA
The year was 1963, and the financially ailing Daiei movie studio wanted to make a quick, cheap B-movie monster flick to boost
its revenues. They planned something in the style of the cheapie American pictures like Bert I. Gordon's Beginning of the End,
only instead of giant grasshoppers menacing Chicago, they imagined a swarm of enormous rats invading Tokyo. The Great
Horde-Monster Nezura was to be shot on inexpensive black and white film, and would use live rats running around a scale
model of the city and nibbling on dolls. The studio commissioned some large-scale sets and a couple of two-meter rat puppets
for scenes featuring the live cast; somebody called the rats' agents; and some test footage was actually shot. Advertising
campaigns through 1964 began crying up the new monster movie, and everything looked like it was going fine.
Unfortunately, the rats brought their own groupies with them... and soon the studio was infested with fleas. The situation
quickly became intolerable for the cast and crew, so Daiei decided to abandon their idea of a giant rat movie. However,
they'd already built the miniature city sets, and they'd announced a new monster movie to the world. Rather than write off
the whole project and admit defeat, the studio started work on a new idea: they would use their models to make a movie about
a giant radioactive turtle called "Gamera".
There were two very interesting things about this decision. First of all, Daiei -- which wasn't doing very well as a
company -- was entering into direct competition with Toho, the Godzilla of the Japanese film industry (literally). Toho
had a virtual monopoly on the rubber suit genre; it wasn't until 1967, partly in response to the success of the Gamera
series, that companies like Shochiku and Nikkatsu decided to make films about huge city-flattening monsters. Next and
equally significantly, Daiei was making this challenge with a relatively inexpensive black and white movie, released at a time
when Toho was dazzling the world with its use of color film technology (Daiei, after all, had been one of the pioneers of color
movies in Japan!). Daiei might not have set any particular stock in the success of their film, but with hindsight it seems
like a terribly risky thing to do. Had they failed with their movie, the results might have been more embarrassing than if
they had made no movie at all.
But Daiei didn't fail. Much to the surprise of practically everybody (especially the movie's director, Yuasa Noriaki), Daikaiju
Gamera was a resounding success. The movie did so well that a much more expensive sequel was put into production almost
immediately, launching a series that was to span a total of seven sequels. The Gamera series went on to become the only
serious challenge to the kaiju market share of Toho's Godzilla movies. They were not enough to save Daiei from eventual
bankruptcy; in fact, as the series went on, the lack of budgets became more and more obvious. Still, they did earn a place
in the hearts of monster fans everywhere. In 1995, 15 years after the last original Gamera sequel, the reconstituted Daiei
studio (now a Toho subsidiary) brought back their beloved monster for a series of three brand new movies. These new films
are acknowledged as being some of the best monster films ever made.
Ironically, one of the most probable reasons for Gamera's initial success is that it was shot in black and white. The movie's
creators turned the budget-imposed limitations to their own advantage. The first Godzilla film had also been in black and white
(though admittedly, this had been eleven years earlier); audiences would have made an immediate connection with Toho's
groundbreaking film. Furthermore, like Italy's Amanti d'Oltretomba/Nightmare Castle released the same year, Gamera's monochrome
photography gave it tremendous atmosphere that went a long way toward distracting the audience from the inadequate script.
The rubber Gamera suit also looked much more dignified in black and white than it did in color. The tone of the screenplay
matches the somber look of the film: the actors may be saying totally ridiculous things, but they take it all very seriously.
Add to this Yamauchi Tadashi's equally monochromatic music, and you have a movie that feels like a more serious film than it
really is.
But the film would hardly have been as successful as it was, even if it had been made with a bigger budget, had their title
monster not been so charismatic. There is an appeal to Gamera which is very difficult to explain. There is something endearing
in his shape, his expression, and most of all in his voice. He has a lot of character, and even though his opponents got wilder
and more colorful with each sequel, he has never been upstaged.
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