Johnny Sokko!

 

VOYAGE INTO SPACE-1970-Alien monster Lord Guillotine leads an invading force from the planet Gargoyle. On the high sea Johnny Sokko (Mitsunobu Kaneko) meets U3 (Akio Ito) an agent of Unicorn pretending to be writer Johnny Mano. Their ship is attacked by a giant sea monster. They make it to an island, totally dry, and pursued by members of The Gargoyle gang. The duo meet Dr. Guardian who is being forced to create a giant robot. He's killed helping the two escape. A bomb he planted blows up the evil headquarters but the giant robot survives and only obeys Johnny. Lord Guillotine sends the Dragulon (the underwater monster) to destroy Tokyo. Giant Robo (Toshiyuki Tsuchiyama) is victorious and Johnny joins Unicorn. Lord Guillotine has two weird henchmen, the silver skinned Dr. Botanus and the pegged legged Executioner. 

There's lots of crazy monsters and battles and funny dialogue but in the end the giant metallic hero sacrifices himself to save the Earth in a sad finale. 

This Japanese production was actually a TV show edited from first episode, 2 middle episodes and the last episode. Director Minoru Yamada went on to the “Kamen Rider” series and many other similar live action TV series.

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Mexico Monsters

SHIP OF MONSTERS-1960-This lunatic Mexican sci-fi musical comedy features Gamma (Ana Bertha Lepe) & Beta (Lorena Velazquez), 2 alien women from Venus who comb the solar system in search of males to breed with after a war has destroyed their male population. A clunky blinking robot Torr assists them.  Before coming to Earth they pick up some doozies! There's the short big head Tawal, Prince of Mars, who's brain seems to be on the outside of his head. Demonic Ogre Muppet like Uk, king of the fire planet. Giant Crassus of the red planet (isn't that Mars?). Plus a marionette like bag of bones whose name and planet are not mentioned. 

The girls freeze them and hide them in a cave when their spaceship has trouble and they are forced to land on Earth. They meet the loud smiling Lauriano (Eulalio Gonzalez) and his much younger brother. Almost immediately he and Gamma fall in love and he sings a couple of songs! Later Beta is jealous and reveals that she is a vampire from the vampire planet Uranus and plans to drain Earth of its blood. She turns into a bat and kills a farmer. Gamma rats her out to their boss and Beta is condemned to be disintegrated. Beta double crosses Gamma, locks her up, makes Torr her slave and convinces the captured male prisoners help to her terrify and conquer Earth. She and Tawal seem to have a thing for each other! Lauriano encounters all 4 of them in the forest. Since he’s a big mouth braggart no one believes him. He manages to get to the spaceship but Beta catches him and makes him sing her a love song. While they are kissing Lauriano steals the control box Bets uses and frees Gamma (and his little brother) but sends the rocket into space. With the help of the robot the aliens are destroyed and Beta is impaled. Gamma stays on Earth. 

This is so nutty and dumb it's very entertaining! Vampire alien Lorena Velaquez was later in some Wrestling Women movies. Director Rogelio A. Gonzalez made many more movies in Mexico but unfortunately was killed in a car accident in 1984.

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Colossus in The Big Apple!

THE COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK-1958-Just after winning a Nobel prize a brilliant scientist Jerry Spensser (Ross Martin) is hit and killed by a truck while chasing after his son's toy plane. His slightly demented but famous brain surgeon father (Otto Kruger) takes out Jerry's brain and hooks it up to a machine in his lab so that his genius mind won't be wasted. His kind of jealous brother Henry (TV actor John Baragrey who is top billed) helps Pop built an over-sized robot to house Jerry's brain. It's big and bald and has glowing eyes, mechanical hands and feet and for some reason wears a cloak. Needless to say Jerry's not to pleased with his new bod and promptly faints. Although once conscious Jerry pleads with his stupid dad to "destroy me", Pop Spensser convinces his brain revived son to continue his experiments. He also develops  ESP, mind control and laser beam eyes and puts dad under his control. Later when he decides to visit his own grave, Jerry meets his son Billy (Charles Herbert also in THE DAY THE WORLD STOOD STILL the same year). He gets very angry because he's not made of flesh and blood. He blows a circuit when he sees Henry put the moves on Anne. She faints and Henry runs away! Mala Powers plays Jerry's widow Anne who seems to favor another doctor John Carrington (Robert Hutton) but he thinks Anne is just hallucinating when she says she's seen a giant robot. After Jerry-bot does in his younger brother, the climax takes place at The United Nations where an out of control Jerry lasers many spectators until Billy stops his wanton destruction ala THE GOLEM.

I've seen many negative reviews with this (at one time) seldom seen Science Fiction movie but around the time there was much more junkier stuff being made. The story is pre-posterous and kind of rushed but the metallic "colossus" is impressive. 

Director Eugene Lourie (THE BEST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS) provides some nice eerie night scenes which are given an extra jolt from Van Cleave's staccato piano soundtrack (although it's a little overbearing in a few scenes). The Ukrainian born Lourie  would later get back into the giant monster genre with THE GIANT BEHEMOTH and GORGO and also edited several Sam Fuller films.

Though she had given good performances as Roxanne in CYRANO de BERGERAC and a rape victim in Ida Lupino's OUTRAGE, Mala Powers was doing mostly TV at this time. Otto Kruger's long flim career (begun in 1915) was coming to a close but he would act 5 more years. As the obsessed analytical father he's very unlikable but after being basically responsible for all of the robot's mayhem in the end he just admits he's wrong and walks away. Robert Hutton is all but wasted as the good guy scientist friend. And I'm at a loss to understand why TV actor John Baragrey is top billed. It would have seemed more logical to have Hutton in that role!

This was one of over two dozen films produced by former actor William Alland. He also produced the Jack Arnold directed THE SPACE CHILDREN  the same year.

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