There have been movies based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus dating all the way back to 1915, when the now-lost Life Without Soul was released. But it was with James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935) that the template was truly set. And, since then, the character has appeared in any number of projects, not to mention those that, to varying extents, are actual adaptations of Shelley’s novel. Some of them are somewhat loose, like Whale’s movie, while others are more servile to the text, e.g. Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Guillermo del Toro’s new Frankenstein, streaming now on Netflix.
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But there is no movie to feature Frankenstein’s name in the title that feels farther removed from Shelley’s text than Frankenstein Conquers the World (as it’s known in the states). Released in Japan as Frankenstein vs. Baragon, it is much like the other highlights of Ishirō Honda’s filmography in that it is a village-stomping kaiju movie, but just as it’s different from Shelley’s novel, it’s also quite a bit different from the likes of Gojira and Rodan.
What Exactly Is Frankenstein Conquers the World?
The film opens on the end of World War II, when a group of Nazi officers steal the beating heart of Frankenstein’s monster. They hand it over to the Japanese Navy who are experimenting on it when the Enola Gay drops the bomb on Hiroshima. Cut to a decade and a half later and a nonverbal feral boy has been roaming the streets eating bunnies and rats.
We then meet our protagonists, Dr. James Bowen (Nick Adams, an American actor and friend of James Dean who also starred in the Godzilla movie Invasion of Astro-Monster) and his assistants, Dr. Sueko Togami (Kumi Mizuno, also Invasion of Astro-Monster) and Dr. Yuzo Kawaji (Tadao Takashima, King Kong vs. Godzilla). A group of angry villagers bring them the boy after they corner him in a cave.
Soon, the trio of doctors learn that the young man has a resistance to radiation, and it is posited by a colleague that he originated from the thought-lost heart. As the irradiated boy begins to grow to a massive size, he is officially called Frankenstein and locked in a cage. The doctors are then told by the original keeper of the heart that, should a limb be removed from Frankenstein, a new one will grow back. This turns out to be correct as Frankenstein escapes his chains and cage and leaves a single hand behind, which crawls on its own until it dies from a lack of protein.
Who’s That Other Monster?
Earlier in the film, well before Frankenstein’s aforementioned escape and traipsing across the Japanese countryside, we are introduced to Imperial Navy officer Kawai (Yoshio Tsuchiya, Destroy All Monsters). He was the one who initially brought Frankenstein’s heart to Hiroshima’s army hospital, but post-war he works as an oil refinery technician. And one evening while at work, he witnesses a massive crack grow in the earth, which reveals a massive, horned, big-eared monster (which amounts to a dinosaur dog) who roars and burrows back out of sight.
Now, Baragon, as it comes to be known, is attacking villages in the same countryside Frankenstein has come to call home. He destroys huts and eats those who can’t run away fast enough. Given how Frankenstein ate live animals when he was small, the military is quick to blame him for these destroyed villages and scarfed-down residents. Dr. Bowen and Dr. Togami can’t imagine this to be true, but Dr. Kawaji has some doubts that Frankenstein is as docile as his colleagues seem to believe.
Kawai finds the doctors, who are about to leave in search of their research subject, and tells them that he believes the acts of violence to be the fault of Baragon. This manages to convince Dr. Kawaji to an extent, but he still plans to blind Frankenstein with grenades and remove his now-massive heart and brain. But, before he can do so, Baragon responds to the grenades blasting apart the earth and prepares for his next meal. Fortunately, Frankenstein is there too, and he saves the three doctors in the kaiju fight the poster and DVD cover promise. Frankenstein wins out, but the ground opens up beneath them and they’re both seemingly gone forever.
There Was a Sequel?
One year after Frankenstein Conquers the World a sequel was made, but you’d hardly be able to tell it serves as that were you to watch it. Ironically, The War of the Gargantuas is the more well-known of the two Toho kaiju classics, as it really isn’t one of their stronger efforts.
For one, the American actor replacement, Russ Tamblyn, seemed to understand the assignment infinitely less than Adams. Adams seemed game for both Invasion of Astro-Monster and Frankenstein Conquers the World but, in The War of the Gargantuas, it’s obvious that Tamblyn thought himself better than the project. And that makes sense, as Henry G. Saperstein (whose United Productions of America, or UPA, co-produced this, Frankenstein, and Astro-Monster) called Tamblyn a “royal pain in the ass.”
In Gargantuas there are now two massive Frankensteins, and they both have fur. One is green, named Gaira, and he’s an evil, person-eating clone of the Frankenstein we got to know in the previous film, now known as Sanda with a coat of brown fur. The logic is all pretty loose there, but there’s also loose logic in a heart growing up to be a massive, groaning manchild.
Even more baffling is the fact that Tamblyn is essentially playing the Adams role, just with a different name. Kumi Mizuno is back as well, but instead of playing Dr. Sueko Togami who looked after Frankenstein as he was growing, she’s playing Dr. Akemi Togawa…who looked after Frankenstein as he was growing. Fortunately, once you get past the big glob of nonsense that is the plot you get a pretty solid monster mash. That statement is applicable to both films.
Just like with much of Godzilla’s Shōwa era filmography, the majority of the non-Godzilla Shōwa movies are pretty oddball stuff. Endearingly oddball, but oddball. However, there are straightforward entries, e.g. Gojira, Rodan, Varan the Unbelievable, and Mothra. But suffice to say, Frankenstein Conquers the World and The War of the Gargantuas fall more in line with stuff like Matango, Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, King Kong Escapes, and Space Amoeba.
Either way, they’re definitely extremely far from the tone (and content) of Shelley’s text. However, it’s not as if Toho and Japan were the only company and country to take Frankenstein and put him in a whacky movie. Frankenstein went up against the Wolf Man in Universal’s, well, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. He came across two comedians in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (which also featured Dracula, once more played by Bela Lugosi). The same year as The War of the Gargantuas the United States put out Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter.
If you’re looking for another fun, silly Frankenstein movie be sure to check out The Monster Squad, which features Tom Noonan knocking the role of the resurrected man who cannot die out of the park. You even get to see Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolf Man, and an off-brand Creature from the Black Lagoon storm across a small town. But if you want something more serious, be sure to watch del Toro’s long-developed adaptation, which straddles the line between working as a relatively fast-paced popcorn flick and a strict adaptation of the source material.
Stream Frankenstein Conquers the World and The War of the Gargantuas on The Criterion Channel.
What is your favorite non-Godzilla classic Toho monster movie? Let us know in the comments.
