Mothra (1961)

Mothra (???, Mosura^?) is a 1961 giant-monster movie from Toho Studios, directed by genre regular Ishir? Honda with special effects by legend Eiji Tsuburaya. It is the kaiju eiga debut of screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa, whose fantastic yet intelligent approach to the genre grew to prominence during the 1960s. The film stars Frankie Sakai, a popular comedian in Japan at the time, and Hiroshi Koizumi, in the first of many academic roles he would adopt in tokusatsu. Jerry Ito (transliterated as “Jelly Ito” in the credits of the U.S. release) delivers a fiendish performance, his only contribution to Toho’s kaiju eiga genre. Ito also appeared in 1958′s Japanese/US co-production “The Manster” (a.k.a. “The Split”), and in Toho’s 1961 end-of-the-world sci-fi feature “Sekai Daisensou” (“The Last War”). The score by Yuji Koseki includes probably the most enduring song in kaiju eiga, “Mosura No Uta” (“Mothra’s Song”), performed by The Peanuts.

The film did well at the box office but was panned by U.S. critics upon its stateside release as a typical B-grade monster-on-the-loose flick. Its basic plot was recycled in King Kong vs. Godzilla and Mothra vs. Godzilla (1962 and 1964, both also written by Sekizawa), and the daikaiju Mothra would become one of Toho’s most popular, appearing in seven more Godzilla films and her own trilogy in the 1990s. wiki

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