Cast and Crew:   Shin’ichi Sekizawa (Writer); Tomoyuki Tanaka (Producer); Masaru Sato (Score); Eiji Tsuburaya (Effects); Kumi Mizuno, Akihiko Hirata, Hal Linden (voice of Yoshimura in the U.S. dub)

What It’s About: Yata Kane (Toru Ibuki) disappears along with his fishing ship in the South Pacific.  The village seer tells Yata’s younger brother Ryota (Toru Watanabe) that Yata is alive. Ryota (and his buddies) enter a dance marathon, hoping to win a yacht they can use it to find Yata.  When they lose, Ryota decides they should look at some boats anyway, and, when he decides to take a closer look, they encounter a boat that’s fully stocked for a long voyage…so well stocked it even includes Yoshimura (Akira Takarada), a mysterious armed man who lets the friends stay over night.  Ryota, seeing the opportunity as a gift from the gods, steals the boat and refuses to turn it around.  Since Yoshimura can’t sail, and his gun is only a toy, the four men are on a journey to adventure…a journey where they’ll encounter a mysterious island, run by a paramilitary organization (Red Bamboo…gee…I wonder…), protected by a giant lobster, worked by a slave force from Mothra’s island (while she sleeps on the job, like all good Kaiju gods).  The island hides another slumbering friend of ours…a friend whose name begins with a G….

Why Watch it Today?:   The Thon 46 hour charity dance marathon begins today.  Just like the kids in today’s movie, participants will be dancing for a good cause.  Although it’s not in the top-tier of Godzilla films, Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster is an amusing oddity, bringing together sixties teen, spy, and Kaiju movies in one goofy package.  This change in tone can be explained a few ways:  Jun Fukada replaced Ishiro Honda as the director, the first time anyone besides Honda directed a Godzilla movie; the film was also originally intended to be a King Kong movie, but when that idea fell through, Godzilla was hastily substituted; making this the one time you’ll see Godzilla crush on a woman and fend off something as minor as a very large bird.