Godzilla: Millennium Themes

Godzilla - All Military Marches

When you can't sleep

 Have you ever wondered if the people who caused you to rehash their slights when you can't sleep ever think about what they did?

Do their consciences bring up those nasty words, those deliberate snubs, or worse yet, their lies to other people about you--do they ever rethink their motives and--regret them?

Everything old is new again

Some deep thoughts.

For me, male movie stars had to be slick and smooth and handsome. 

Cary Grant. John Boles, my other's favorite. Dick Powell. Gene Reynolds. Gene Kelly. Johnny Weismuller. Warren Williams who played in so many 30s movies. I remembered the name later.

What did I like about them?

They were handsome. They had a way of moving that was intriguing. Most could sing and dance or just have that WAY about them that was sexy and not dirty and could make me fall in love with them. 

Even Shirley Temple wasn't immune to Cary Grant. She sang "You Made Me Love You" to his photo. I'll never forget it.

And Gene Kelly. The dancer and athlete had some pretty elegant, yet masterful moves. Fred had nothing on him, though he was slick with Ginger Rodgers.

Long period of mediocre male stars. Cowboys. Eh. Roy and Gene were totally sexless to me. They meant adventure and shooting the bad guys. Oh, take the Lone Ranger! Totally sexless but intriguing and all male behind that mask. But he didn't let on.

They're all gone now. There are plenty of others I could have named, but these were the ones who came to mind first. 

But, I regret, there are no movie stars that thrill me the way these guys did. Oh, Guy Madison was one...but he came along later. These guys were primarily pre-war.

So, I got to thinking that the women of today don't have such a good choice of men to fantasize over. There are three guys with the name Chris. There are the superhero guys with their padded muscle suits. There are the sensitive, ultra sexy crazed guys. There are romance novel cover models.

But no one like Cary...he was even hot in To Catch a Thief. He'd been starring on the silver screen for 30 years by then. Gene Kelly only performed in retrospectives. The cowboy men were relegated to reruns. If they made appearances in public, they looked old and long past the get along little dogie rustlers bad guys.

There just aren't any good "men" hanging around. In my opinion.

Look at George  Clooney. He's small and a good actor, but he's not Cary Grant. The super heroes, well, there's Chris Hemsworth, who is definitely worthy of plenty of looks, muscles and Thor and all, but, well, I don't dream about him, though there are some I know who do.

Even Hugh Jackman is getting less beautiful to me.

Perhaps it is the roles these guys play that make them unattractive. Druggies. Drunks. Washed out something or others who give up trying to be good guys and are content with stopping even trying to be desirable. 

Now, I don't want to say negative things about the current actors. They make tons more money than the guys I thought were so handsome. They play super heroes well and are endearing, then they play washed up drunks or prisoners or mediocre individuals that I just can't care for.

It's me.

I want heroic, warm-hearted, lovers who only let a kiss last 8 seconds. I want the looks and the hot bodies that never get shown, except if they are Tarzan. 

Zac Efron shows his bod every chance he gets. He's a baby! I'd feel icky mentally getting into him. Like he was my son or something.

That's kind of perverted, for an old lady to even consider falling in love with a youngster, someone young enough to have sprung from my very loins. Sick, right?

So, while I bemoan the fact that today's movie stars don't excite me or thrill me or make me want to go home with them, I feel more sympathy for the women who are stuck with them.

Yes. There are undoubtedly those who deck the screens who are just as worthy of adulation to today's crop of ladies as there were for me and mine.

They just don't do it for me at all.

But then, I am old as dirt. And all the good guys are long dead.

Johnny Angel

https://youtu.be/wwIYSofgpY0

If you can listen to Shelley Fabares sing this song without vomitting, you're fortunate.

Oh, how times have changed from 1962 when this sweet teen queen sang her heart out on the Donna Reed Show!

Johnny Angel...evidently the boy of her dreams. He doesn't even know she exists, yet she is willing to forego dates with other fellas as she sits and waits for this Johnny guy to call her up. But, she's already said that he doesn't know she's alive.

Here's Mary Reed, off to college, popular as all get out with perfect teen hair of the time, terrific slim body, sparkling light eyes and soft voice, potentially wasting her life waiting for this Angel character. Totally unbelievable, but at the time, AT THE TIME, we fell for it.

And probably many impressionable young ladies thought it was a great idea.

Listen to the song. Note the look on her face, as this was taken directly from the Donna Reed Show. She's besotted.

But, here's the kicker: back in the 60s, Shelley was one of many teenaged actors who had recording contracts. The thinking must have been, if the kid actors are alive, they must have good voices and we, the studios, can make money off them in yet another way, as if fan clubs and teen magazines weren't enough.

The handsome guys like Fabian and Tab Hunter and Frankie Avalon got movies to go with their voices. I have to blame Elvis for that, but when you look at the crap movies they were in, well, it just screams exploitation to me. 

I wonder if they made money for themselves from these flicks and songs.

And who went to these movies to see these young studs in bathing suits? Teenage girls, of course.

Now, here's Shelley. She's no Annette who actually could act and dance and sing and had a long run on the big and small screen. But she was pretty and popular and looked great giving beauty advice in teen magazines. Her career wasn't as flash as Annette's, but she did go on to star in Coach, years later, so she had staying power of a sort.

These young singer/actors were exploited to the max. Their childhoods were strange and they probably never saw 1/10 of the money they earned. Contracts and greedy managers and parents.

Now, in a very odd thing, the young actor who played her brother on the Donna Reed Show, Paul Petersen, founded a group of child actors that went after the legal rights these kids had. From the youngest ones to the teens. He must have gotten screwed royally as a kid. He, too, had a limited singing career, but he didn't have the longevity of most of the teen heart throb types.

I will try to look into this further. I saw that Shelley did indeed address the Johnny Angel song lyrics later in life. Gives me something to pursue later today.

"I'm in heaven, I get carried away...." Sometimes.

The Two Loves of Emiko

 If you look at  Godzilla as a strange love story, which I suddenly now do, I find the character Emiko to be wonderfully intense and pathetically 1954 female, simultaneously.

Emmi is the daughter of the noted paleontologist who gives Gojira its name. We say Godzilla because it rolls over the tongue easier than Gojira, but the Japanese have trouble pronouncing Ls. So, Godzilla it is.

Her father wants Godzilla to be studied. The rest of Japan wants the monster destroyed.

Emiko is certainly upset over the monster destroying her country and people. She is in love with Ogata, but engaged since youth to the imminent one-eyed Dr. Serizawa. The good doctor is older, rather good looking, but she views him as an older brother, not a lover. She has one she found herself. Gotta look up his name, too.

Anyway, when Emiko goes to visit Serizawa to tell him that she loves another, she doesn't get to tell him that because he decides to share with her his horrible secret experiment. He shows her tanks of living fish which he then kills by dropping in some chemical that destroys the oxygen in the fish tank and kills the fish. Their flesh disintegrates. They die.

He forces her to promise not to tell anyone about this. She cries at the sight of the dissolving fish flesh, but agrees to keep the secret.

Meanwhile, the boyfriend is busy trying to figure out a way to kill off the monster, even if it pisses off Emmi's dad.

Godzilla rampages through Tokyo. People die. The army comes up with some lameass way to kill it by running all the electricity through the above ground grid. Surely the gigantic monster will die from electrocution when it touches the wires.

It doesn't.

The giant lizard continues to rampage and destroy  Tokyo. The losses are tragic.

So Emmi decides she has to tell her boyfriend about her fiance's discovery. The boyfriend Ogata immediately goes to see Serizawa and begs him to unleash the weapon to save mankind. They fight then apologize for hurting each other.

Reluctantly, the doctor agrees, but says he must take the device containing the oxygen destroyer to the bottom of Tokyo Bay. The boyfriend says he has to go with him as Serizawa is inexperienced at diving. I didn't know the boyfriend was, either, but evidently that was lost in the translation.

So, Emmi and her father and reporters and naval people set out to the bay with the destroyer device. The two men get suited up in old diving suits and down they go. Emmi actually holds Serizawa's air hose and feeds it down as he goes under while her brother holds the boyfriend's air hose. The paleontologist sulks and worries while the reporters...report.

Underwater shots.

They get to see Godzilla moving around. Godzilla sort of looks in their direction. Serizawa tugs on the boyfriend's rope and he gets pulled up to the waiting ship while Serizawa unleashes the weapon and the water foams and bubbles and Godzilla struggles a little.

Serizawa, doing his best to remain calm, wishes the two lovers all the best and cuts his air supply.

Emiko calls out to him. Everybody wants him to surface, but he is gone.

Emmi cries. The boyfriend tells her Serizawa's last words, wishing them happiness.

All in all, the boyfriend is okay, he tries to prevent Serizawa from offing himself. He loves Emmi.

The father is okay. He wants to further knowledge of the monster to prevent more from coming to destroy the world. 

Serizawa is a bloody hero. He deserves to live, but, well, without his fiancee, his life will pretty much suck.

So then we have poor heartbroken Emiko. Brave, promise breaking Emiko who saves Japan. She cries. In the end, she is forgotten, while the name Serizawa lives on to the latest Godzilla, King of Monsters movie where his  nephew follows in his uncle's footsteps and commits suicide to save the world, or in this case, save Godzilla.

Odd turn about of events, but works for me.

Thanks for the heroes who exist in movies!