Dogora

1964 film by Ishirō Honda
the 2004 French film

Desperate for a successful heist, the gangsters track Jackson and Komai, assuming the former hid the real diamonds in a safe deposit box. Hamako retrieves the box, but later learns it also contained synthetic diamonds. The gangsters leave Jackson and Komai to die bound to dynamite, but the two manage to escape. Dogora continues its attacks, but the military use the artificial venom to quickly eat away at the creature. The gangsters and police clash at the beach, with the former crushed by a crystalline boulder. Soon, the venom successfully kills Dogora and Munakata leaves for the U. N. to discuss the potential of the Dogora incident with the world.

After the success of Gorath in 1962, Toho immediately had ideas of producing a movie with a space monster. Written by Jojiro Okami, the movie would have followed the futuristic settings of his later two films: Battle in Outer Space (1959) and Gorath (1962). It also contains an ongoing theme of his work: humanity uniting on a global scale to address a threat, which after aliens and a rogue star is now monsters. In terms of the production crew, the story treatment was set to be turned into a full script by Shinichi Sekizawa while Ishiro Honda would direct and Eiji Tsuburaya would handle the special effects. However, the concept languished at Toho for some time after the initial pitch in 1962. It was dusted off, though, in 1964 and renamed to "Earth's Martial Law" (地球戒厳令 Chikyu Kaigenrei). This title didn't last long, though, as another draft was submitted with the name "Space Monster" (宇宙大怪獣 Uchu Daikaiju), dropping the unique "Mons" name of the original concept. During this process the project went through a heavy revision by Shinichi Sekizawa. Gone was the futuristic setting that had been a stable of Okami's other films. Instead it was set in modern times with elements that would be relatable to audiences. For example, the initial attack on the space station and rocket planes was replaced by a short sequence of the creature destroying a modern television satellite. The global angle was also downplayed, talked about but the story always stays in Japan. A jewel heist concept was also added, which became the side story to the movie. Finally the Space Mons were adapted into a monster called Dogora, of which other alterations occurred. The two still shared an appetite for carbon, like diamonds, but instead of always being invisible throughout the film the Dogora do eventually take an on screen, squid like appearance. A weakness to venom for the monsters was also added, that would be used in the climax. The concept went through more drafts, and had its title eventually changed to "Giant Space Monster Dogora" before being released in 1964.

During an interview, actor Robert Dunham projects that filming for the movie lasted about six to eight weeks. Mentioned during an interview with actor Robert Dunham, Toho was very excited about the Mark Jackson character in the movie. In fact, they envisioned making a series of films featuring the character. They had such faith in the idea that they sent the actor, Robert Dunham, to Hollywood to both negotiate a distribution deal for the movie Dogora and kindle interest in a series on the character. Unfortunately, Dunham accounts how he was given a lowball offer for Dogora while the prospect of more movies on Mark Jackson was dashed when it was noted that he wasn't a name actor and it was hard to gauge his performance with the dubbing. He believes this is why Nick Adams, who was known in the States, was picked for later movies like Frankenstein vs. Baragon (1965).

The film is unusual for Toho's giant monster series in that the creature is non anthropomorphic and not portrayed by an actor in a costume. The design for Dogora came from a 3D illustration by Shigeru Komatsuzaki for the Shogakukan publication Weekly Shonen Saturday. The monster's design used protozoa for reference. The process of creating Dogora's onscreen prop was very time consuming and characterized by trial and error in every step, from searching for the correct material to determining the method in which to shoot it. After seeing the design for Dogora, Keizo Murase thought about using soft vinyl, a material which had recently become available on the market. Murase visited a factory in Chiba and purchased a soft vinyl mold for 200 thousand yen. While the mold was rather expensive, special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya agreed with Murase's decision to use soft vinyl. Next, Kanji Yagi created a 1 shaku clay mold for Dogora and brought it to the aforementioned factory where it was used to create a soft vinyl miniature for Dogora. However, there was concern that attempting to operate the prop through the normal method of suspending it in the air with piano wire could risk breaking it. Murase came up with the method of placing the prop in a tank of water and manipulating it with fishing line. When Murase showed this to Tsuburaya, he was very pleased that they had finally found a successful method to manipulate the prop. When shooting began, the Dogora prop was placed in the tank and made to "dance" through the water using water flow from a valve fixed at the bottom of the tank. This had the unintended effect of producing bubbles which became visible in the finished take. According to Teruyoshi Nakano, the water from the local Waterworks Bureau on the day of filming was white and cloudy, meaning the staff had difficulty keeping the tank transparent enough for filming and was unable to shoot very much footage of the Dogora prop. As a result, Dogora's full jellyfish like form only appears briefly in a single sequence in the finished film despite being heavily featured in marketing and promotion. Dogora's single celled form, which was the primary state the creature appeared in onscreen, was created by sandwiching liquid organic glass between plates of solid glass, which was then synthesized into live action footage. To depict Dogora's cells crystallizing, a light bulb was attached to a 15 centimeter polyvinyl chloride miniature. An electrical current was sent to the bulb through piano wire, causing it to illuminate and giving the effect of the miniature flashing and emitting light. Dogora's sound effects were created by capturing the sounds of clams using a special respiratory sound pickup microphone. These sounds were combined with other sound effects which would later be used for the Lady Guard alarm in Invasion of Astro Monster (1966) the following year and for the monsters Alien Baltan and Bullton in Ultraman.

Toho had an English language version of Dogora prepared in Hong Kong by Ted Thomas's Axis Productions. Because Robert Dunham primarily spoke Japanese for his role in the film, his voice was dubbed into English by another actor. In April 1965, Dogora played at the Toho Theatre in Honolulu, Hawaii, in Japanese with English subtitles. A newspaper ad in the Honolulu Advertiser referred to it as Space Monster Dogora. Dogora was licensed for U. S. release to American International Pictures. Its television unit, American International Television, first offered the film to television stations as Dagora, the Space Monster in the "Amazing '66" syndication package starting in 1965. It would later be included in AITV's "SciFi 65" package. Dogora was not re dubbed for AITV's release; this version featured no on screen credits of any kind, only the new opening title. As Dagora, the Space Monster, the film was never officially issued on home video, although unlicensed copies from Video Yesteryear were produced in the 1980s and 1990s. Media Blasters released the film on DVD on July 15, 2005 under its Tokyo Shock label; audio options on the disc included the original Japanese audio with removable English subtitles and the original Toho international dub.