RETURN OF KAIJU DAY: Dogora (1964)

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Giant Space Monster Dogora, directed by Ishiro Honda with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya, is a kaiju movie that I would have hated as a child. It’s mostly a cops and robbers movies about diamonds, then it’s all about scientists. Dogora only randomly shows up and it’s a floating jellyfish that seems like one of the Lovecraft Elder Gods. As an adult, the strange look of this kaiju is exactly why I enjoyed this movie.

When several TV satellites launched by the Electric Wave Laboratory go missing, it’s discovered that they have collided with unidentified protoplasmic cells. While that’s happening, Inspector Komai (Yosuke Natsuki) is looking for whoever is stealing diamonds all over the world, which leads him to a crystallographer by the name of Dr. Munakata (Nobuo Nakamura).

Meanwhile, Mark Jackson (Robert Dunham) is dealing with diamond smugglers as an undercover agent of the World Diamond Insurance Association. They all soon learn that the diamonds — and other sources of carbon — are being eaten by Dogora, which is the form that the cells have taken. And you’ll never guess what defeats the creature. Artificial wasp venom.

Dogora is only in this movie other than a still at the beginning of Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters, but it has shown up in several video games, including Godzilla: Monster of Monsters, Godzilla: Heart-Pounding Monster Island!!, Godzilla: Trading Battle and Godzilla Generations.

This was syndicated by American-International Pictures as part of two of its TV packages, Amazing 66 and Sci-Fi 65. In their prints, all of the cast and credits removed, as there’s a jump cut from the main title to the first scene.

Take a look at the movies in these packages!

Amazing 66

Sci-Fi 65