Dogora (1964)

[edgaguirus]

You are correct. It's a little too convenient of a death, but it works for the plot.

[Stevo_1985]

Finally got my hands on this one and gave it a watch!

I was a bit disappointed. Dogora itself I thought was pretty cool and Toho did a fine job bringing him to life. I thought the effects were very well done as well.. the bad IMO was the entire gangster side plot that seemed to hardly tie into the film but a completely different film. It was like someone hacked up 2 totally different films from different genres and mashed them together which is ashame as i really like this particular set of actors.

[Mr_Goji_and_Watch]

It's alright. The cast is decent, and Wakabayashi steals the show, but there's nothing really done with them. Dogora looks great, and most of the effects are well done. There's some similarities with Shin Godzilla like some of the cinematography and the whole "the industry got together to mass produce the monsters weakness" thing.

[Tohosaurus]

I like how they've taken a conventional idea (alien monster comes to Earth) but somehow made it unique. It's very different from something like The X from Outer Space.

[tngjstn]

Dogora is a strange one for me. It was one of the first non-Godzilla Toho films I saw, and I wasn't really impressed with it. I agree with the consensus that the diamond heist plot outweighs the sci-fi action, and it really shows that Honda was not invested in making this film. However the titular monster's design, as well as the sounds it makes were very otherworldly and imposing.

The human cast is mostly lackluster, with the exception of Robert Dunham as the diamond broker Mark Jackson, and future Bond actress Akiko Wakabayashi, who debuted her long flowing black hair which she was well known for. Despite her paper-thin acting in this film, she made up for it in Three-Headed Monster later that year.

Me personally, the film ranks as one of the lowest points of the classic Showa series, barely passing Raids Again.

[Grievous]

Kaiju film Meets Cops & Robbers...

And...I personally don't think it works.

I mean its not horrible or anything...I just don't get it.

[The Killer Meteor]

Is that Robert Dunham's voice in the English dub?

[Legion1979]

I watched this for the first time in a while last weekend. I enjoyed it. It's was definitely bizarre and a lot of things didn't work about it, but I loved how odd and experimental it was, especially compared to the Godzilla movies on either side of it.

It's become far more interesting for me to revist Toho non-Godzilla films (I honestly hate that term, as it has the implication that the Godzilla films should be elevated above the other stuff) than to rewarch a film like Ghidrah or MZ for the millionth time. Movies like this one, Atragon, H-Man and Matango deserve the kind of love and discussion the more high profile Godzilla movies get.

[Terasawa]

Is that Robert Dunham's voice in the English dub?

No. Dogora was dubbed in Hong Kong by Ted Thomas' group and Dunham did all his dubbing work in Tokyo for Bill Ross. Dunham's dubbed voice in Dogora seems to be that of Nick Kendall, a Radio Hong Kong DJ (like Ted Thomas and several others). Kendall and Thomas covered the Beatles' arrival in Hong Kong in 1964, which is preserved at the RTHK Memory page; Kendall begins speaking around 3:15.