Invasion of Astro-Monster

American TV and film actor Nick Adams stars as Glenn, an astronaut sent to investigate the mysterious Planet X together with intrepid Japanese colleague Fuji (Takarada Akira). There they encounter the Xiliens, humanoid aliens led by the impassive, if seemingly well-meaning Controller (Tsuchiya Yoshio). They tell the astronauts they need Earthling assistance to defeat the three-headed monster King Ghidorah, who has left their planet a wasteland and forced the Xiliens to live underground. The Controller offers the deal: A cure for cancer in exchange for Godzilla and the winged monster Rodan, whose presence, the Xiliens hope, will keep Ghidorah under control. 

Once the deal is concluded, the Xiliens raise the monsters from their resting places and take them to Planet X in their flying saucers, accompanied by Glenn, Fuji and a senior scientist (Sakurai Jun). There Glenn and Fuji encounter two Xilien women who could be twins to Namikawa (Mizuno Kumi), a dodgy businesswoman. 

Though sweet on Glenn, she has hoodwinked a nerdy inventor (Kubo Akira) in love with Fuji’s sister (Sawai Keiko). Meanwhile, Godzilla and Rodan do their monsterly duty by battling Ghidorah into submission. 

Then comes the double cross: The Xiliens tell their surprised benefactors that they intend to make the Earth a colony and Earthlings slaves. How can mere human technology match what the Xiliens throw at them, beginning with three alien-controlled monsters? 

By this time, more than a decade after the original, darkly serious Godzilla (Gojira, 1954) the Godzilla series was pitched as family entertainment, with Godzilla and the other monsters occasionally behaving like silly cartoon characters to amuse the kids in the audience. 

In one scene, a triumphant Godzilla jumps up and performs a wacky mid-air pose modeled on the popular manga character Osomatsukun. The film has its memorably adult moments, though, including Mizuno Kumi’s turn as an Xilien spy who falls for a human, very blonde astronaut. 

As she so often does in her Toho SF films, Mizuno makes a distinctive, sexy impact, even when she is in dead-eyed alien mode and particularly when she is enjoying a romantic interlude with Adams, the sort of alien contact most Japanese actresses of the day avoided. 

It’s also interesting to see Nick Adams, once a big television star in the US for his Western series The Rebel (1959-1961), giving his all in a Japanese monster film, after publically pledging that he would never work abroad. Though his lines are dubbed, his performance is anything but phoned in.