Release & marketing

David Kalat

The Japanese press noted that as the first human being killed by the H-bomb, he was Japanese, just like the only humans killed by A-bombs. Slightly over a month after the radio operator finally died, a movie opened in Japanese theaters that begins like this. A fishing boat at sea is afflicted by a mysterious and unexpected flash of light. The ship goes down. Its radio operator is the first to die.

3:21 · jump to transcript →

David Kalat

What science and mankind could learn from examining this prehistoric thing is incalculable. This is the way the elderly scientific advisor in Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was depicted. But a better point of comparison would be The Thing from Another World, which opened in Japan in the spring of 1952. In that film, there's a deadly monster threatening the human race, a military expedition trying to kill the thing, and a dissenting scientist who wants to spare the monster for study.

31:04 · jump to transcript →

We're familiar with such overlapping of image and sound now, more than 30 years after the release of this film. But in 1959, such a move was innovative and helped to define an important aspect of the new wave. One aspect of that movement was, as we've noted, the refusal to shoot films in a studio or on a soundstage, but to take the camera out into the streets and the locations themselves. Another new wave innovation was to trust the viewer to be able to look at one thing, yet hear another, and not be confused.

6:00 · jump to transcript →