Thread by @ComradeArthur

Dogora The Space Monster (1964)
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(sooner or later...)

Dogora is one for the "out-there" Japanese SF movies.
Not as crazy as H-Man or Matango... but it's something special.

And a unique Kaiju as well.

TohoScope, bitches!
Nice godizilla-ish music.
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Some satellite monitoring people chatting to each other with satellite monitoring lingo.

The satellite is over Japan where they've been having satellite issues lately.
It's always Japan!
----
"What is that, space fireflies?"

Contact lost.
But we know why. Some SPACE AMOEBA just ate the satellite!

There are 6 or 7 of the in a orbiting Earth is a little cluster.

Could be trouble!

The biggest Amoeba isn't all that big. Maybe the size of truck or small house.

Tokyo. Night.
Cute girl in hot car parked outside a closed jewelry store.
Suspicious cops roust her.
"What are you doing here?"
"Oh, I'm just a hooker" (paraphrase)

meanwhile, on her car radio, you hear a news report on her radio about a TV satellite that blew up over Japan...

Since she's just a hooker, the cops move on.
They they encounter a man floating sideways down the street
Floating.

He's holding a briefcase, tightly.
He's pretty "tight" as well.
The cops approach, he drops to the ground.
He's too drunk to explain what's going on.

Meanwhile, the girl uses a small radio to tell the crooks in the jewelry store that the cops have moved on.
The crooks are working on a big safe with torches.

While the crooks work on the safe, a space amoeba (cow sized) starts eating its way into the store.
The crooks start floating!

The Amoeba politely floats the crooks out of the store and starts to melt its way into the vault.
The crooks beat feet!

4 of the crooks bail into a car and drive off.
The two cops returns and just start BLAZING AWAY with the their revolvers!
Note that the only thing the cops saw was 4 guys running and entering a car.
OPEN FIRE!!

The crooks get away.
-----
Old man in a room by himself fills a plate with diamonds. Pokes at them.
He here's a noise outside. discovers a police detective spying on him.

Detective says he was following somebody to this house.
Old man invites him in.

Old man: Crap! My plate full of diamonds is missing!

Detective investigates. Sees shoes underneath a curtain!
Pulls gun, whips curtain aside... just shoes.
----
There's a GAIJIN hiding behind a sofa!!
Detective approaches
The white man easily disarms him, karate chops him and leaves after apologizing to the old man (Dr. Munakata)

BTW, this is 1964. Due to the influence of James Bond movies and knockoffs of James Bond - *every* movie had to have karate chops.

As the Gaijin sneaks away, the SAME LADY that was outside the jewelry store drives up and asks him to get in the car. he declines and the safe-cracker crook pulls a gun and makes him get in. They drive off.

Detective wakes up, flirts with Munataka's secretary.
Reveals he was following the gaijin, Mark Jackson, because he thought he had something to do with the recent outbreak of diamond thefts all over the world.

The crooks are also discussing the problem. They know about the thefts and are pissed because they only pulled off one of them. Somebody is muscling on their racket!

Jackson is led into the thieves den at gunpoint.
He says he's a diamond broker and can help them (with what?)
Crooks think he took their diamonds from the previous night.
Search him and they find Munataka's diamonds.

Munataka at police hq. They show in the pictures from the jewelry store. The vault was melted like it was wax!
Muntaka doesn't care about his stolen diamonds - they were synthetics that he made for research.

The crooks discover the diamonds they took off Jackson are synthetic and They Are Not Happy.

Jackson gets karate chopped.

Jackson is dragged out to a storage room.
------
Crook boss gets a message on his secret radio! (this is a SPECTRE level diamond gang!).
Gets orders to intercept a big diamond shipment coming in that night.

Jackson was faking it. he jumps the two thugs and karate chops them into oblivion before escaping.

Meanwhile, the detective gives Muntaka's secretary a ride to her home. She live next to a coal fired power plant.
Her brother rushes up to her. He was one of the satellite guys.
"do you hear that noise?"

A weird pulsing noise starts up. Brother says it's the same noise they heard when the satellite was destroyed.

A commotion at the power plant! The smoke stacks are breaking apart and drifting up into the sky!

You know the Kaiju is doing this because they're playing Kaiju Attacks music.
-------
Other stuff is sucked into weird looking clouds. Mostly the coal stacked outside the power plant.

Later, the police are asking the Dr. about that power plant events. I can't imagine WHY they'd ask him anything. Anyway, he says the strange flashes in the clouds looked like emissions from carbon.

Jackson gets back to his hotel. Searches his room and sees shoes behind a curtain! He holds his hands ready to KARATE CHOP ... and it's just shoes. The detective he chopped the previous night is pranking him. Det. was hiding in the ceiling like a ninja.

The Det. and Jackson know each other. Det asks Jackson to explain about last night but Jackson says there's no time.
------
Meanwhile. the big diamond shipment starts.

Jackson pranks the Det. with a fake gun, runs away and locks the Det in the hotel room.

The crooks prepare the rob the diamond shipment with a plan so idiotic I won't describe it. of course, it works.
-------
Jackson appears going down the same highway - breaking through a feeble roadblock.

Jackson gets into a gunfight (1 on 4) with the diamond crooks.
They hijack a coal truck and try to use it to blast Jackson off the road.
Would have worked except the coal truck drifts into the sky....

Everybody looks around baffled. Crooks leave.

Police are having a hard time with their diamond theft investigation.
There was also a diamond theft in NY - along with 50,000 tons of missing coal.

next day, Jackson is at Munataka's house. Shows him pictures from the other mysterious diamond thefts. Police show up to arrest Jackson. he says he's an insurance investigator "A Diamond G-Man."

Jackson offers to work with the cops to find diamond monsters.
They blow him off
"I don't know where you learned your Japanese, but you had a vulgar teacher."

Waaa ha ha ha!

Jackson says he was already paid so NOW the police are willing to work with him. They're cheap!

Meanwhile, the diamond thieves inspect their haul from the previous night.

ROCK CANDY! Haaa, Jackson must be having fun in Japan.

Oh, this movie so much crazier than I remember.

Another cop shows up at the Drs. house (Jackson and all the other cops are still there). he has a report from the UN. They've identified the problem as a MUTATED SPACE CELL warped by a cloud of radiation that's over Japan.
(always radiation ...)

They theorize the Kaiju eats coal for food.
"But what about the diamonds"
Munataka has a brainstorm. "Diamonds are carbon - just like coal!!"

Throbbing noises! Floating Rocks!
A dog-sized Space Amoeba invades Munataka's house and starts melting his safe!

More diamond and coal attacks all over the world (there's more than one Amoeba, remember?)
They call it Dogora because why the hell not.

Japan deploys the army.... oops, Self Defense Force around coal mines to defend them.

Everybody in the movie heads to Kyushu (lot of coal mines).
Jackson's going there, the diamonds thieves follow him because they assume the swapped the diamonds with rock candy.

Munataka hooks up with the SDF.
Radar picks up erratic signals of something moving in
Recon plane finds... BEES at 26,000 feet?
Bees?!?!?

Rocks... fairly BIG rocks ... start falling out of the sky causing mild damage to the city.
--------
some hours later.. it's night.

The diamond crooks prepare to confront Jackson at his hotel in Kyushu...
WHY THE HELL IS THIS SUBPLOT EVEN IN THE MOVIE?

Jackson gets back to his room. The detective is waiting for him. He asks Jackson about the diamonds. Jackson denies knowledge, tries to KARATE CHOP him!
Detective gives him a hip toss. Jackson gives up - he won't fight against JUDO!

Detective gives up trying to get info out of Jackson. Crawls out window and by coincidence, lands the balcony below... the hotel room where Munataka is staying.

Munataka asks the detective to help him with his Bee Investigation. Before Muntataka can explain what that's about, radio announces an incoming Kaiju.

Dogora is on the attack!

Every large caliber AA gun in the world seems to be deployed in the area.
-------
A BIG tentacle drifts down from the sky.

(Eichenwald rushes to Kyushu!)

SDF radar is now tracking Dogora.
There's a SWEET light pen being used by one of the radar techs. Didn't know they had those in 1964.
------
More tentacles descend and start flailing around.

Oh Crap.
No more space amoeba!
Dogora has grown and mutated into A GIANT JELLYFISH!!

"Open Fire!"
The AA guns blast away.
If you've ever seen a Kaiju movie you know what happens next.

Nothing.
Nothing at all (except a light show from the exploding shells)

Coal starts drifting up
Dogora: "Nom, nom, nom"

After feasting on the coal, Dogora grabs hold of a big suspension bridge and tosses it around - just to be a jerk.

Now the SDF shoots off a few big AA missiles.
Big explosions....
Dogora isn't on the radar anymore!
They blew it apart!

Unfortunately, all that did was make a few hundred or thousand small space amoeba.
They seem more dangerous than 1 big jellyfish Dogora.

yeah, it's a mess. Some Dogora's are in the middle east slurping up oil.
There's a world wide Dogora problem.

Meanwhile, the detective working with Dr. Munayana (who seems to be the only scientist in the world) has hit paydirt. He was tracking Dogora attacks near Kyushu and found an abandoned coal mine.

Dogora had nom nomed on it but the mine was full of WASPS (not bees) who counterattacked. The wasp venom crystallized chunks of Dogora - causing the rock falls from the previous day.

Munayana: Perhaps we can use this as a weapon?
-------
Toxin synthesis montage... Go!

Back to the diamond thieves (why why why?)
They decide to make a move on Jackson.
The detective shows up first. Then the crooks take them both at gunpoint.
They find a safe deposit box key and deduce the diamonds are in the box!

Two crooks go off to get the diamonds.
I have no idea who they bypass the bank security. Maybe they bribe them or something.
The boss crooks is generous
He's going to pay Jackson and the detective for the diamonds.

"Diamonds for Dynamite. Not bad, eh?"

Air raid alarm - incoming Dogora

Crooks have tied up Detective and Jackson.
One crook comes back WITHOUT the diamonds!
The other crook (the hot chick) took the diamonds and ditched him.
The thieves take off in pursuit, leaving behind some dynamite on a burning fuse.

The world's *slowest* fuse.

Detective wriggles to Jackson's suitcase and grabs his gun. holding it behind his back he fires across the room, eventually breaking the chain on Jackson's handcuffs.
yes, that really happened.

Jackson pulls the fuse from the dynamite and throws it out the window. The dynamite, of course, explodes. for no damn reason.

20 minutes until the toxin delivery.
Meanwhile, the AA guns fire for no damn reason.
1,000s of mini-dogoras (amoeba version) suck up megatons of coal.

BTW, the coal-being-sucked-up effects are pretty cool. They do *not* look like stuff is being dropped, filmed and played back in reverse.

The hot chick is heading to the coast. There's a boat waiting there the gang was going to use to escape. She plans to get their first, take the boat and vanish with the diamonds. The gang assumes this and is headed that way.
She doesn't have much of a lead!

In fact, she has no lead at all. They got there first and intercept her on the beach.

JUST before they shoot her, the cops show up. (the Detective and Jackson heard the crooks talk about their boat while they were tied up)

Gunfight on the beach! There's rocks and cliffs all over the place and the crooks take full advantage of the cover. A standoff.

Crooks start flinging dynamite and fall back.
Cops shoot the bag of dynamite. Boom!

Hot chick takes advantage of the confusion to run off with the diamonds.
Boss crook shoots her in the back.
She collapses... clutching spilled diamonds with her dying grasp.

FINALLY back to Dogura action.
SDF helicopters fly over the Doguras dropping toxin bombs via parachute.

Hey, if they made this movie today Dogura would be the hero
because it's eating fossil fuels!

Giant toxin sprayers on tracked vehicles move into the coal field. They spray toxin into the rising plumes of coal.

Toxin bombs drift down from above, spraying wasp venom.

F-86 Sabres attack.... WITH FUCKING CHEMTRAILS!!!!!

I KNEW IT ALL ALONG - CHEMTRAILS ARE TOXIN!!!!!!!

The Dogoras stop dropping out of the sky. Dying like flies. Big, rocky flies.

Back to the gunfight at the beach.

Dogora corpses start falling out of the sky.

Everybody takes cover next to handy cliffs.
When the Dogoras stop falling, the crooks make a break for it.

If you ever read a Doc Savage novel, and got to the last paragraph, you know what happens next.

<splat>

Back to the coal fields.
More toxin bombs, more chemtrails, more toxin sprayers.

Dogora... dead.
Everything is fine... except for kilotons of wasp venom sprayed in the air all over the planet. I'm sure there'll be no problem with that.

The End
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Here's pic of the jellyfish form of Dogora.

BTW, the body count of Dogora victims WORLDWIDE might have been less than TEN.

Let's roll this bad boy UP.
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