1963's "Atragon" ("Kaitei Gunkan" or Undersea Battleship in Japan) was among the last Toho efforts that did not involve two giant monsters duking it out in the final round. Like "Matango" the same year, it's a character driven story that depends on its human cast, reteaming Tadao Takashima and Yu Fujiki in the same comical vein as 1962's "King Kong vs. Godzilla" though a bit more serious this time. We are introduced to a lost continent like Atlantis which sunk in the Atlantic, here a Pacific equivalent called Mu, ruled by an imperious Empress (Tetsuko Kobatashi) who announces world domination using heat generated from the earth's core to cause massive devastation through earthquakes. Apart from the seeming impossibility of locating such a world they also boast of a fabled protector, the sea serpent Manda (later seen in "Destroy All Monsters"), who can twist around enemies like a snake, its claws too puny for any real grasp but hungry for imprisoned captives (more along the lines of 1960's "Reptilicus"). Earth's only hope is to find the long thought dead Hachiro Jinguji (Jun Tazaki), former commander of Japan's Imperial Forces, still seeking to restore its dignity following the period where they had abolished war. This Captain Nemo-type was intended for the nation's most acclaimed actor, Toshiro Mifune, later to costar with Christopher Lee in Steven Spielberg's 1941, but a prior commitment prevented him from accepting, leaving the part available for Tazaki, square jawed veteran of many a military general fighting monsters in the Toho universe, clearly relishing this change of pace as for once he's granted a pretty daughter (Yoko Fujiyama) who last saw her father at the age of 3. It is her kidnapping at the hand of Mu agent Kenji Sahara that finally convinces Jinguji to use his newly finished battleship Atragon against the common enemy, capable not only of flying through the air but also the usual tasks required from an underwater submarine, with attachments that allow it to burrow beneath the earth, and a freeze ray to incapacitate other threats. So overwhelming in fact is its power when finally in use that it makes one wonder why secret agents of Mu even tried to seek out the elusive captain, emerging from the sea in diving costumes that resemble the Gill Man (slightly less conspicuous than the creatures on display in Toei's 1966 "Terror Beneath the Sea"). A similar lost world is later depicted in "Godzilla vs. Megalon," using the same costumes for the more sparse residents of Seatopia.
Review of Atragon
