1961 film directed by Ishirō Honda
 is a 1961 Japanese "kaiju" film directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. Produced and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd, it is the first film in the "Mothra" franchise. The film stars Frankie Sakai, Hiroshi Koizumi, Kyōko Kagawa, Jerry Ito, and The Peanuts. In the film, an expedition to an irradiated island brings civilization in contact with a primitive native culture. When one sensationalist entrepreneur abducts two doll-sized priestesses for exploitation, their ancient deity, known as Mothra, arises in retaliation.
In 1960, producer Tomoyuki Tanaka hired Shin'ichirō Nakamura to write an original story for a new "kaiju" film. Co-written with Takehiko Fukunaga, and Yoshie Hotta, "The Glowing Fairies and Mothra" was serialized in a magazine in January 1961. Screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa later adapted the story into a screenplay, patterning his version after "King Kong" (1933) and "Godzilla" (1954).
"Mothra" was theatrically released in Japan on July 30, 1961. An edited, English dubbed version was released theatrically in the United States on May 10, 1962, by Columbia Pictures. The titular monster, Mothra, would become Toho's second most popular "kaiju" character after Godzilla, appearing in eleven "Godzilla" films and her own trilogy in the 1990s.
Plot.
In waters off Infant Island, a presumed uninhabited site for Rolisican atomic tests, the "Daini-Gen'you-Maru" is caught and run aground in the turbulence of a typhoon. A rescue party following the storm finds four sailors alive and strangely unafflicted with radiation sickness, which they attribute to the juice provided them by island natives. The story is broken by tenacious reporter Zenichiro Fukuda and photographer Michi Hanamura, who infiltrate the hospital examining the survivors.
The Rolisican Embassy responds by co-sponsoring a joint Japanese–Rolisican scientific expedition to Infant Island, led by capitalist Clark Nelson. Also on the expedition are radiation specialist Dr. Harada, linguist/anthropologist Shin'ichi Chūjō, and stowaway reporter Fukuda. Chūjō has studied the cultures of islands in the area and ascertained that one of the key hieroglyphs in their written language, a radiant cross-shaped star, translates as "Mothra". There the team discover a vast jungle of mutated flora, a fleeing native tribe, and two young women only twelve inches tall, who save Chujo from being eaten by a vampire plant. The "Shobijin" (small beauties), as Fukuda dubs them, wish their island to be spared further atomic testing. Acknowledging this message, the team returns and conceals these events from the public.
Nelson, however, returns to the island with a crew of henchmen and abducts the girls, gunning down several natives who try to save them. While Nelson profits off a "Secret Fairies Show" in Tokyo featuring the girls singing, both they and the island natives beseech their god Mothra, a giant egg, for help. Fukuda, Hanamura, and Chūjō communicate with the young women via telepathy; they express conviction that Mothra will come to their aid and warn that "good people are sure to be hurt". Fukuda's newspaper has accused Nelson of holding the girls against their will; Nelson denies the charge and files a libel suit against the paper. Meanwhile, the island egg hatches to reveal Mothra as a giant caterpillar, who begins swimming the Pacific Ocean toward Japan. Mothra destroys a cruise ship and survives a napalm attack on a beeline path for Tokyo. The Rolisican Embassy, however, defends Nelson's property rights over the girls, ignoring any connection to the monster.
Mothra arrives at the Japanese mainland, impervious to the barrage of weaponry directed at it, and builds a cocoon in the ruins of Tokyo Tower. Public feeling turns against Nelson, and he is ordered to release the girls. He flees incognito to Rolisica with the Shobijin concealed in a suitcase, where Mothra, newly hatched in an imago form, resumes her search. Police scour New Kirk City for Nelson as Mothra lays waste to the metropolis. Nelson attempts to flee the city, but while driving through the streets he is recognized by civilians, and killed in the resultant shootout with police. The girls are assigned to Chūjō's care. Church bells begin to ring, and sunlight illuminates the cross atop the steeple with radiant beams, reminding Chūjō and Hanamura of Mothra's unique symbol and of the girls' voices. At Chūjō's suggestion, numerous church bells are rung simultaneously in order to attract Mothra to an airport runway, on which Mothra's symbol has been painted. The girls are returned, and Mothra flies back to Infant Island.
Cast.
 ;templatestyles src="Div col/styles.css"/ ;* Frankie Sakai as Zen'ichirō Fukuda
Themes.
Authors Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski note that Honda treats the film's nuclear anxiety and proxy relationship between America and Japan differently. They note that Rolisica (an amalgam of Russia and America) is portrayed as a "pushy capitalist superpower" that is more concerned with Nelson's money, allowing his crimes in Japan to go unpunished. They also note that Rolisica's atomic ray gun seems to violate Japan's three non-nuclear principles. They iterate that Honda's ideal of understanding and cooperation is achieved through religion, even noting the religious-like iconography of Infant Island. However, they note that the film's political satire "never gets too serious."
Ryfle notes that some writers compared Rolisica's bombing of Infant Island to America's bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Nelson's kidnapping of the Shobijin to America's occupation and forced Westernization of Japan. Ryfle expresses that the film paints a bad portrait of Rolisica and by extension, the United States, noting that Rolisica exploits natives for atomic testing and commercial gain (via Nelson), and Nelson's press coverage restriction on the expedition is an attempt of covering up Rolisica's involvement in the bombing of Infant Island.
Production.
During the summer of 1960, producer Tomoyuki Tanaka hired Shin'ichirō Nakamura to write an original story for a "kaiju" film. Nakamura collaborated with Takehiko Fukunaga and Zenei Hotta (sometimes credited as Yoshie Hotta), with each writer writing one part of the story. The story, "The Glowing Fairies and Mothra", was then serialized in Weekly Asahi Extra magazine in January 1961. Tanaka contacted Sho Watanabe about casting The Peanuts in the film. Watanabe gave the twins permission to participate in the film due to being impressed with the "uniqueness" of the idea.
However, Toho had difficulty with scheduling the twins to shoot their scenes due to contractual obligations with Watanabe Productions. For the film, Honda wanted a more Disney-inspired approach, stating, "We wanted to do something that was new, for the whole family, like a Disney or Hollywood type of picture." Tanaka created the name "Mothra" by combining the Japanese word for "moth" (mosu) and the suffix "ra", taken from Godzilla's Japanese name "Gojira". Adding the suffix "ra" would become a common practice for naming monsters, not just in Toho productions (e.g. King Ghidorah, Ebirah, Hedorah), but in non-Toho Japanese productions, e.g. Gamera.
Writing.
Prior to the original story being written, Toho held story meetings to discuss ideas. One of the ideas included to have Mothra emit a ray beam. While writing the original story "The Glowing Fairies and Mothra", Nakamura chose a giant moth because he wanted a creature that underwent a transformation. Producer Tanaka later confirmed that the female perspective for the film was suggested by another producer during the early planning stages. This inspired Tanaka to come up with the idea for the Shobijin and their roles as guardian spirits of a South Seas island. The character Zen'ichirō Fukuda was named after the writers of the original story.
In the original story, Fukuda is not on the initial expedition and ventures to Infant Island alone later. The natives reveal to Fukuda the legend of Infant Island, with the mythology behind Infant Island including Christian-like overtones which feature two gods (Ajima, the God of Eternal Night and Ajiko, the Goddess of Daylight) conceiving a giant glowing egg, smaller eggs, and a pair of humans who reproduce and repopulate the island. The smaller eggs hatch caterpillars which turn into moths and fly away, which enrages Ajima to condemn all living things to death and commits suicide by tearing himself into four pieces. Heartbroken, Ajiko also commits suicide by also tearing herself into four pieces, which turn into four small, immortal fairies dedicated to serving Mothra of the giant glowing egg.
Fukuda remains on the island and is later awakened by Nelson's gunfire, witnessing Nelson kidnapping the Shobijin and the natives ritual. Michiko was originally written as Chujo's assistant and the leader of a protest group that unsuccessfully pressures Nelson to release the Shobijin. The original story featured political parallels to a then controversial ratification of a security treaty between Japan and the United States; however, Sekizawa omitted the political backdrop in his version. The original story featured the Rolisican ambassador sending a fleet to protect Nelson and his property from Mothra.
While adapting the story for the film, screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa picked his favorite aspects of the story and ignored everything else. Sekizawa patterned his script after the original "King Kong" and "Godzilla" films. Sekizawa felt that too much detail would confuse audiences and that it was more important to keep audiences entertained, stating, "My philosophy is to just add enough to tell the story and keep it moving along." Honda later admitted that the fantasy elements were Sekizawa's ideas while Honda was interested in the anti-nuclear themes. Originally, Hotta wanted to include an anti-discrimination message based on a person's size.
The original story featured four fairies. Sekizawa felt four was unnecessary and trimmed the members to two, feeling that two fairies was manageable. The original story had the Shobijin stand at 60 centimeters but Sekizawa felt the size was too big and would create difficulties when building the sets. One of the original ideas had one of the Shobijin fall in love with one of the leads; however, Sekizawa dropped this idea because he felt it would have required many twists and turns and would have taken time away from Mothra. Originally, Mothra was to cocoon herself on the National Diet Building but Sekizawa felt it wasn't "spectacular enough" and changed the setting to Tokyo Tower.
It was Sekizawa's decision to refer to the twins as "Shobijin" (small beauties), feeling that "small fairies from Infant Island" was too long to write. Sekizawa coined the name "Infant Island" simply because it "sounded good". In the United States, several promotional materials referred to the Shobijin as "Ailenas", despite Japanese publications and materials not using the term. Honda explained that the name originated from the original story that featured a fairy named "Ailena". The name reached the publicity department for overseas markets. Honda had originally written a scene that showed an area of the island bombed by the atomic bomb, but it was not filmed due to budget concerns.
Music.
The score was composed by Yūji Koseki. Akira Ifukube was originally given the offer to compose the film but declined, feeling he wasn't confident enough to create music for The Peanuts. The lyrics for the Mothra theme were written in Japanese and translated into Indonesian at Tokyo University by an Indonesian exchange student. The track "The Girls of Infant Island" was released as a single in 1961 while the track "Song of Mothra" was released as a single in 1978. The track "Daughters of Infant Island" was co-written by the film's assistant director Koji Kajita.
Special effects.
The film's special effects were directed by Eiji Tsuburaya. The Peanuts filmed their scenes separately from the main cast. They filmed most of their scenes in front of a blue screen and oversized sets. Their scenes were later composited into the film. The Peanuts never interacted with the cast. Instead, dolls were used for the actors to interact with while a tape recorder with the Peanuts's lines was played back. New Kirk City was designed after Manhattan, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Honda originally intended to film second unit photography in Los Angeles but due to the budget inflating because of the New Kirk City scenes, Honda had to use library footage of L.A. freeways and beach fronts instead.
Honda also intended to show how the inhabitants of Infant Island survived a nuclear blast but budget cost forced him to use a bland cave instead. Honda wanted to create a type of mold for the island and asked the art department to create it but this idea was dropped due to budget costs. The Infant Island natives were portrayed by Japanese actors in dark makeup. The live-action Dam footage was filmed in Kurobe Dam. During a