Trailer
Plot summary
A rescue party finds four sailors alive after a typhoon drives their ship aground off Infant Island, the atomic test site of Rolisica. None of the men show radiation sickness, which the sailors credit to juice the islanders gave them. Reporter Fukuda and photographer Hanamura push into the hospital where the survivors are examined. The Rolisican Embassy then co-sponsors a joint expedition to the island, led by businessman Clark Nelson, with radiation specialist Dr. Harada, the linguist Chujo and a stowaway Fukuda. Chujo traces an island hieroglyph, a radiant cross-shaped star, to the name Mothra. The team finds mutated jungle, a fleeing native tribe and two women only twelve inches tall, the Shobijin, who pull Chujo free of a plant that tries to eat him and ask that their island be spared further atomic tests.
Cast
- Akihiro Tayamaas Shinji Chûjô
- Obel Wyattas Dr. Roff
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Mothra (1961)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- While filming an alternate ending, the dummy of villain Nelson that was to be plunged into a volcano was found by locals who believed it was a suicide; authorities retrieved the "body" and Honda and his crew were "roundly scolded".
- The Peanuts filmed their scenes separately from the main cast, mostly in front of a blue screen and oversized sets; their scenes were later composited into the film and they never interacted with the cast.
- Producer Tanaka coined "Mothra" by combining the Japanese word for moth, mosu, with the suffix "ra" from Godzilla's Japanese name Gojira; the "ra" ending then became a common way to name monsters, including Gamera and King Ghidorah.
- The giant suit built for the caterpillar Mothra was the largest monster suit Toho had ever produced: it was built at 1/25th scale, was seven meters long and needed five to six actors inside to move it.
- Special effects director Tsuburaya asked for four water tanks to create the raging waters that break the dam; his chief assistant art director instead built 12 tanks, which held 4,320 gallons of water.
- The lyrics for the Mothra theme were written in Japanese and then translated into Indonesian at Tokyo University by an Indonesian exchange student.
- According to Toshio Okada, Hayao Miyazaki saw Mothra during its initial release and drew inspiration from it when creating the Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga series.
