An entity known as "Misster K" once published a series of postcards featuring reproductions of the movie posters for the Spanish-language versions of famous and not-so-famous movies. I found other examples of Misster K cards for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and, oddly, Kramer vs. Kramer. I guess there's a market for everything. (It's also possible that Misster K also went by the simpler Mr. K at some point; there are movie poster reproductions under that name, too.)
Anyway, this nifty postcard features a reproduction of the poster for El Mundo Bajo el Terror, which is the Spanish-language version of the 1965 Japanese film Daikaijû Gamera. In the United States, it was known as either Gamera or Gamera, the Giant Monster. It became a staple of Saturday afternoon monster matinees on 1970s television and later gained a different kind of cult status when it was one of the Gamera films featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
The Spanish title translates to "The World Under Terror," which could be descriptive of a lot of things and doesn't necessarily convey that a turtle the size of Godzilla is wreaking havoc. Something like El Monstruo Tortuga Gigante might have been more evocative. The German title of the film, meanwhile, translates roughly to "Gamera — Frankenstein's Monster from the Ice." Apparently the Germans liked to unfairly blame the fictional Dr. Victor Frankenstein for a lot of the world's fictional horrors. This might be related to the fact that Toho, the studio that brought us Godzilla & friends, had an atomic, super-sized version of Frankenstein's monster in some of its films.
I did some digging but unfortunately couldn't find the name of the artist who did this Gamera poster back in the day.
Other posts that mention Gamera
(sometimes only in passing)
- "The Mermaid of Legend and of Art" (The Art Journal, 1880)
- 1962 Armstrong advertisement: Teddy and Turtle on the floor
- Great links: Which movies gave you the biggest fright?
- Classified ads from 1974 issue of The Monster Times
Link to The Shrine of Gamera
And, finally...
No comments:
Post a Comment