So did you know there is a Filipino giant monster film that may or may not star Godzilla? Tokyo 1960 may or may not be clips from the 1954 Gojira spliced into new footage of Filipino actors. Why all the “may or may not”s? Because the film is lost forever, and we known nothing about it but a few posters. All we know was it came out in 1957. Is this the Filipino version of Raymond Burr or Cozzilla? The director is Teodorico C. Santos and it stars Tessie Quintana, Eddie Del Mar, and Zaldy Zshornack. Of course, Cirio H. Santiago produced it.
Susie Arabia is awesome
Poster found here with other cool films
2 Comments
Evan
January 9, 2014 at 12:38 pmWhy do you deem this film is lost forever?
Tars Tarkas
January 17, 2014 at 3:01 pmHi,
A lot of older Filipino cinema is now lost due to several reasons:
1- the heat and humidity of the Philippines is not and idea mix for storing 35mm or 16mm film long term (they need cool, dry places) Other films/negatives were undoubtedly lost due to fires.
2- Older film storage/preservation was seen as a waste of money/resources due to the limited return on older films in the pre-television and video eras
3- A lack of awareness of the important cultural snapshots that older films provided. The Philippines never developed a state of critical analysis or appreciation of their local cinema like other countries, which exacerbated the problem in point 2. By the time people began to take notice, too many films were lost. There wasn’t even an National Film Archive until 2011, IIRC.
4- When the Philippines tried to get serious about film in the 1980s, their big international film festival resulted in only a spy spoof starring Weng Weng getting international distribution.
5- It is unlikely Tokyo 1960 would be considered a classic film worth preserving, due to it’s pop cinema subject manner, and especially if it consists of largely reuse of footage of a Japanese film.
6- It is rumored that the only copies of many films on tape were destroyed during political uncertainty when televisions stations were taken over during the Marcos era.
While there is no evidence Tokyo 1960 was among any of those groups, odds are looking more towards favoring that this film is long gone. I would love to be proved wrong one day.