Another Godzilla Versus After King Kong

Monsters Meet For Godzilla vs. The Thing (1964)

I'd need Godzilla lessons from a Toho expert to properly manage these notes, but here's the little I know: AIP distributed Godzilla vs. The Thing in the US ... they didn't use Mothra's name for some reason (legal?), so Zilla's opponent was called "The Thing." We briefly wondered in 1964 if Howard Hawks' arctic monster had been thawed again for Round Two. Maybe a most brilliant aspect of G vs. T was posters by Reynold Brown, imagery of the Thing being "censored." Peek-a-boo art made it look like octopi sprung off It Came From Beneath The Sea, but word-of-mouth, and monster mags, weren't long in tipping us that this was indeed Mothra come to rescue Japan from further Godzilla drubbing. There's almost resignation when news reports announce G has risen again, for what was this, his fourth visit to Nippon shores? Question arose too as to how Mothra would combat, let alone overcome, Godzilla. Lethal wing-flaps and dragging the lizard by his tail were but distractions --- this was no even match like one engaged a previous year between King Kong and Godzilla.

The tiny twins who sing are back from Mothra --- did AIP consider a soundtrack album? Hearing their plaintive tune called up memories of seeing G Vs. T at the Liberty, and months later when we talked a neighbor into carrying us out to the Starlight Drive-In for another go. Was it really necessary to see this twice? Godzilla was a charmingly clumsy monster, tripping through power lines and over buildings. If Tokyo had but cleared a wider boulevard, he might have passed peacefully through, brisk urban walks invariably going bad for him. Godzilla also moved slowly, and that may explain his weight issues. I don't recall a film where he actually ate anything, my assumption being that trains off trestle buffet were quite indigestible. Interesting factoid per Variety's 5/12/65 survey of Japanese features for US distribution during 1964: Almost half of $1,124,000 earned by Nippon films in the US market came from ethnic houses on the coast and in Hawaii, with "most of remaining coin brought in ... by Godzilla vs. The Thing."  The latter did OK for AIP --- $534K in domestic rentals from 9932 bookings, but wait --- Universal's King Kong vs. Godzilla had crossed a million in 1963. Was KK a more meaningful selling point than a censored-out-of-ads "Thing"?