On Wednesday, February 5, 2003, at 08:48 PM, Scott Andrew Hutchins
wrote:
> Yes, and the theme music comes off Yoshimitsu Banno's _Birth of the
> Japanese
> Islands_.  Banno is under contract to direct three films for Toho
> before he
> can be a freelance director, but he prefers writing and assistant
> directing,
> so he's done a lot of animation scripts, including the 1982 _The
> Wizard of
> Oz_, and they never required him to, just made it a stipulation for
> going
> elsewhere.
>
A funny story about Banno: he directed only one Godzilla film, the
bizarre, psychedelic Godzilla vs. Hedorah, better known in the USA as
Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster. The reason he was able to be so
experimental with the film (it includes animated sequences, a black and
white scene, the depiction of one character's LSD trip, etc.) was that
Godzilla series producer Tomoyuki Tanaka was in the hospital. When
Tanaka finally saw the finished film, he told Banno, "You've ruined the
Godzilla series!" and dictated that Banno never direct a Godzilla film
again.

Chris

----
For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives:
http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html