This Frankenstein grows out the Hiroshima bombings. It involves a boy who ingests radioactive material and who begins to grow dramatically. He is a sad figure who is left to fend for himself, and, of course, bothers the locals. Nick Adams (Johnny Yuma, the Rebel) is the only American actor and finds his talents wasted. I have a feeling he was a decent actor who had to grab on to junk like this so he could keep eating. I believe he eventually took his own life. He isn't asked to do much and doesn't. It's not an awful movie, but it isn't really very memorable.

Ishiro Honda directed this incredibly bizarre and perfectly awful film that starts off in WWII, where Dr. Frankenstein(!) has been working with the Japanese, and created a living heart, but it is later taken to Hiroshima where it is irradiated by the H-bomb being dropped. Years later, that heart has somehow grown into a full-sized boy, who then mutates even more into a giant man, who attacks the city, then battles a giant lizard named Baragon, also recently awakened. Preposterous story and poor F/X make this a tacky and laughable effort, that only gets worse as it goes along. No relation to Mary Shelley or Boris Karloff at least!

Well, he may not exactly conquer the world in this picture, but at least he gets off his usual home turf! In the very imaginative opening of "Frankenstein Conquers the World" (1965), you see, the living heart of the Frankenstein monster is taken from Germany at the end of World War II and transported by submarine to Japan, where it is promptly exposed to A-bomb radiation at Hiroshima and eventually grows, to become a giant, gap-toothed male waif. This lumbering doofus (who ultimately reveals himself to be the nimblest, most energetic Frankenstein ever shown on film) soon has a dukeout royale with Baragon, a sort of giant, spiny-backed, (heat?) ray-spewing, burrowing armadillo dinosaur, with no holds barred and no quarter given. Anyway, this picture strikes me as being several cuts above the usual kaiju eiga. It has been fairly handsomely produced, features very adequate FX (despite the Maltin book's claim to the contrary; well, that bucking horse excepted), and makes excellent use of its CinemaScope frame. Director Ishiro Honda, composer Akira Ifukube and the great actor Takashi Shimura, who all contributed so much to the original "Gojira" film in 1954, here bring their talents together again, with highly entertaining results, and American actor Nick Adams does his best playing Dr. James Bowen, a scientist working at the Hiroshima International Institute of Radiotherapentics (sic). The picture offers several striking visuals, none perhaps as impressive as the awesome spectacle of Franky and Baragon going at it with a flaming forest as a backdrop. The pristine-looking DVD from Media Blasters that I just watched offers both the "international" and the "theatrical" versions of the film, which differ only in the final five minutes. I much prefer the "international," if only because we get to see Franky (ridiculously) battle yet another monster in it. Either version, however, should provide an evening's worth of good mindless fun.

I recently purchased the film and haven't seen it in years. It was entertaining if not a bit ridiculous in parts but that's what makes these type of films fun! The premise goes like this: the heart of the Frankenstein monster is kept alive in a protein solution(it is later revealed that the heart can never die). When the Nazis steal it, it is brought to Hiroshima immediately before the atomic bombing of that city. 15 years later, a wild boy is discovered and it is the Frankenstein monster. The heart was radiated from the atomic blast and the heart grew into human form. The boy is studied by American Doctor Nick Adams and Japanese Doctor Kumi Mizuno(the two paired up together in Godzilla vs. Monster Zero). The boy escapes while continuing to grow until he reaches typical monster height. Baragon arrives and the two battle it out to the end. The dubbing is quite good for an import film and the DVD audio/video is sharp. The Frankenstein make-up does look a bit silly but that adds to the charm of the movie. Acting and direction is what you would expect from Toho Studios(actually it is pretty decent here). If you are a fan of Toho Studios monster films, you will enjoy this.