Welcome to Public Domain Theater, your home for the wonderful world of films that have (in the United States, at least) fallen into the public domain, and are free for everyone to see!

This month, we have for you an entry in the giant monster or “kaiju” genre, Yongary, Monster from the Deep! But this one doesn’t hail from the Land of the Rising Sun – no, this here was a South Korean production with a South Korean setting. But if you thought that would add something different to the proceedings … nah, this is about as blatant of a Godzilla clone as you can get.

The real reason to watch Yongary is for its camp value. The monster costume with the obvious pipe in its mouth for the fire-breathing effects – the tanks and helicopters that look like they came out of a kid’s playset – the cityscapes that make me want the Monty Python crew to turn up and say “It’s only a model” – and let’s not forget the legendary scene where the giant monster Yongary dances to a groovy 60’s beat! It may not be for the right reasons, but this flick provides plenty of stuff to have fun with.

To go with this film, we decided to stick with the prehistoric creature theme, and chose the Merrie Melodies cartoon “Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur”. It’s a standard hunter-and-prey cartoon common to the time period, just the hunter happens to be a caveman (doing a Jack Benny impression), and the hunting dog happens to be a dinosaur of ambiguous species. Still, it’s the Termite Terrace folks doing their usually excellent work, and a great example of Daffy Duck still rocking their early “manic screwball” personality.

So take a seat, folks, because we have for you some cinematic treats straight from the prehistoric past … and from the public domain!

Opening Cartoon:

Feature Presentation: