GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS

1956

New material directed by Terry O. Morse

A.K.A. The Birth of a Suffix

Plot Once upon a time, before the days of bad dubbing, movie studios weren't sure how to deal with importing "b" pictures. What happened with Gojira was that the American side of the deal decided to film new footage with English dialogue. This met with some mixed, albeit creative results. We begin in the makeshift radiation ward from the beginning of the third act of the original. There we meet Steve Martin (Raymond Burr), an American reporter, and also yet another victim of the aftermath of the fearsome creature we all know and love. he begins to tell us his story, in flashback... What commences is basically the same story as in the original, with noticable differences. Steve is written in as a good friend of Serizawa and Dr. Yamane. This allows him to be party to many interesting situations, such as the scientific expedition to Odo Island, wherethe monster is known as "Godzilla" instead of "Gojira", (and due to my inferior western, white boy mind, will be referred to as Godzilla in all subsequent film reviews,) as well as the ship at the end where Serizawa and Ogata descend to unleash the oxygen destroyer. The worst moment of Steve's intervention occurs when he's superimposed between Emiko and Ogata when Emiko reluctantly reveals Serizawa's weapon. This edit removes all the romantic and tragic tension between our two lovers. Luckily, Steve's presence isn't usually that intrusive. Usually, he'll be standing in the background, or to the side, and facilitates the plot by asking his guide to translate what's being said to him, as his Japanese is "a bit rusty". Convenient that, considering how little dubbing was bothered with in the importation of the film. Another interesting, yet awkward change is the scene in which Dr. Yamane describes his theory about Godzilla's appearance. The producers actually managed to remake this scene with actor Takashi Shimura imported specifically to do it. Unfortunately, English is far from Shimura's strong point, and he awkwardly stumbles through the whole speech, most notably on the word "phenomena", which he uses several times. It would be funny if it wasn't so darn embarassing for the guy, considering he was probably one of the most talented Japanese actors ever, if not worldwide. (Don't believe me? Go see "Ikiru" by Akira Kurosawa...or a lot of other Kurosawa pictures. He's in a lot of them.) It's enough to make you glad that Steve's up in Tokyo Tower with the other idiot journalists when the Big G attacks. Especially after the ending, which changes the message from a warning of things to come into a cheerful "might makes right" patriotic statement. But not all the changes made are nonsensical to me. For example, cutting out all of the Science versus Saftey arguments makes sense from a 50's America point of view, as at the time, to America, science WAS saftey. Plus, there's no good way to include Steve into the Yamane household arguments, so I suppose it makes no sense to include in Steve's flashback. Also, I'm rather satisfyed that the island sequences are trimmed down, as they do bring the original movie to a grinding halt. And that's even without the ceremonial dance sequence lifted conspicuously from King Kong.

Rating I give Godzilla, King of the Monsters: Three and One Half Rotting Shambling Corpses out of Five. It's decent, but compared to the original, it pales dramatically. And while I have the topic at your attention, what exactly is the U.S. media inferring when they attatch the suffix "zilla" to anything that grows gigantic? That God is a bipedal lizard with spikes growing down it's back that stands somewhere between 2 and 6 foot tall?

Go Back or Go Home