Starring Raymond Burr and his pipe!
For my review of the original Gojira this was edited from and more pics of the big lizard, go here.
While Gojira was a serious film about the horrors of nuclear tests, Godzilla, King of the Monsters turned it into a mere monster movie of the type so common during the 1950s. From the comprehensive booklet included in the 50th anniversary DVD release, we are told how the American version came to be. Harold Ross and Richard Kay brought the film to America on the cheap to take advantage of the explosion in B-movies. Described a “Hollywood bottom-feeders,” they had one problem with the movie – all the Japanese in it. At the time, hatred of the Japanese was still strong ten years after World War II and a movie starring “Japs” couldn’t make money.
The solution was to shoot new material starring an American actor and splice it in. About 20 minutes of the 80 minute movie would consist of the new scenes and insertions, heavily diluting the original story. But that didn’t matter because audiences would be going to see the “King of Monsters” not the story. The result raked in $2 million and turned a tidy profit while making fans of Gozilla like Gomer Pyle.
Now on to the review!
The Americanized version starts with the sound of explosive footfalls and the new title appears over the sea. In a jarring shift, the first scene of the movie is the devasted ruins of Tokyo in miniature. A voice over narration by Raymond Burr begins as he makes his first appearance pinned under rubble. After failing to free himself, he passes out. Not an auspicious debut for the hero of the movie.
Next we see a scene of a boy in a hospital triage being scanned with Geiger counter. The loud and fast ticks lead to the doctor sadly shaking his head for the boy isn’t going to make it. Spliced in riding a stretcher is Raymond Burr and the young woman assisting the doctor shouts out “Steve!” She comes over to Steve Martin (please, no rabbit ear or arrow through the head jokes) and we get some expository dialogue between Martin and body double Emiko. The actress doing the doubling also subbing for the original actress in one badly dubbed splice.
Now it is time for a flashback, just to confuse us with the editing even more. Steve Martin is shown as a passenger on a plane and it is explained that he is a reporter stopping over in Tokyo en route to Cairo, Egypt. While he is smoking a cigarette behind his pipes back on the Boeing Stratoliner, the movie segues to the first ship attack from Gojira. Nice way to shoehorn the character into the action.
Once in Japan, the narration lets us know that Martin is there to visit a friend of his, Dr. Serizawa. A phone call reveals he is out in the field (standing there, perhaps?) and the reporter is taken by an authority to be questioned. They want to know if he saw anything from the airliner and of course he didn’t, but a call comes in. For some reason they forget to question his pipe.
A fast trip to the steamer company office that must be next door to the airport leads to a scene where the government official translates what is going on to Martin. Burr looks concerned while his pipe seems indifferent. Relaying what he’s just learned, our intrepid reporter contacts his boss at United World News in a scene that adds nothing to the story.
The American accents of the Asian actors in the spliced in scenes can be a little jarring, I found. This is because much of the dialog is in the original Japanese with no subtitling or dubbing involved. Instead, the official translates some and Burr narrates the crucial plot points. Weirdly it comes off like the narration of an old wildlife documentary.
Things move quickly with Martin and the official flying to the fishing village to interview locals about the survivor of the destroyed ships. Sadly the reporter’s pipe frightens one villager so much he is unwilling to give much information. The exorcism ritual dance gives us a dubbed version of the village elder with Godzilla replacing Gojira. Later that night, Steve and Tomo, the official, are camping in a tent when the storm and destruction come. They rush out to witness the sequence of the teen boy running out of his home to witness its destruction and hear the rusty roar of Godzilla.
From there the movie progresses much like the original. Some people think the big “G” is the main character of the movie but I don’t. More on that later.
There are quite a few differences between Gojira and Godzilla that stick out. The lighting of the spliced in footage doesn’t match the lighting of the original well. As a kid watching very worn out broadcasts of Godzilla, I never noticed this as it was all blurry compounded by bad reception. Professor Yamane’s dubs are poor and the dialogue changed. Where the original had the big “G” a creature of the ocean depths mutated by H-bomb testing, this version has him resurrected from the dead by the testing!
Then there is the love triangle which is changed from the one in Gojira. There it was clear that Emiko and Ogata were a couple from very early in the film, with Serizawa oblivious to this and not really caring much as he was already married to his research. For the American version, Ogata isn’t introduced until the ship voyage to Odo Island and Emiko falls in love with him there via clumsy narration. Now Emiko appears fickle and tries to suddenly break her engagement.
Finally, Steve Martin the character is upstaged by the performance his pipe. It is a competition to see who is more wooden and I think Burr wins by a hair. It was clear Burr was phoning in his performance and during the final attack on Tokyo I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convey fear of Godzilla or of being paid full wages for the part. It could be insecurity because the pipe had wisely run off during the attack. In my opinion, the pipe is the real star of the movie.
Best quote of the film is delivered by Raymond Burr as Martin describes the monster to his boss: “It’s big and terrible.” Now that is some quality script writing there!
Godzilla, King of the Monsters is recommended to Godzilla, B-movie, and pipe smoker fans of all ages. But if you want to see a good movie get the original Gojira.
The DVD
Quality of the DVD is the same as Gojira with only the American theatrical trailer on the disc.
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