Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) Review

While Gojira was a serious film about the horrors of nuclear tests, Godzilla, King of the Monsters turned the Japanese original into a mere monster movie of the type so common during the 1950s. It isn’t without its charms, however. The spectacle of the title monster trashing Tokyo is complete and the human suffering that causes is still there to elevate this slightly beyond a normal B-movie. UPDATED August 2012 with better screencaps and expanded snark, err… text.

From the comprehensive booklet included in the 50th anniversary DVD release, we find 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 as “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 Godzilla such as Gomer Pyle.

Now on to the review starring Raymond Burr and his pipe!

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 devastated ruins of Tokyo in miniature.  A voice over narration by Raymond Burr begins while 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 made by the radiation detector lead to the doctor sadly shaking his head. A cleverly spliced in shot of Raymond Burr being carried on a stretcher brings out a dubbed shout from the young woman assisting the doctor. She rushes over to Burr’s character, Steve Martin (please, no rabbit ear or arrow through the head jokes), and we get some expository dialogue between Martin and a body double for Emiko Yamane (Momoko Kochi).  This is not so cleverly done and sticks out like a sore thumb. The actress doing the doubling also appears to be the one subbing for the original actress. 

Now it is time for a flashback, just to confuse us with further editing. 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 pipe’s back on the Boeing Stratoliner, the movie segues to the first ship attack from Gojira. Apparently this is going on under the flight, despite the plane being shown in daylight and the ship at night. Man those time zones change fast, don’t they?

Once in Japan, the narration lets us know that Martin is there to visit a friend of his, Dr. Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata).  A phone call reveals that 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 (uncredited), though it looks shifty to me.

A fast trip to the steamer company office, which must be next door to the airport, leads to a scene where a helpful government official (Frank Iwanaga) 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 a little and Burr narrates the crucial plot points. This adds a pseudo documentary feel to the movie and probably was a plus with American audiences of the time, who were a touch xenophobic.

Things move quickly with Martin and the official flying via helicopter to the fishing village in order to interview locals about the survivor of the destroyed ships.  I never knew helicopters had wallpaper in the cabins. Sadly the reporter’s pipe frightens one villager so much he is unwilling to give much information.

An exorcism ritual dance gives us a dubbed version of the village elder along with the name 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 do not. More on that later.

Martin joins the second expedition to Odo Island after a brief talk with Professor Yamane ( Takashi Shimura), or more accurately, his body double. There he whips out his pipe as soon as he can, for they obviously missed each other. Also making time together are a sailor named Ogata (Akira Takarada) and Yamane’s daughter. Martin does not appear to approve, since she is supposed to be engaged to his friend, Doctor Serizawa.

At the island, damage is surveyed and the title monster finally makes his full debut. Here the mixing in of the new footage works better and it will take a sharp eye to notice the hats worn by the villagers are entirely different types. This is one of the most convincing scenes involving Martin being present.

Alas, the next attempt to work him into the story is badly executed when he calls Doctor Serizawa’s body double. I doubt audiences of the time noticed just how bad it was, after all production values for a lot of science fiction movies were poor  Personally, I believe the absence of Martin’s pipe was part of the problem.

It does serve to introduce the mysterious invention of the betrayed doctor, though we do not get to see exactly why it frightens Emiko so much. Thoughts of telling Serizawa about her other boyfriend go out the window after that. A promise is extracted that will become a major plot point later.

Soon the first attack on Tokyo occurs with the famous train scene and inability by the lightly armed military to harm the monster. Here the man in a rubber suit effects really work well. Director Ishiro Honda was wise to have most of Godzilla’s appearances happen at night. The darker lighting simultaneously made the suit menacing and hid a lot of its shortcomings. Other than the monsters in Them! and Forbidden Planet, I cannot remember another truly intimidating creature in movies of that era.

Now aware of how incredibly destructive the prehistoric monster is, the Japanese authorities prepare for the next attack while Martin and his pipe watch. Because all of this is an extended flashback, the audience knows what will happen. But how it unfolds is what makes Godzilla, King of the Monsters one of the most famous movies of all time.

Thoughts

There are quite a few differences between Gojira and Godzilla that stick out besides the reordering of scenes.  The lighting of the spliced in footage directed by Terry O. Morse doesn’t match the lighting of the original well.  As a teen watching very worn out print of Godzilla, I never noticed this since it was all blurry compounded by the low resolution of older television sets. 

Professor Yamane’s dubs are poor and the dialogue changed in many places. 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! That is a far cry from the skin being textured to reflect the suffering Godzilla experienced from the blast.

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 since 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 by trying to suddenly break her engagement.

Character development and subtle touches were lost in the cut with a resulting loss of emotional resonance that filled Honda’s production. To me, that was the greatest loss between the versions. Gone are things like the survivor of the Nagasaki atomic bomb fretting about the danger of Godzilla. Little things like that add up in a movie and often we do not notice them.

Finally, Raymond Burr is upstaged by his pipe.  It was a competition to see who is more wooden and I think the actor wins by a hair over the prop. Burr was clearly phoning in his performance. During the final attack on Tokyo, I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convey fear of Godzilla or if doubts about being paid full wages for the part were showing. It could be insecurity due to the pipe running 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 by Al C. Ward!

The movie is a little dark and intense for smaller kids, so parental guidance is advised. There is no gore, but some black and white blood.

Godzilla, King of the Monsters is recommended to Godzilla, B-movie, and pipe smoking fans of all ages.  But if you want to see a really good movie watch the original Gojira.

Technical

Quality of the MediaClassics DVD is the same as its twin Gojira with the only extra being the American theatrical trailer on the disc. The picture is at another odd ratio that is not quite 1.33:1, but in a different axis than Gojira’s. The print is not as clean and I offer the following screenshot from the credits as an extreme example:

BEWARE! HERE BE SPOILERS!!!

 

 

 

 

Changing the command post to being the media pool was a smart decision by the American film makers. This allowed some well done editing that contributed to people believing Raymond Burr had actually gone to Japan to film scenes during the original production. It also gave Martin a good vantage point to watch the second attack on Tokyo.

One thing I appreciated was that they kept Futabe’s excellent score to the movie. A good soundtrack can make or break a movie and his unorthodox compositions amped up the tension considerably.

Having Martin recording what may be his last words was a nice dramatic tool and was a call back to war time reporting that a lot of the audience would have found familiar.

Keeping the rampage almost completely intact was the whole reason to make an Americanized version. This was what would sell the tickets, after all. It was a big popcorn seller in the States and none of the sequels would come close to faring as well with the public.

I wonder if Raymond Burr had simply decided all this was entirely too silly by the point he shot these scenes. The man was a good actor, so it was not a lack of talent that was the problem.

For some odd reason, there was one F-86D with a radome mixed in with the F-86F Sabrejets. The sequel movie had the same thing happen, so I wonder if it was an inside joke with the special effects crew.

The body double shots were short enough to not take one out of the picture. But this scene was really bad due to lots of exposition and impossible to match up camera angles.

As murky as the underwater shots were, it was nice to see they kept the ending relatively intact. Sneaking up on a sleeping giant is the traditional way to off giants, after all.

A contrast in acting. Here are Doctor Serizawa’s two closest friends reacting to his killing himself. Japanese acting wins this contest by a country mile.