Godzilla, King of the Monsters!
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| Godzilla, King of the Monsters! | |
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| Directed by | Terry Morse Ishiro Honda |
| Produced by | Terry Turner Joseph E. Levine |
| Written by | Al C. Ward |
| Starring | Raymond Burr Kenji Sahara Momoko Kouchi Akira Takarada Takeshi Shimura |
| Cinematography | Guy Roe |
| Editing by | Terry Morse |
| Distributed by | Jewell Enterprises Godzilla Releasing Corp. |
| Release date(s) | April 27, 1956 May 29, 1957 (Japan) |
| Running time | 80 min. |
| Language | English Japanese |
| IMDb profile | |
Godzilla, King of the Monsters! is a 1956 American black-and-white science fiction film adapted from the 1954 Japanese film Godzilla, which had previously been shown subtitled in the United States in Japanese community theaters only, and was not known in Europe.
It was Edmund Goldman who found the original Godzilla in a California Chinatown theater. He bought the international rights for $25,000, then sold them to Jewell Enterprises Inc., a small production company owned by Richard Kay and Harry Rybnick which, with backing from Terry Turner and Joseph E. Levine, successfully adapted it for American audiences. The adaptation process consisted of filming numerous new scenes featuring Raymond Burr and others, and inserting them into an edited version of the Japanese original to create a new film. The new scenes, written by Al C. Ward and directed by Terry Morse, were photographed by Guy Roe with careful attention to matching the visual tone of the Japanese film, while Burr's on-screen character appeared to interact with the original Japanese cast through intricate cutting and the use of doubles for the Japanese principals, in matching dress, shot from behind in direct interaction with Burr's character. (This same technique was used 29 years later in the film Godzilla 1985, with Raymond Burr reprising his original role of reporter Steve Martin.)
A documentary style was imposed on the original dramatic material through Burr's dialogue and stentorian narration; he plays a reporter, replacing a comical reporter character in the Japanese original. More importantly, his presence as the lead character, along with trimming (though not outright deletion) of protracted dialogue regarding the arranged marriage between the Japanese heroine and a scientist (a concept unfamiliar to Westerners), scenes evincing an active affair between her and the young naval officer–hero (a concept unlikely to be accepted by many parents of the film's youthful target audience), and a raging debate in Japan's Diet over the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and continued nuclear testing (a concept not likely to be approved of by American veterans of the recent war), served to ease American audiences into comfortable relationships with characters, whose mere nationality might otherwise have made them pariahs. The theme of devastation of Japan by nuclear holocaust became sublimated in the editing, but was definitely not eliminated, giving the film a subversiveness on the nuclear question which would later be consciously recognized by the youngsters at whom the film was aimed, as they entered adulthood.
It is a mystery about who distributed the film to the U.S. The poster for the film indicates to be released by TransWorld. Other documents indicate that it was released by Embassy Pictures. Although the credits for the film uncovered by Classic Media indicate that it was released by Jewell Enterprises. The film was distributed in the western U.S. by Godzilla Releasing Corp. and in the eastern half by Joseph E. Levine's Embassy Pictures Corporation, then just a Boston-based states rights exchange. It was given "A-film" promotion, and opened at Loew's State Theatre on Broadway and 45th Street in New York City on April 27, 1956. New York Times film critic, Bosley Crowther gave the film a bad review the following day. He dismissed it with, "'Godzilla,' produced in a Japanese studio, is an incredibly awful film."
After complaining about the dubbing, the special effects ("a miniature of a dinosaur"), and an alleged similarity to King Kong, he concluded, "The whole thing is in the category of cheap cinematic horror-stuff, and it is too bad that a respectable theatre has to lure children and gullible grown-ups with such fare."
Nevertheless, the film was an immediate success with the public. It easily exported to Europe and South America, where the original was unknown, and even made its way full circle back to Japan, where it was exhibited with Japanese subtitles for the American dialogue. The door was thus opened in the Americas and Europe for the import of unexpurgated Japanese science-fiction and horror films, and other commercial film products, and was an advertisement for Toho Studios, which had retained producer credit. After its theatrical run, Godzilla, King of the Monsters! became a television staple for decades, even into the cable years, and opened the international market for dozens of Godzilla sequels. Originally, after the words "the end" went up were the credits while the song sung by the schoolchildren played, followed by Godzilla's footsteps. Although when the film is shown on television, the credits are taken out of the film.
The only other Godzilla film to be modified in this manner was The Return of Godzilla, released in America as Godzilla 1985, which injected Raymond Burr's character and took even wider liberties with the plot of its original Japanese version.
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[edit] Synopsis
The revised story begins at a hastily-established emergency hospital in an evidently devastated Tokyo, to which is brought American reporter Steve Martin (Burr), one of the wounded. In flashback, Martin tells of his stopover in Tokyo on a routine assignment to Cairo for United World News, where he finds himself confronted by the emergence of an inexplicable menace to navigation in the Sea of Japan. Something is causing ships to catch fire without warning and sink with no time for escape. When a dying seaman finally washes up on an inhabited island, Martin flies there for the story with a representative of the Japanese security forces (Frank Iwanaga, also part of the American cast) and learns of the island inhabitants' belief in a fiery dragon which lives beneath the sea, which they believe is causing the disasters—a claim which appears to have been borne out by the crewman before he died. Martin phones his editor at United World News, George Lawrence (Mikel Conrad, part of the American cast) and is given permission to stay and cover the story.
Martin's involvement in the unfolding events broadens when Dr. Yamane (Takashi Shimura, of the original film), a paleontologist is consulted and, returning to the island with his daughter (Momoko Kouchi) and her young naval-officer boyfriend Ogata (Akira Takarada) to investigate, sees the monster when it attacks the island village. Returning to Tokyo with clear evidence of the monster's existence, and power, Yamane becomes a leading consultant to Japan in mounting a defense, as it becomes apparent the monster is going to attack Tokyo.
The Japanese navy is unable to faze the monster with depth charges. In the dark of night, the monster attacks Tokyo, and proves invulnerable to conventional military weaponry no matter how concentrated. Martin is one of millions injured in the attack, and here the flashback ends: Godzilla has returned to the sea, but it is certain this is only for the moment.
Yamane's daughter reveals she may know a solution to the monster's apparent indestructibility. She loves the young naval officer, but had until recently been engaged to a young scientist Dr Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata), who was also Steve Martin's friend in college. She has lost interest in him because he has become almost a recluse, to her and others. After her breaking up with him, he revealed to her the reason for his reclusiveness—he has developed a formula capable of destroying all oxygen in water, in the process of which any animal coming in contact with the "oxygen destroyer" is stripped clean of all flesh and organs, reduced to a skeleton. His anguish over what to do with this discovery has become a constant preoccupation. She had agreed to keep her knowledge of this a secret. But with Godzilla loose, she realizes this may be the only thing capable of destroying the monster, and informs her boyfriend and father.
The scientist is only reluctantly persuaded to use his remaining sample of the oxygen destroyer to try to kill Godzilla, provided he accompanies the young officer, in diving suit, to the sea bottom to place and release the formula more or less at the monster's feet. After concluding this agreement, the scientist destroys all his notes and papers and formulae and, once on the bottom of the sea, sends the young officer back up to the boat, releases the destroyer, and cuts his own oxygen hose and lifeline, thus destroying the last source of knowledge of this horrid formula. The young officer joins Dr. Yamane, his daughter and Steve Martin on the ship to watch as the oxygen destroyer does its work, reducing Godzilla to a harmless skeleton. Afterwards, Martin's last words were, "The menace was gone, so was a great man. But the whole world could wake up and live again."
[edit] Box Office
The film was a considerable success in North America, grossing approximately $2 million USD.
[edit] DVD Releases
Simitar Entertainment
- Released: May 6, 1998
- Aspect Ratios: Widescreen (1.37:1) letterboxed, full frame (1.33:1)
- Sound: English (1.0), English (5.1)
- Supplements: Godzilla art gallery; Sci-fi monsters documentary; Trivia game; Godzilla trailers; Film facts; Liner notes (Raymond Burr biography); DVD-ROM (screensavers, printable art gallery, web access)
- All regions
Sony Wonder (Classic Media)
- Released: September 17, 2002
- Aspect Ratio: Full frame (1.33:1)
- Supplements: Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters video game trailer
- Region 1
Sony Wonder (Classic Media)
- Released: September 6, 2006 (Included with the Japanese Version Gojira)
- Aspect Ratio: Full frame (1.33:1)
- Supplements: Original trailer, Audio Commentary by Steve Ryfle & Ed Godziszewski and Special Guest Terry Morse Jr, also includes the Original English Ending Credits Sequence which was cut for Home Releases
- Region 1
Toho
- Released: Fall 2004 (included as an Extra in Godzilla Final Box DVD Set
- Aspect Ratio: Full frame (1.33:1)
- Supplements: Original Trailer
- Region 2
Mad Man Co Ltd
- Released: Summer 2005
- Aspect Ratio: Full frame (1.33:1)
- Region 4
[edit] Note
- ↑ This WikiProject Films infobox contains information regarding the Americanized U.S. release; for information on the Japanese original, see Godzilla (1954 film).
[edit] References
- Crowther, Bosley. (April 28, 1956) "Screen: Horror Import; 'Godzilla' a Japanese Film, Is at State" (film review) at The New York Times Online.
[edit] External links
- Godzilla, King of the Monsters at the Internet Movie Database
- "Godzilla vs. the Giant Scissors: Cutting the Antiwar Heart Out of a Classic" by Brent Staples, The New York Times, May 1, 2005.
- "Gojira vs. Godzilla: The Original Allegorical Meaning of Godzilla and the Damage in the Americanization Process" by Gary P., GojiStomp, 2004, retrieved December 14, 2005.
